Bay 12 Games Forum

The poll that is stickied has been dumped and locked.  There's a new one floating around.

Anyway, I would think that the solution to both problems is really the same.

Currently it appears that there is a big list of jobs, ordered by nothing in particular.  Every so often (we'll call this job cycle) the jobs will reach out and assign themselves to idle dwarves.  The order they do this in is unknown.  Otherwise unoccupied dwarves will pick an idle task (drooling, I guess).

Anyway, there is no valuation cycle for prioritizing tasks.  Adding a value for the task itself and a value for what the dwarf wants to do (both what you set and the dwarf's personality) would solve this, but be a major headache for finding tasks.  (Since you'd have to sort rather than the top of the pile method)

If you didn't want to do all that, the lever issue could be changed in the (j) menu by simply listing the jobs by priority (its queued, so a FIFO list works just fine) and then allowing people to move them up in the list(or cancel them, for hauling tasks, etc).

I lean towards total skill points.  That is, two legendary dwarves are enough, or 1 legendary and 10 skilled, or whatever.  I also like the possibility of unintentional and unwanted guilds, although I think that the player should have influence over them forming.


Back on topic:

Did anyone ever play Sid Meier's Colonization?  In it, most of the people your colonies attracted were unskilled laborers and indentured servants.  However, you had the option of paying a large sum of money to essentially 'hire' skilled people like schoolteachers and blacksmiths.<P>It is really, really annoying when your fortress only has a few highly-skilled dwarves in some essential skill, and they die.  So...  why not have a noble who lets you make requests for highly-skilled dwarves, by paying some massive signing bonus or providing some specific items they request?  This could actually be done through the trade guild dwarves...  I don't think it should be easy or available early on, but it would help reduce frustration a lot in the late game.<P>It could work a bit like this:  Once you have a dwarf from a noble representative from a particular trade guild, he provides a screen where you can see a list of 'available' highly-skilled dwarves in the skills that that guild covers.  Each of those dwarves would have a set of demands they want satisfied before they'll come to your fortress...  for example, one might want X green glass items, a gold crown, and X amount of cash.  Think of them a bit like nobles, but you have to satisfy their demands just to get them to come; you offer them the necessary objects on the guild-noble screen, and they claim them when they arrive.  (If something has happened to the objects between when you make the offer and when they arrive, of course, they're going to go ballistic.)<P>What do you think?  It would give the player another set of demands, but optional ones, with a reward of a skilled dwarf if they satisfy them.  It would also provide the player with a way to recover quickly if a skilled dwarf dies.<p>[ September 24, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ]

So far, here's what's come up:

The major 'problem' is that dwarves don't always do things in the order we want them to.  While this is usually possible to micromanage, it takes away some of the fun of playing large fortresses. These fall into two catagories.  Dwarf priorities and Task priorities.

---

Issues:

---

    Dwarf priorities
        Skilled Dwarves will perform low skill tasks(hauling) rather than their assigned tasks.  When these tasks are removed, they grow bored or are idle. (As there aren't enough skilled tasks to keep them occupied)
        Fish, meat, skins, fat all spoil.  There is no way to make sure that these jobs get accomplished in a timely manner if the dwarf(s) with these jobs are also performing other labours.
        Rare and unusual jobs (like architecture) don't get enough use to keep them busy.  It's usually going to be a side job.  There's no way to keep these dwarfs occupied without massive micromanagement.
        Eating.  Military dwarves will decide if they are hungry or not when put on duty.  If they are, they'll eat before heading out.  That's backwards.  On-Call dwarves should eat when nothing else is up, but be willing to go hungry when the emergency fires are lit.

---

    Task priorities
        Certain order important tasks are done in the wrong order (usually mechanics).  Sometimes you want to build the windmills and mechanisms before you build the axels.  Also useful for build from the inside out type tasks. (No walling yourself in)
        No way to specify 'deep' exploratory mining versus the rooms you need now.
        Pull that lever NOW.  Sometimes there are fort emergencies.  At the extreme level, this includes the desire to have a civilian run across 1/7 magma while be chased by a werewolf  in order to pull the fortress lockdown before he's gibbed.  At a more sane level, just being able to say 'grab the closest dwarf and assign them this job' would solve a lot of heartache.
        Naturally low priority tasks may stagnate
        Cooking.  There's food ready to be cooked, but the cook is resting, partying, hauling rocks, or hunting for vermin.
        Miners will occationally grab jobs across the map from them rather than two squares from them.  Conversly, a miner will decide to work right next to the other miners, claiming an important square for the duration of his trip across the map.

---

There are a number of suggested fixes discussed below.
        List all open jobs in the jobs screen in order of priority, and allow users to find and change individual jobs
        Skilled versus unskilled.  Dwarves do skilled tasks first, then unskilled.
        Allow user to set priorities, either by number, or high/mid/low for a dwarf
        Allow user to set priorities, either by number, or high/mid/low for a specific job
        Allow user to set priorities, either by number, or high/mid/low for a job types.
                    Profiles could be saved by Dwarf Job Profile
        'Do Now' Toggle (on job screen) that grabs the nearest available (reassignable) dwarf and makes them do it.
        Refactor code to make the behaviors 'correct' without giving player controls (I.E. hardcode solutions to the big problems)
        Allow dwarves to 'steal' jobs from others when they are literally right there.  (Mining right next to it).  This is especially useful if one is traveling, and the other is using the high priority 'grab contiguous square' command.
        Economic Simulation:  Dwarves are already encouraged to do some jobs over others by the differing pay rates.  Allow dwarves to be responsive to this

---

This has been discussed as far back as 2006, but seems to require a major rewrite for the way tasks are assigned to dwarves.  That means a lot of work with 'only' the benefits listed above.

---

At least partially justified by: New Round of Top  Suggestions Polls.

They're abundant back at the Mountainhomes, so they would be reasonably cheap to buy.

Comrade, are you suggesting the capitalist falacy that increased supply might reduce price?

Hmmm, what's the difference between a training dummy and a weapon trap?  Why not the ability to set weapon traps to target dwarves (A la the current preasure plate system), and then make them attackable.  Would solve people's desire to have goblins destroy traps and also make trainers possible, with the same object.  If you're especially clever, you could build the grinders by making them attack inannimate objects as they fall through...  (Imagine the vg style conveyor belt with giant hammer weapon traps smashing rocks into dust...)

I was thinking of this this morning.

I'm thinking Compost pile, 'seeded' with one unit of lye per 3 squares.  Stuff decomposes into 'compost'.  7 units of compost could be used to fill in a dirt square (so you'd dig a hole and then fill it with dirt).  OR compost could be used as a fertilizer.

Inquisitor gets his dirt, farmers get fertilizer, and I get rid of my old xxsilk socksxx

Would fit DF if you only ever got X nobles/GMs out of the list.  So when the Leatherworkers guild forms, it reduces the chance of you seeing the metalcrafters guild.

Plus, it would be nice to have a lot of possible guilds without worrying about having to keep 50 guild masters happy in one fort.

This idea seems a better fit for the stated intent of this thread than the other one (apologies if this is too off-topic): 

When the economy starts, have the guilds be the ones who are in charge of a shop appropriate to their trade (gem shops, clothing shops, etc.).  Non-economic guilds wouldn't have shops (mining, etc.).  If a guild isn't present in a given fortress, initial shop ownership would default back to the broker. 

Revenue generated from those shops would filter back into the guild coffers.  Any profits from the shop might be distributed amongst guild-members as a way of ensuring that during periods of low activity, they're not evicted from their living quarters.

Making the GMs run the shops could be an interesting way to keep them from working while still keeping them busy..