Bay 12 Games Forum

I like the Bin idea, very good.

Room defined workshop.. good but meh, i like that fact that i place it and can forget about it later. But its true that its problemeatic taht some workshop pieces are solid walls.

Could be nice too if we could have the option "take from that pile" (that one that stockpiles have) on workshops. Make that.. all buildings (siege and all that), im tired of seeing my dwarves run off litteraly at the other side of the lowest level of my fortres to get 1 stone.. when there are many good ones right next to him. That way we could control what ressource is being used with the stockpile options and also control their inneficient behavior.

The elves never asked me to limit my woodcutting in my games.. (and i was razing a forest right in their face.. got ~650 logs)  what triggers it?

As for siege.. i agree that elves should bring animals "buddies" to fight by their side.
Early its just some cannon fodder, later its giant eagles harassing your surface operations.
They could get the help of special monsters like mudman and stuff like that.

My view on elves: I like my ennemies smart!

Elves are master of the natural word eh? They are physically and technologically weak.. a direct attack is foolish against a fortified, trapped, heavily defended fortress. So they got to use their arts to their advantage. I see them as experts for indirect battle; attack the supplies, attack their morale. Use poison, use diseases liberally. Some call them cowards, i call them smart.

Elves could use vermin as carriers for nasty stuff to attack your fortress from within..
-A vermin that carry a mushroom spore that "freeze" crops tiles "infected" by it for a season, reducing your food production. Try to infest fields being used.
-A vermin (worm of some kind) that search and eats logs and wooden furniture/wooden stuff in general. Can have interesting effects when you think about it..
-A vermin that eats cloth, thread, and clothing, even when worn. Might be popular to get rid of goblin stuff.
-Another one that can infiltrate your secured food supplies and make them rot inside the barrels.. alcool included. Ruining both food/drink and the barrel itself.. maybe make content poisonous to the poor dwarves that eat it, doesnt kill, but decrease happiness for a while.
-Some other that simply carry poison/disease and try to transmit it to a single dwarf before dying
-Some vermin that is poisonous to cats (basically a kamikaze vermin)... but that one might be a little too popular with the whole wide world.
-annoying birds that try to eat seeds inside your fortress, might go on crop tile to steal the growing seed.

.. so if you dont have enough cats/anti-vermin set up you gonna regret it. But its easy to do and limit the damage.

Also..
- Fire snake infiltration in the wine cellar.
- water source made dangerous by carps or made contaminated by poison/disease, so you gotta wait for it to go away or purge your water supply.
-They could "for the greater good", infect the nearby land that slows down the rate at wich trees/plants grows. Or increase it to ridiculous levels so trees are always in the way. Or even invasive and some useless plants start growing inside the fortress. (basically inserting themselves into the cracks of the floor/walls destroying engravings= unhappy dwarf)
-If we push it, they could "call" storms to create a surge of the river, or "call" for a heat wave to come and dry up all shallow water ponds and dry up plants and stuff.
-(that would be extremaly dangerous) have some elven saboteurs try to disable traps/floodgate that they find. They can swim.

-edits; adding some stuff-

DF is already punishing us enough for mistakes that we do. Dont need a layer of uncertainty on top of it "will that wall stand? Will that bridge work? Will that door stay closed? Will that cage hold? Will that floodgate hold the lava..?
 ..Never know.. OOPs!! it didnt!, oh well, there goes 20+ hours of game due to a random faillure. Fun! I feel rewarded for my efforts!

Its basicaly stripping the "fun" out of the game... and why would i bother with inferior/ruined/ect stuff? it would only clutter my inventory screen (goblin stuff is more than enough). I would destroy them on-the-spot and start again.. basically just wasting my time for something that doesnt do anything positive. Its working prefectly now; low skill = takes ages to do the job.. but the job gets done in the end.

Speaking of staying on topic...

I'd like to see nobles stop demanding things you don't have the materials for (unless they are truly mad or extremely unhappy), but I'd like to see some new types of demands and requests to keep them interesting.

If something a high ranking noble likes shows up for trade at the depot, he should be able to demand that you buy it for him. Think of it like going to Wal-mart with a pack of spoiled eight year-olds.

Moreover, importing things should count towards production mandates. So long as he get's his large blue diamond, the mayor shouldn't care where it comes form.

If nobles are going to demand stuff we have to import materials for, we should at least be given a large advance warning, so we don't have to import two dozen types of exotic materials, just in case the Baroness' consort decides that he absolutely has to have a schist table in his dining room.

With even just a few of these changes, I'd be happy to see noble losses get more "fun".

If only moody dwarves and nobles would also have the brainpower to ask for stuff we can provide..

eh..  in one of my games the count consort mandated that a build an adamatium item... with no adamantine or anything related to it availlable. There was none! And of course the hammerer is only too happy to deliver punishment..

The only noble i like having around is the Dungeon master since hes doing some usefull work and taming, and dont usually ask for much.

All the others are parasites.. they dont bring anything positive.. they are only trouble, whine all the time and consume precious ressources, and when we cant get it for them sometimes one of our hard worker dies or is useless.

If nobles actually did anything good they could do this:
- Decreasing the buying prices of stuff and increasing our income with their influence. They do change the prices of goods but that menu is so confusing i never know what changed by what amount..
- Caravans are always bigger when the nobles are around, better migrants shows up with more usefull skills and/or upgraded attributes.
- Caravans could get an upgraded list of things you could get when nobles are around; the big guys have friends and contacts and you can use them to import stuff you normally could not. Maybe a Duke can allow access to almost everything.
- Maybe with their influence, you get less thieves/snatchers/ambushes due to increased "background" security. But at the same time you become an even more visible target so super beasts shows up more and sieges are larger.
- Philosophers could make dwarves happier? Or maybe the philosopher is an educator and increase the skills the kids have (some sort of school)? Right now i use them as lever activators since they dont do anything else.
- The tax guy... if tax money allowed us to buy special stuff from caravans, allow us to acces new special buildings, influence the "global" market (with blocus, embargo, monopoly whatever), or bribing some other faction to influence their military/economy/society/diplomacy in good or bad ways.. that would be usefull. Tax is used by the '"state" for the needs of the nation.. so i wanna see it happen.

- Once again, new one;

How do i order my dungeon master to "tame" a big bad beast? (a titan here)... and do i have protect him?

some more..

-Is it possible that some maps dont have gems? im playing near a magma pipe.. and my moody dwarves are dropping like flies since i didnt find any gem so far (doing some massive search just for that)... and they almost always want them uncut.. its frustrating for them to want impossible things..

- Again range question.. siege weapons. What is the range they start firing at ennemies? (im building heavy weapon bunkers around my fortress..)

Thanks for the answers. Much clearer now.

(On irrigation) I tried to put water on surface stone to irrigate to make human crops, there is very little soil on the map (and very, very little trees and stilll no iron)

Back to my little report; the goblins were not quiet.. actually, thye just took their time, i was sieged by a small group. My fort wasnt ready yet, so i took all my soldiers and ran over them (easy victory). Then i sent my people to loot the bodies outside.
But then i was surprised, no sooner the goblins ran away.. a dragon shows up! ARG!! My first megabeast! Right next to my looters!
Recall all civilians in, no time to raise the bridge.. some civilians ran away the wrong way! I take all soldiers to meet the dragon and kill it.
But at the time, i forgot that most of my mens were weaponless.
So it was a epic, fiery brawl with a dragon right on my doorstep.. I won, losing 5 soldiers and a baby (a soldier carried one), they all ended up as bones and smoke.
Lost a dwarf to a mood, didnt find his "bars", he kept throwing himself in a channel only to climb back up and fall again.. countless times.
Later i took out another siege(sppear and bow goblins), with a cage full of wardogs and basic barricade.. lost all dogs, but no dwarf casualty!
Then the nobles showed up.. this time they didnt ask for much.. but i became a county in no time at all.
Then i lost one of my 7 start dwarf to his "possesed mood"; i could not find whatever he needed in time (i tried so HARD! He was legendary and my only good forge worker!), at least he just decided to be melancolic.