Bay 12 Games Forum

I am so musically current that I just discovered this band called Primus (formed in the 80's) just a few weeks ago.  I bought the "Tales from the Punchbowl" album and while I was going through my first listen, I listened to this song called "Southbound Pachyderm".  I haven't played dwarf fortress in quite some time, but this song instantly made me think of Dwarf Fortress and the tale of Boatmurdered (sad, i know).  The funny thing is, it wasn't even the obvious lyrics or title, the music sounds strangely similar to the dwarf fortress "theme".  Needless to say I just played DF again a couple days ago and was attacked by elephants

Here is a googled youtube link to the music video (which I haven't seen yet) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xb898sQtu8 , now the band's music is strange enough and probably for very select audiences.  I would imagine the videos 10x moreso.

First post, I guarentee it

Unfortunately the old records describing what was going to be developed and when, but yeah, this has been suggested and is well on its way to being implemented.  Under the old system of tracking all the development goals it was named the "Army Arc" which will include your suggestion and more EDIT: much, much, much more. 

Actually, I could see them paying even more for raw materials than finished goods, because they'd be eager to dust off their old skills, and recapture the simple pleasures of smelting ores, working with metals, and cutting gems.  Such things are the heart of what it means to be Dwarf, and they would have a shortage of those materials.  I guess I imagine them as being sorta fat and wealthy, doing such things as luxury recreation rather than out of need.

This right here I believe is taking the Tolkienesque dwarf stereotype a bit too far.  A mature fortress would have little demand for manufactured goods but a large demand for raw material, which you hit on.  But ultimately the mature fortress is looking to make a profit, buying cheap raw materials and selling overpriced manufactured goods on a monopolized market.

While I don't think the fort should be overly-dependant on any Mountain Home/Fort relationship that may be included in the future, you can also look at the Mountain Home as a tool for newbies, reducing the learing curve dramatically. 

Here is a related suggestion, though not the same, very detailed, albiet old (2008) 
Also:http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=62971.msg1449188#msg1449188

It has always bothered me how little the Mountain Home has influenced your Fort.  The text on the embarkation screen makes it seem as if your dwarves are very similar to what we hummies might call Settlers going to found a Colony.  Maybe dwarves are very different from us, but normally the mountain home or Mother Country is looking to establish a profit from the colony.

Colonialism throughout the hummie times has had varying faces.  The colonialism we see in DF is like the colonialism in Antiquity.  The colonies were self-governing and soverign.  Later on, empires arose that taxed their colonies.  After a several hundred year hiatus involving almost no growth in globalization, greater global naval empires arose to make great profits off of previously isolated lands.  But even though Imperialistic theory hadn't been thought up by hummies until the early Modern era, why shouldn't greedy dwarves assume exploitative relationships with their colonies far eariler? 

Basically, in game terms, if enabeled outside "Powers that be" will request or demand that certain items be crafted or extracted, and will impose trading restictions with other races/ other dwarven caravans.  Unfortuantely these mandates may become non-aligned with your own goals and you may wish to win your independance.  Maybe you can do this through armed conflict, through economic warfare, or through bribery.  In return however, the Mountain Home will provide high quality manufactured items and more importantly highly skilled immigrants made to order.  This may even include a standing army, equiped and fed via supply lines running from the Mountain Home.  This is a stretch right here, but maybe dwarves can go to the mountainhome to attend "University" where they are trained by Legendary craftsmen.

Like I said though, much of this is a stretch and wouldn't really work.  Truly I would just like to see some kind of relationship between the colony and Mother Country.

I think this sort of thing would be better served by say, violating the ethics in such an offense manner that the angels swoop down with flaming swords to smite your fortress.

This, if we are going to have a Judeo-Christian style heaven with angels and cherubs and whatnot, then their realm should only be reachable through magic means (after magic is invented).  I am seriously doubting that we would have heaven with angels though.  I think it more likely we would have a randomly generated Pantheon of Gods based in nature (like the gods of greek fame (and Tolkien), hiding out in mountains, under the ocean, in the forrest, occasionally shape-shifting into mortal forms)

even the EGYPTIANS used concrete

The Egyptians were so awesome they didn't use concrete for their large public works  (I am pretty sure that lime-cement IS Roman innovation though)

Can we really disregard adding a new fluid out of hand before actually seeing a plausable algorithem?  In desert biomes there would be little calculations involving water-flows and an ocean isn't (afaik) as resource intensive as a river w/waterfall or even a river w/o waterfall.

I never looked at the raws myself, are the law codes and ethics located in files that are accessable by us?  I would definitely consider mucking about in my DF files if I could add modify the dwarven legal system. 

§164: All dwarves that are less than estatic shall be struck thrice with Asmel Udeshlogem, the artiface mace, let it be written, let it be done!