I don't want to come off like a broken record, but realism is nice, it helps make a game more intuitive if a game behaves the way real life would, but it should never be a GOAL simply for its own sake. What matters is whether it makes the game more entertaining for the player.
This, this, this, this, and THIS.
Realism is overrated. It adds something resembling familiarity and works from time to time, but the second realism starts to interfere with gameplay, or worse,
fun (
usually in the form of making the realism an active part of gameplay or the interface, such as MGS3's CURE system), any game designer worth his salt will put it down and find another way to solve whatever problem he's working with.
Coopering as an individual skill makes no sense in Dwarf Fortress context. Too much time and labor training up multiple different skills to achieve what could (and currently is) conceivably work(ing) with just one blanket skill, especially considering how expendable and/or easily killed your dwarves are.
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Going on the Subskills line of thought, I could see, in the future, a new way of handling skills where you'd see a list of primary skills...
- Mining [||||||||]
- Masonry [||||||||]
- Carpentry [||||||||]
- Metalsmithing [||||||||]
- Metalcasting [||||||||]
(etc)...where each primary skill could expand to a dropdown menu...
- Mining [||||||||]
- Masonry [||||||||]
+ Carpentry [||||||||]- Containers [||||||||]
Sleeping [||||||||]
Drawers [||||||||]
Decorative [||||||||]
- Metalsmithing [||||||||]
- Metalcasting [||||||||]
(etc)...showing some amount of specialization in particular kinds of Carpentry. But it'd be a passive sort of thing. A skilled carpenter who got that way only making beds and barrels could still make a good cabinet, but the same skilled carpenter who instead focused on making drawers would, for instance, make a better cabinet but not-quite-as-good beds and barrels. Perhaps instead the specialized skills would reduce build times or offer a % chance to come with a free decoration. Perhaps created items have a limited number of possible decorations depending on the skill of the maker. The idea is to offer benefits to the specialized dwarf without punishing the player for failing to micromanage to this effect.
