Bay 12 Games Forum

I have had some dwarves with odd, unexplained injuries, so I cracked open Dwarf Companion to get a look.

Apparently, I had a craftsdwarf who was bleeding (3) with no injuries, and whose job should not expose him to any injuries.

I have a woodcutter with neck and brain damage... when I know he wasn't brain damaged when I opened up Dwarf Companion a game month ago because of a seige not ending, and I know I haven't let him outside, so he should have been doing nothing but hauling.  (He has maxxed out exhaustion if that helps.)

I have a marksdwarf who participated in said seige now collapsed on the floor of my dining room, unconscious, and slowly dying of thirst, with no injuries.

Any ideas how my dwarves are injuring themselves?

There's a problem with the work manager - it doesn't allow you to select what workshops get the job orders.

I set orders for making several glass items, because I knew it would be easily completed, my guys were doing it already, and I just wanted my manager to get more experience, because I wasn't really using the manager for much of anything else at the moment.

Then I started getting job cancelation spam about not being able to make glass because of a lack of fuel.

Turns out that my magma glass furnaces were being overlooked for the regular glass furnaces I set up to collect sand when work orders came down.

Likewise, I can't use those work orders to select what craftsdwarf will make the item, so I'm better off just using a workshop's ability to select who can work there if I want to have something specific, like only a legendary mason making a statue in the workshop near the native platinum stockpile.

I'd only want that if it can be set to stay or not.  90% of the time, when I set a job to repeat, I want it to go away after the material is used up.  I just consider it a "use up the rest on this job" command.  Like I'll make a certain number of beds, then order the carpenter to make bins on repeat to clear out the wood pile.

I agree with this... but this can simply be another button.

"(r)epeat" would just repeat until you run out.

"(e)ndless repeat" would repeat forever, without being canceled.

I feel it necessary to put this part of the response at the top:
Logs, Fertilizer, Drainage:  Neither of these would be *required* to have a functioning farm, it merely increases the efficiency of any given plot of land (as appropriate). 

Currently the position stated by many opponents to farm complexity seems to be that the intention here is you either do all the elements of farming perfectly to barely maintain your fort, or you die of starvation.  Neither of these is my intent, nor inherent to my design. 

An "opponent to farm complexity" am I?  Do note that what I proposed was largely similar.  I am not opposed to complexity, I am simply trying to stress-test ideas, and I don't take "realism" as a valid reason, on its own, for anything.

Anyway, you said that logs would be required to build a farm, though.  That sounds pretty much like a requirement to avoid starving to me.

Also, especially if you make all these little changes that make farming require more space and more farmhands and more resources (including side-industries), then the loss of a benefit will eventually mean that you're dealing with farms that are so large and labor intensive that smaller fortresses will not be able to field the sort of defense forces that can repel early attacks.

A basic farm under the vision I see would result in farmland being VERY inefficient, but far from impossible to support your fort on.  A basic farm with no real modification to the soil would be able to provide *some* of any crop you plant on it with any luck.  It is also nearly inevitable that any soil type (with the exception of desert sand or solid stone), would be capable of supporting some form of plant life at at least a just sub-middling level.

This may mean that without engaging in the more complex elements of farming you are limited to one or a handful of plants that your land happens to be suited for.  Not good for variety, but it'll keep your dwarves alive.

I would hope that this level of subsistance be reduced only to "challenge biomes" like deserts or glaciers, however, not easily habitable land.

What engaging in a detailed interaction with your farms will provide is a highly successful fortress agriculture with a variety of plants being grown and frequent bumper crops.  If you aren't interested in selling crops for profit, it at the very least would require less land to support your fortresses needs than merely shoving seeds in the dirt. 

Preaching to the choir.  Again, I would want something fairly similar, but I disagree on minor issues.

Now, that being said, on to a blow by blow response with NW Kohaku.

... Are you really talking to anyone besides me, here?

Requiring Clay is in no way more weird than requiring water.  It's basically returning to the same concept, drainage is important for plants (whether they want more or less of it).  As stated above, preparing your soil optimizes your yield, but you can scrape by with other methods.

Requiring something that most players don't have is a problem.  Most players who aren't purposefully embarking in a challenging biome are going to have water.  Most players do not have clay, and this sets up scenarios where you will forever be penalized (and anything that isn't optimal is a penalty) because of the way that the game unrealistically handles soil types.

I can't count the number of times I have heard, felt, and experienced the Trading caravans being more nuisance than assistance.  I don't *NEED* them currently, buying wood, charcoal, and potash from them at this point is merely a convenience.  And considering that 9 times out of 10 what the traders are carrying is fluff items (like artifact bags, tools I can make, craft goods I don't want or need, etc).

And they're going to continue bringing those items, even after you request every item that you need, and don't request the items like craft items.  If you need steel, you can push that slider up all the way, but that doesn't mean you're going to get enough steel to fully outfit your army with the half dozen of steel bars they'll bring you. 

Basic self-sufficiency (I don't mean bare minimum sustainance, I mean capable of making a farm that handles food and textiles and further goods without need for trade) should be fairly easy in virtually any area with water that isn't too hot or too cold and has even remotely decent soil (which shouldn't require loam AND sand AND clay).

If a players civilization is at war with the Elves or Humans, it *SHOULD* make things more difficult, especially if they're relying on trade, that's the nature of war and trade.

It should be more difficult militarily, but it is "unrealistic" for a medieval-style society to rely upon imported goods just to feed themselves.  Setting players up to force them to rely upon something that may fall out from under them without any input on their part is just adding in a little extra masochism that doesn't really add anything to the game, and can't even claim "realism" as refuge.

In the passing of tens of years, yes.  Seed logs are used through repeated harvests where mushrooms are concerned.  This isn't something most DF fortresses would live to see.

Umm... being as these trees grow in only a couple years, I would suspect they could decay in at least as little time. 

Further, I have to ask why you would set this requirement up for "realism's sake", but then leave out the realism at this point?  This is exactly why I don't like using "realism" as a reasoning - it's always left off before its logical conclusions.

And this is possible, I think I would be comfortable with an underground farm being built with logs as an enhancement item better anyway.  This allows anyone to build an underground farm, but increases production if they utilize logs.  Incidentally, as a matter of clarity, Dwarves in classical literature were never purely underground beings, they just *lived* underground.  Fuel for their forges and various aspects of their food supply were almost always pulled from the surface.

Well, can you tell me what mythos, exactly, dwarves are completely faithfully pulled from for DF?  Because it sure seems to me that Toady has been blending in parts that he likes from various sources...

Being as dwarves in this game trade using products that come solely from underground sources, I think it's safe to say that dwarves in DF are meant to be at least capable of prolonged life underground, and very likely underground life is the standard dwarfy way.  In fact, it's a character trait when they "don't mind being outside/aboveground", since that's uncommon in a dwarf.

Quote from: NW_Kohaku

Anyway, you should be able to find what I proposed for a system for the past few pages.  I agree with a step up in complexity in general, however, I have no particular fondness for realism per se, I simply want a more involving system.  (I'm perfectly fine with just having three factors of soil quality, that can just be called "mineral A" "mineral B" and "mineral C" for all I care, plus whether they had been watered recently or not.)

I don't really think fertilizer should be a required aspect of the game (although underground farming does seem to call for it, doesn't it?), and would be happy with just plain crop rotation. 

I'm also a little leery of irrigation, as either it will be a matter of simply digging a couple holes you fill with water, or you will actually have to micromanage exact water levels of ditches feeding specific crops, which seems to be what you want, which will be a micromanagement nightmare if you put in crop rotations, which is something I would really like to see.

Did you mean to write a response here?  You just put a quote from me in response to a quote from me.

No, you wouldn't have to destroy your farms to change drainage systems. In RL the major factor of soil drainage is soil composition.  You could add gravel and/or sand to make it drain better, and clay to help reduce drainage to create the perfect soil for a particular crop.  This could all be done without the need to 'destroy' your farms, it'd be handled just like adding potash.

Which is still too much work for a proper crop rotation system.  Seriously, if you had to swap out the entire soil composition just to plant a new type of crop, when the point of planting new types of crops was to help change the soil composition, you just shot the whole point of the thing dead right there.

Behold... The lesser oracle, consult it frequently my friend.  Crop Rotation and fertilizer are millenia old.

I wasn't talking about crop rotation and fertilizer, which I know were used for millenia.  I was talking about advanced drainage systems of gravel, clay, and soil, with exact water levels, the way that rice paddies are worked, and which you were talking about in other parts of the post.  Rice paddies are a pretty extreme example of farms that require serious work to build properly, and most crops don't require it.

I'd honestly still like the idea of a conveyor belt that actually directly interacts with a workshop, supplying the workshop with materials, and carrying away products without requiring the dwarf move off the workshop, as I suggested over in the giant mechanical devices thread.

I think part of what makes it Dwarf Heaven, though, is that it also has magma pools and chasm and such.

I have one that's fairly similar to yours, although it's got a mirthful shrubland instead of untamed wilds, and I have coal and a chasm, but only 42 z-levels.

Plus I have an elf queen and cosmopolitan goblin civs.

Might as well post mine, too:

Isn't this what the "facepalm moments" thread is for?

Oh well, just read my posts starting with this one.

It is a summary of a gamer's hair-pulling fury at the insistance of dwarves to kill themselves NO MATTER HOW MUCH I TRY AND STOP THEM.

Just thought of another one.

Kobold thieves and goblin invaders, the goblins don't even notice if a kobold steals the weapon from their hands, the arrows from their quivers, and I've seen cases where the armour the goblin was wearing was stolen. How can you not notice a single kobold stealing the clothes you're wearing when you have a squad of 5-10 trained and armed friends with you?

Impossible Thief.

He stole it... from the future!

Technically, since this type of theft works off of tags, it might be hilarious if you could heal someone by "stealing" their injuries.

One cannot assume that players will have access to clay, this is true.  If this were to be implemented I would imagine *perhaps wrongly* that it would be relatively trivial to include clay as a tradeable substance, just like sand will be in the next release.

Since starting a farm is a fairly basic thing, you would probably need to embark with clay if it wouldn't be available where you were going.  Home civs never have everything, though.  It's possible you wouldn't have it at all, in fact. 

Sand, and hence, glass, you can live without.  Farms are pretty much required, especially if you're going to make butcherable animals require feed. 

We were talking earlier about how requiring water would make farming in a desert too difficult, and the argument against that was "well, shouldn't it be?"  When the difference between a fort with a mighty agricultural base and one without it is whether or not they have access to clay and other types of soil, as well, it's getting a little weird.

Logs are frequently available, inexpensively, from traders.  This means trading would be that much more important, which I only see as a good thing.  Most of my charcoal, potash, and wood production comes from purchase logs.
Apply these same principles to alchemy and purchased items.

As you already say, though, you're already using the logs that you purchase.  Logs are fairly heavy (meaning they take up much more room than other products players may request).  You're saying we should put a significantly larger strain on what is already a limited resource (on an annual basis).

Likewise, if we are punishing a player for embarking when their civ is at war with elves or humans, that creates the same problem as with clay - farms are such a basic necessity of DF that it really shouldn't make farming too difficult without relying upon an embark parameter.

Incidentally, at no point did I say that logs would be required for SUSTAINING underground farms, simply building them.  Perfectly happy to stick with using potash to continue fertilizing fields, in conjunction with the other elements listed above.

That's the problem with "realism" as a design goal - things that one person considers realistic often leaves in things that are highly unrealistic in other aspects, and the "realism" often leaves in severe game imbalances that are, themselves, fairly unrealistic.  Still, I'm really sounding like a broken record talking about how realism alone should never be a design goal.

If logs are the fuel for building a farm, why wouldn't they require replacement?  If the basis of a farm is a rotting log, wouldn't that log eventually be eaten all the way through?

This also makes subterranean farming require above-ground resources (excepting, perhaps, tower caps), which may be realistic, but I think part of the concept of dwarves currently is that they can be entirely subterranean creatures, realism be darned.  (Of course, I still like the chemosynthesis based upon volcanos as a possible source of a subterranean ecosystem's energy.)

I like animal chunks being able to be used as a feed for animals, but not so much as a fertilizer.   The idea of using raw meat straight from the butcher as a fertilizer doth offend my sense of realism a bit much. (Many things I can let go, this is a bit far, simply because I've worked with organic gardening and processing meat into compost and know that it takes a goodly long time to become usable).

If animal chunks are unsuitable for you as direct fertilizer, that's fine, just shove in a middle step.  Have a worm farm for a workshop that can decompose bodies into usable soil.  Can work for "solid waste" as well if we ever get sewage as part of DF.

Collectors may bring chunks to the worm farm, and, when they have decomposed properly (changes to miasma would be nice, so that ventilation can be worked out), they can be used as fertilizer.

---

Anyway, you should be able to find what I proposed for a system for the past few pages.  I agree with a step up in complexity in general, however, I have no particular fondness for realism per se, I simply want a more involving system.  (I'm perfectly fine with just having three factors of soil quality, that can just be called "mineral A" "mineral B" and "mineral C" for all I care, plus whether they had been watered recently or not.)

I don't really think fertilizer should be a required aspect of the game (although underground farming does seem to call for it, doesn't it?), and would be happy with just plain crop rotation. 

I'm also a little leary of irrigation, as either it will be a matter of simply digging a couple holes you fill with water, or you will actually have to micromanage exact water levels of ditches feeding specific crops, which seems to be what you want, which will be a micromanagement nightmare if you put in crop rotations, which is something I would really like to see.

The idea of going all the way with setting up specific drainage systems is going a little far in my book - they not only take quite a bit more manual labor to set up (and farming is a basic necessity that people will want to set up quickly), but would require destroying your farms to change drainage systems between crops.  (Which again, is very bad for crop rotation.)

Also, I am no real expert on medieval agriculture, but I don't really think this was acutally a technique used by the sort of culture DF is modeled upon.  I believe medieval farmers largely just cleared the boulders away and plowed the land.  Rice farmers certainly worried about this sort of thing, but we're dealing with a much more wheat (and mushroom) based agriculture, here.

Some thoughts on Dorf Economic Modelling

Don't model the economy after "real life." In real life the banks mint new dollars every time someone deposits a dollar in the bank. This should be shocking to the point of disbelief, because it means that a single dollar becomes a smaller fraction of the total dollars every day. In theory, we would be on a constant inflation track until the purchasing power of a buck is less than the paper it's printed on. In reality this has already happened several times, and will continue to happen. For example, the US penny was stripped of it's copper content when it became apparent that a penny's copper traded for more than a penny. Same with the nickel Nickel, the silver Dime, and the silver Quarter and Dollar.

Use a Gold Standard. Reconnect the worth of material to Dorfbucks. 100 Dorfbucks -> 1 Gold bar, and 1 Gold bar -> 100 Dorfbucks. It is important that this is a lossless exchange, with no percentage charges or fees for service. In order for 100 Dorfbucks to be WORTH 1 Gold bar, it must take exactly 100 Dorf bucks to make a Gold bar, and visa versa. (Note that it could be 10 bucks, or platinum, or anything else, but it has to be stationary for the whole game timeline). Then it can be seen that minting new coins will do no harm, because they are just as easily converted back to metal bars. A person can hold many metal bars worth of bucks in their private reserve, or they could have a stack of metal bars. Doesn't really matter.

The hard part: Service Value. I am of a mind that 'Money' is an overly-generic concept that covers at least two forms of exchange. The first is the transfer of materials, usually a trade of materials. I give one gold bar and I get 1 stack of <something else I want>. The other part is as merit for service to King and Country. I go to work to serve my fellow man, the paycheck is a proof of service I can use to get served by my fellow man.

If tokens for service were separated from material wealth, we could probably explore a much better form of economic model.

You shall not press down upon the brow of dwarves this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify dwarfkind upon a cross of gold!

... sorry, I just felt a sudden urge to shout that when reading all this.

But seriously, the value of gold in real life remains very stable because of the fact that the world supply of gold remains very stable - thanks to its percieved value throughout the ages, virtually every deposit of gold in the world has been mined out, leaving only very trace deposits that have to be processed with things like seep-leach processing using arsenic to dissolve the extremely trace amounts of gold.

In dwarf fortress, if this is used to determine the economy, then when you first start a fortress, you might have only a few bars of gold that you traded for, making gold so valuable as to make barter trading preferable to actual coinage, because the coins would be so valuable.  Once you struck a vein of gold or two, however, you would suddenly be overwhelmed with out-of-control inflation as the gold supply in the economy tripled overnight.

This doesn't even start to cover the differences in values of items on the internal economy with the global economy.  If rampant inflation caused by focusing on mining precious metals, and a lack of concern for farming or textiles has made a sock worth 5 bars of gold inside your fortress, how are you going to trade your plentiful gold coins with the outside world?