Bay 12 Games Forum

This is a fascinating idea, and it makes me wonder how running, say, 5 separate microforts with about 40 dwarves in each would work out. Each one would be completely autonomous and self sufficient, with their own army and headed by the elected mayor and representatives, and a different noble coming from each fort (for the purposes of keeping the federation truly balanced and the fort running smoothly from my end.) The mayor could chair the council, the militia commander could come from the next most influential fortress, and the manager, broker, and bookkeeper coming from the others. If this thing makes it to become a barony, he could have an estate in each city and live in the same one as the mayor. I'm definitely gonna try this out. But how much should I allow them to trade between themselves? How should privileges for trading with the caravans be decided? This is gonna be fun...

I've recently done a 2-micro fort with male and female segregated. (trying to avoid new marriages/babies-- only married immigrants transfer spores.)

The main challenge is making sure that each fort is truly self-sufficient.  Your global stocks view will show that there are 300 prepared meals, but not that all of them are in a stockpile only accessible to the women, and the men are hunting vermin (but they have all 12 picks)

I had once tried to make each year's migrant waves be a separate fort but it was too hard to keep track of (but an interesting challenge)

--Joe

This sort of order might also help to get friendly diplomats off the map successfully.

I could send my own squads to walk with the carts and/or diplomat and prevent an ambush from killing them all.

An additional challenge rule:
Your dwarfs don't know how to make an item until it has been acquired from somewhere.

For example, if you don't embark with an axe, you can't have your weaponsmith make one until you've either bought one from caravan or borrowed one from your local goblinite library.

(Check in the Stocks screen, every item type should have at least one (Item) in the list)

--Joe

Urist McBrewer: There's plenty of room in that Dwarven Wine[1] barrel, I'll just go ahead and squeeze this fungus into that one.*

Urist the Thirsty: Sure, I'll pour my drink into a mug so that somebody else can use the last non-empty barrel.

Urist the Thirsty: I'll go ahead and finish this nearly-empty barrel rather than walking halfway across the map to get some fresh liquor.

Urist NotMyWarren: Hmm, now where should I put this barrel I just drank from.  Well, if I drop it right now, it'll land in an appropriate stockpile, right where I got it from.  I'll do that instead of shouting to the Overseer that I don't know where to put it.

Urist McVamp: I think I'll drink this Pig's blood that we bought from the caravan rather than sucking our legendary Armorsmith dry.

--Joe
* Hmm, if "Mix food" is turned on, this could result in Dwarven Sangria or Dwarven Boilermaker or a Dwarven Black & Tan.

It should also be possible to repair a broken item - doing so shouldn't require any more metal but should reduce the item's quality, unless it's been named/is an artifact, at any rate.

I don't really see what repairing an item would add to the game.  You don't bother to have your clothier repair a threadbare XXPig Tail SockXX, you have it make a new one, and palm the old one off on some unsuspecting caravan or magma pool.

--Joe

Right now, there is no difference other than cost between a copper pick and an adamantine one.  They both cut through the softest sand and hardest granite with the same ease and bring your marMine corpsedwarfs up to legendary stats just as quickly.  But the pig tail fabric glove they're wearing on their hand will have completely tattered away by that time.  Wouldn't it make sense to have a soft metal like copper wear out also?

So here's a proposal:  have metal objects experience "wear" like clothing currently does.  After digging out a couple hundred hard stones, your -Copper Pick- might become an x-Copper Pick-x and eventually from XX-Copper Pick-XX to nothing.

I'd suggest that the amount of wear that occurs be related to the relative "hardness" between the material being dug and the tool.  So a copper pick is unharmed by sand or soil, has a 5% chance of a "nick" when digging into sedimentary, 10% when into metamorphic, etc.  Iron would be fine going through sedimentary stone, but still have a chance of being nicked by granite.  Item quality could affect the chances as well.  So while a regular Copper Pick has a 5% chance, a -Copper Pick- has a 4%, =Copper Pick= 3%, etc up to a masterwork that could be invulnerable to wear.  A single nick wouldn't turn into an xCopper Pickx, but maybe after 10 or so...

A similar "wear" could be applied to armor:  An Axedwarf slashing through bodies protected by leather armor should damage the armor -- after 3-4 slashes that get through, the armor would become tattered.  For realism, different types of armor could wear differently based on the type of attack.  clothing and leather armor could be damaged by pierce or slash, but not blunt;  chain mail be damaged by slash, but not pierce or blunt; plate armor by pierce or blunt but not by slash.

Thoughts?