Bay 12 Games Forum

I'm not too worried, this game always takes a while to update around scene changes, but that's okay since it's damn pretty.

I like it even more than the art of freeform's games.
Although Warrens has pretty good art, given its minimalistic style.

"The beginning years of the great Cupcake Empire were hardly smooth; it wasn't the basic 'ramp to power' one might imagine. For starters, there wasn't a vague, diffuse 'cloud' of non-Imperials; there were discrete, sovereign nation-cities. One of these,Galle near the Yert homeland, was similar to the Cupcakes in culture and religion, whereas its other nearby neighbor--Pizean--was different in both. Hence, the Cupcake Empire initially ignored their southern neighbors in favor of trade along the northern coast. Of course, the good times were bound to end, as their southern neighbors were aggressive."
"As a historical note, it should be noted that the factories of Cupcake City had an industrial output of sixteen Standard Industrial Units, more than the entire rest of the world--most cities only having one, Galle having two, and Lankanov having four (as much as the next three largest cities combined). Thus, it's easy to see how the Imperial culture and religion lead to a highly efficient and productive economy.
"In any case, the new age dawned. The old Westboros were disbanded and replaced entirely with a fleet of Brigands."
"Around the time trade relations with the Gallean people were established, a city known as Velbart was established on Valan, the first city on that continent. The Velbartian citizens referred to their empire as the Forest Nation, a bit of a puzzle."
"Trade routes were expanded in a manner which continues to open doors, not only for governments but for individuals, to this very day."
"Homarpover, the Red Nation, was founded near Velbart. Given the similarities between the two, it was only a matter of time before they fought."
"Styrumin, a religious nation, was the next of the Valanian cities to rise. It was a religious city which followed a philosophy remarkably similar to ours."
"Then, something happened that had not been considered. The Galleans offered to let the Cupcake Empire buy their city. They accepted, not only to bring what had nearly tied Cupcake City as the most productive city under their control, but also to get a port closer to their Kaspaitan trading partners."
"The Gallean nation was made more efficient, both by kicking out some crazy prophet and his dozen big followers and by improving the infrastructure. Industrial output increased by 50%!
"Hullin, a greedy city which valued nothing over gold, Spice, and cash, was founded around the time of this purchase on Valan. The trade fleet was expanded, upgraded, and sent to all cities which liked the Empire."

-----

Somehow, I forgot that cities other than ours have names. Our second city is Lankanov, while the Purple City to the north is Galle, the blue religious city on the island is "Kaspait...", and the Yellow Military City is Pizean.
I've also made up a continent name, Falan. We still need names for our home continent and that little island that Kaspait... is on.
Finally, see if you can spot a little call-back to a previous stage in one of the doodles. The first person to get it right before the next update will get the right to design the spaceship!

One last note: Plan as you like, please, but bear in mind that due to a vacation I'm not going to be updating for a week or so...

"Hmph. Look at the enemies. That first team...a robot, a fox with a couple tails, and...is that a plumber?"
"Ayup. Wearing green for some reason. The next is a bit...more worrisome, the girl's the only weak link...though she looks a bit like Mono. The spider thing seems to have some magical stuff, and that big guy with the sword and the cannon-arm worries me..."
"Not scared. Look good food. Last team tasty, too. Big-Lute guy looks juicy, if stringy; girl looks good-spicy; Stick guy annoys enough to be tasty."
"Yeah, I don't think that's what we're worried about. My biggest worry is that Urgot thing. It looks like it could give as good as I would with those blasty things..."
"Yeah, I suppose that would be your worry. The Guts guy is my fear--I have no doubt that you fools will have me charge into melee again, which will leave me open for being sliced in half with a sword bigger than me. I'm not even that good with a sword!"
"I worried that Ayane purple hair means poison."
"Then don't eat her."
"Hm. We've decided who we want to avoid--"
"Think we could ally ourselves with the Sain team?"
"...That's pretty clever."
"This why good to have grown up on team."

((I've amused myself with this.))

Earlier this evening, for reasons which I have forgotten, I was imagining a tag which would turn one material into another after a time. It evolved into this idea:

[DECAY:(transformed material):(transformed material):X:(released material):(released material)]

I had some ideas of additional complications, but this is the simplest idea and seems like it could easily capture all the needed effects.

How the Tag Works:
There are six parts, which we will examine individually:
DECAY--Identifies the tag as the "Decay" tag.
(transformed material):(transformed material)--A material tag which identify the substance that the original material becomes. "NONE:NONE" would make it vanish.
X--A number. It controls how long the material takes to decay. It could be measured in days, steps, or some other unit; maybe an X:Y thing, for a minimum and maximum time taken, would be better.
(released material):(released material)--The gas released by the decay, if any. "NONE:NONE" (or just NONE?) would make it not release anything.

How It Might Work:
Whenever an item is created, if it is of a decaying material, it has its "decay timer" started, determined by X. When this timer runs out, the object is replaced with an identical one made of the "transformed material". Decorations, coverings, and such are unaffected, although such things should probably decay as well. At this point, a given quantity of a fog made of the released material is, um, released.
Miasma would need to be made into a material as well. Still, this should be a fairly minor issue given the number of other hardcoded materials.
It should probably go without saying, but artifacts would not be affected by decay.

Obvious Uses:
Rotting: Should be obvious.
Rusting/Tarnishing Metals: Simply make "Rusty Iron," "Tarnished Copper," etc, and have the metals become the rusty/tarnished version. Perhaps you could go further to represent further levels of oxidation (Iron to Rusty Iron to Very Rusty Iron to Rust, say), but this might be a bit silly.
Rotten Wood: Current rotting is far to fast for wood. If we could make wood turn into rotten wood in a few years, instead of having it rot to nothingness in a few months while releasing an awful stench, wood would become all the more realistic.
Vanishing Blood: Unless contaminants didn't properly decay, of course.
Delayed-Use Gases: Mostly for modders. Basically, a reaction could create an item which would decay into a cloud of gas of some kind. Heck, all kinds of things could be done by modders!

Why Bother?
It allows malleability in the system, and includes another feature long awaited into the mix. Not to mention that it would be another excellent tool for modders.


This isn't a suggestion I expect to be added soon, but a system like this could improve DF greatly.

Here is one for a grand discipline.  lest have a New official version that everyone can play. So it is in just before the x-mass and just before the summer holidays. A new game two times a year. 

So if Toady One dose not post a new DF, then I like there to be an official dome put one one of the mods as a mod of the season or something like that.

Basically. New things to play every 6 months, sometime late in month 6 and 12 !!

Yes, getting videogames out by Christmas is always such a good idea...
Aside from the obvious parallels with major flops (the worst Sonic and Spyro games and two of the worst games ever, for instance), Toady's development schedule doesn't work like that. 0.34.11 was released about a year ago, just in time for the summer holidays I guess. If he had to get the next release out by Christmas, where would that put him?
"Death comes before birth, if you were wondering. There are potentially several thousands of historical critters to check in the wider world, so it sets up a schedule at the beginning of the year and then checks specific people on a daily basis for the "old age" death you might have seen happen in your forts. Later on we'd like to have diseases and so on, but for now it's basically a reaperish visitation that happens to people that aren't currently loaded. I'm getting the first taste of handling all the extra information that is present post-world gen, and I had to rewrite various code for how the historical figures are stored on sites and in armies, but they seem to be dying properly now."
In short, he wouldn't have half the features he wanted to put in, nor would they be at half the intended quality.

There's a reason DF is barely over 1/3 complete despite a dev time of over a decade to date: DF is awesome but requires making a LOT of code, then making sure it works. (For now, add "well enough" to the end, but wait until 0.90 or so...) It obeys schedules as well as a tantruming toddler at best...and that's ignoring the various impediments that come up with a self-employed, one-man dev team, as well as Toady's tendency to go off-schedule. Toady knows this, which is part of why he doesn't make promises on releases.

Being a Tolkien fan, that is exactly what Smog did.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that Smog was the one who gave all the hobbits respiratory issues once they got industrialized.
Seriously, though.

Better megabeast behavior is greatly anticipated but not very high on the devlist. Given the tendency of pretty much anything with a lair to fill it with treasure of...varying quality (Hey, look! Another cave full of bones and old clothes...and here's three copper coins, score!), it seems probable that proper hoarding will be added once such behaviors are.

Actually, if nothing else, scabbards would be pretty cool.

Agreed.

One thing that bugs me a little is how much the OP's stuff seems to be relying on science...except for those magical ingredients needed to make it work. Why not just go whole-hog?
Another thing is the idea that scabbards would be made by weaponsmiths. I think that leatherworking or something would make more sense, and metalcrafting for metal scabbards. Scabbards aren't made much like swords, after all, and metalcrafting seems to be a catch-all skill for fairly small items.

If we're going to consider magical sword effects, I have a question: Why just flaming swords? Why not shocking spears, watery axes, poison-producing pikes, bolt-making crossbows, returning javelins, maybe even dancing whips?

Heck, one might as well scrap the old aquifer system in exchange for a more realistic one by that point. (My favorite idea, which I may have come up with, is basically to let water flow through certain substances, in less-than-7 quantities, and have it flow through the soil like that; aquifers would be the upper level of the natural water.)

But, back on track: Suggested before, please search before making suggestions.

In any case, I'd imagine that there is some kind of technical issue and/or a plan to do this at some point when tiles are overhauled.