Bay 12 Games Forum

To everyone who was arguing against me about good lands protecting themselves: Look, I get it. You think that good lands should only want to help themselves. I get that. It's just that you happen to be describing behavior which is more selfish than self-defense.
To those arguing that giving everyone bonuses =/= a new challenge: Imagine infinitely respawning goblins as they keep coming back to life. Imagine a cloud of dealing mist rolling onto a hunted animal, undoing a dozen bolts of damage. Imagine dwarves oversleeping. Imagine a dwarf falling into lava, screaming, but the land heals him of all his burns, until the dwarf goes insane. Imagine these and a hundred, a thousand other times when a well-meaning land tries to make everyone happy and safe. How are these anything but new challenges one coming into a good area would need to overcome?
To those arguing that this is a redundant thread, since spherical biomes will replace those that are merely good or evil: This is all stuff that should be added to some sphere-biome or another. Probably healing or life, for most of them.

Are any plans for settling the caverns being...um...planned? If not, GreatWyrmMithril will suggest it.

Or cause them to explode into a material with a breathable syndrome that causes its victims to also explode, etc..  (Little Doctor, anyone?)

Goblin Commander: The enemy's gate is down.
*mechanical sounds*
Goblin Commander: And probably flooded with magma by now.

*rereads own post*
The first was supposed to say Potter...oops.

It could be done. So could a lot of things. The question isn't if it's doable, but if it's worth Toady's time. Right now, it's not.

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on May 30, 2012, 07:00:27 am

I agree with HugoLuman. Good areas should be nice, not vengeful. If you're afraid of nice == easy, don't worry; they'd be nice to goblins, too.

Protecting is not being vengeful. Are we vengeful when we cut a tumor out of a patient? As stated before, there has to be a reason why only elves live there. Otherwise, everyone would want to live in the land of happiness and healing rains. Its not that I'm afraid of nice being easy, I'm afraid of nice being stupid and gamey. Not that there's anything wrong with healing rains and everything else. That should all go in, but there should be a cost associated with it, and that cost should be protecting the land. I feel that savagery should only alter how soon you hit the cut off of how much despoiling the land is willing to take, and maybe the response, where in benign lands you just get cut off from all the good effects. In mirthful you'll occasionally get a small amount of unicorns ambushing you in addition to losing the effects. And in Joyous Wilds you get a never-ending siege of unicorns and walking trees and what not, plus losing the effects.

Protecting from what? Having holes dug in the ground? How is a land killing people trying to make a living in the only way they know how good, at all?
Seriously, I'm sick of the argument of "Good lands are obviously supposed to be a place where the land kills people who do stuff the land doesn't like!" That's not good. That's mean, at the very least.

-snip-

Once again, I have to ask, "why?"

I don't think Good should be more challenging than Neutral.  I think it should just be more strange/interesting.

I think that, ideally, each type of land should offer its own challenges. For instance, evil areas have you fighting the undead and such, but goblins really don't survive long enough in this area to be dangerous. Good areas are easy to live in, and might (for instance) give hungry dwarves fruit and heal them, but enemies are also going to get those benifets, and dwarves would be less motivated to work.

Well, I still haven't found an image hosting site without some kind of problem. To make up for it, I'm finally updating the OP!

-----

Ah, yes, glorious stone! I can smell the fair scent of microcline, feel the glorious gleam of gems! Bloodstone, I believe.
The miners dug a narrow staircase down several levels, so as to make sure we avoided the aquifer completely.
I ordered a depot to be built out of some of the blocks used to make the pumps. We've still got one, in case we want to build something we need a block for.
We're starting work on a level with some future bedrooms and stuff. Also a meeting hall.

On the 22nd of Hematite, Sappho reported a group of migrants on the horizon.
First came a Mr. Tradeplans. He's got a long mustache and a longer ponytail, but only a moderate amount of beard or sideburn. He doesn't like helping others, but is willing to do anything to gain favor. He claims to have self-discipline, but others report him as being impulsive. He is married and comes from a big family (he has seven aunts, as many uncles, and 29 cousins), but has no children. He's also an atheist, and a fishery worker. He's a prisoner of some kind, probably of the political variety like Dagger, but he won't tell. He likes brimstone, though, that's ominous.
Tradeplans was followed by his wife, a Mrs. Manorgloves. She's the eldest of six children, mostly girls. Manorgloves comes from an even larger family than her husband. Much like her husband, she doesn't like helping people; maybe it's best that they haven't had kids. She's generally antisocial, and likes the fictional stone slade. Manorgloves is a siege operator, which for now means “hauler.”
We've got another fishery worker, this one a kinda lazy and relaxed Mrs. Sprychamber. She's married, again with a large family, and has one son. The son is not here.
We also get her husband, a decent mason and tracker, as well as having some military skills. He's skinny, flimsy, and forgetful, but healthy and fast-healing. Mr. Ringedshaft likes fresh experiences, but is entirey averse to risk and excitement. I suppose he likes making new types of statues.
A skinny medic/bone carver, Mrs. Townbud is a prisoner, here for mixing those trades. She's not one for rules, but does like thrills and she's always happy, never angry, as well as striving for excellence. She is married and is from a small family. I've only glanced at names, but I think a lot of these people might share cousins, despite never being each others' cousins. My eyes must be playing tricks on me.
The...sixth migrant? is Townbud's optimistic husband, an animal caretaker named Strengthletter, a massive dwarf, almost as tall as a human and as muscular as an ogre. He knows himself well but doesn't like dealing with others, nor is he good at it. Due to his sense of duty and his muscles, I'm assigning him to BerserkNINJA's squad.
We've got another freaking fishery worker, Mr. Glovedtrumpet (a distant cousin of Splint's). He likes ammunition off all types, is completely unaffected by others' suffering, keeps his focus no matter what, and doesn't care about laws. As you can tell, he's a prisoner. His crime? Iritating one of the king's advisors with a dull, pointless story. He has two children.
Glovedtrumpet's wife, a self-conscious, adventurous, altruistic architect and hammerdwarf, also came. Her surname is Rampartpaddle.
The elder child of Glovedtrumpet and Rampartpaddle is nine-year-old Galleyinch. His eight-year-old sister is Blockadeswords. The former is indefatigueable; the latter tires quickly, but is strong and tough, as well as assertive and boastful. Despite being small for her age, Blockadeswords beats up her older brother most of the time they fight.
We also got some livestock: A horse foal (filly? Those are young mares, right?), a bunny; and a big, fat donkey foal.
We have a dwarven population of 17, including two children, as well as an animal population of 15. We've struck limonite, hematite, cassiterite, and galena, so we should have plenty of iron, tin, lead, and silver. I'm also starting a marksdwarf squad of former fishery workers, with Splint staying in his old squad.
Thank Doren that's over.
[Doren Coalearths is one of the deities that GreatWyrmBrass worships, associated with metals. The other is Istbar Spryfancies, a male deity associated with pregnancy...Oh, and he's worshipped by a bunch of elves and minotauroses.]