Bay 12 Games Forum

Another minotaur adventurer, this one focusing entirely on ambushing. First our old pals, the Lesser Salutes, sent a pair of goons to attack me. I fast-travelled one space, and got attacked by a band of ogres sent by the Morsels of Singing, who evidently sent their ringleader to deal with the guy who's never heard of them and is travelling deep in the wilderness. And, of course, there's little in the way of cover. For added lulz, I ended up being placed about 6 tiles in roughly the opposite direction of the way I'd travelled from the cooling corpses of the first bunch. I killed the ringleader's compatriots, threw half a sturgeon at him from hiding, and continued to throw such things as the heads of various ogres until a <<copper cap>> broke his toe, causing him to give in to pain. Naturally, I didn't cut off his head, I just smashed in his skull, so no neat trophies for me...Then some dingoes attack me...Hoo boy, I can't wait to see what happens when I get to the tower.

I had a really good narrative written up, but then my computer crashed, so...basically, I wandered south far enough that the rivers were liquid in the day, after having fought off a band of bogeymen. Somehow they weren't dodging my attacks. Unfortunately, when my computer crashed, I had forgotten to save, punting me back to the far north side of the world...I'm starting a new adventurer and pretending this one didn't happen.

Nothing. He's burnt to a crisp.

What would Urist do if he accidently created Frankenstein's Monster?

The basic idea is this: In order to weaken your defenses, goblins send a wave of weak, expendable "troops" at you. These would distract and wound your military and clog up your traps. There are a few categories of cannon fodder they might use, described in order of complexity:




So...what do you think? Too much, even for goblins? Other ideas of goblin cannon fodder? Etc? I'm never very good at this part...

EDIT: Did I hit post already? Modify message! MODIFY MESSAGE!

I feel like I've been getting into a lot of these verbose debates, lately...

You and me both.

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on April 07, 2012, 08:26:09 pm

It's a good idea/point, but it can be rebutted more easily the more magic is added to DF.

I've never really liked the notion that magic should be unexplained.

Being as it is DF, I rather prefer the notion that magic is a force of nature that simply does not exist in our world, but nevertheless is an understandable and rational force.  Magic that exists in the game is predictable, if not exactly well-explained.  Evil areas mean zombies and occasionally clouds that do all kinds of not-good things to your dwarves.

I pushed along a thread on exploring the concept of a magic-based ecosystem, where magic, much like regular ecosystems, is consumed by the "autotrophs" that form the "plantlife" of caverns and form the basis of a magical ecosystem, and restored back by "decomposers" that replenish the magic supply of the area.

To simply say "dwarves are magic" and that therefore, none of their attributes has to make sense is deeply dissatisfying.

I'd summarize what I said as more like "In a world where deities are known to curse people, and where people are known to cast some kinds of spells, it's possible that certain traits were added by magic, and if they were the other traits could have come from the lifestyle constraints imposed by the curse." Much wordier, but also closer to what I said.

Quote from: xeniorn on April 07, 2012, 09:39:47 pm

Just because gameplay wise it is only a disadvantage at this point, I wouldn't go so far as to calling cave-adaptation a weakness and not a strength. Putting game-mechanics aside, it is as much a weakness as it is a strength - an adaptation that changes the dwarves in such a way they physiologically prefer underground and the dark, even though they can handle light and the outside unless they stay underground for prolonged amounts of time without ever wandering outside.

There's nothing really advantageous about cave adaptation no matter how you might look at it.  It is, again, a weakness, not a strength.  Dwarves can live aboveground for their whole lives with no ill effects.  Humans and elves can live underground for their whole lives with no ill effect.  It's just that dwarves that spend most of their time underground will start feeling ill effect if they reach the surface.

Dwarves have advantages and adaptations that help them become better cavern survivors, but cave adaptation is less an advantage and more a vestigial weakness, like a moth's confusing artificial light for the moon and flying into a flame. 

Those advantages (short size, high strength, magical strange mooding and trances) are completely separate and distinct from their cave adaptation.  They work just fine with or without cave adaptation actually taking place in a dwarf.  If they do have a darkvision-like ability, then unless it actually only activates once dwarves become cave adapted (and ceases to function if they lose their cave adaptation), then cave adaptation is nothing but a weakness.

Taking cave adapation by itself, yeah. Code-wise, nothing else has to do with dwarves' cave adaptation. Similarly, in the code, there isn't really any connection between a bird's flight and its wings, or a kobold's sealth and its tendancy to steal things, or a goblin's antisocial personality and its tendancy to go to war with everyone. After all, if we assume that dwarves evolved from something, like you did, why would they evolve to vomit (wasting time and precious nutrients) if they saw the sun after being underground too long?

Quote from: xeniorn on April 07, 2012, 09:39:47 pm

My third point, pertaining previous claims of "everyone should be able to do everything with proper training" - I don't agree.

That isn't the point I was making.  In fact, I was making a point fairly similar to yours.

The argument I was making was that saying "dwarves are poor swimmers because when you think of dwarves, you think of mountains, and they don't go out to oceans" is invalid reasoning, but that "dwarves are poor swimmers because they have shorter limbs compared to their more bulky torso" is valid reasoning.

If there is a valid physiological reason for an elf not to be capable of metalworking, it's one thing, but at the same time, if an elf is capable of carving wood or sewing images into cloth, why are they incapable of performing that same precision into carving stone images or statues?  How different are the requirements to be a wood sculptor from being a statue sculptor?

By comparison, if an ant-man lacks the eyesight and the mental development to appreciate aesthetics, then it makes perfect sense to say they make crappy artists.

Ah, irony...

Just... ignor me. I'll probably be injecting less coherent data as time drags on simply because the debate is over my head crushed my dreams already.

Aw, don't feel left out. You can still point out good information. Like the amphibious guards--if you pay, say, cavefishmen to live in your moat in exchange for chum and metal armor/weapons, that moa would be much more fearsome. It's easier than any kind of tamed animal, perhaps barring pasturing them and then flooding the moat...but then what happens if they leave the pasture?

Would the dwarf's body heat vaporize the stone?

Are you thinking of Greek fire? That wasn't a flamethrower, that was more like a flame bomb. And who's to say that A. everything before 1400 has to be included (firearms, for instance), or B. that dwarves know how to use it?

Still, in a more general sense, equipment (probably magical) that can "afflict" and/or unlock interactions would be a good addition. You could make flamethrowers (mod in a weapon that gives the wielder the ability to conjure a stream of fire and watch dwarves dance through the fire they started), cloaks of flight, and so forth.