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DF Suggestions / Re: Many things
« on: July 16, 2011, 08:11:45 am »The reason that elves sometimes dominate is simple: They never age and so pretty much only die in rampages of various beasties, fighting beastes, or war. That gives them a lot of people to draw on in a war, and means they have a lot of time to get to know how to use their weapons. A large number of highly skilled people with crappy weapons>a smaller number of less-skilled people with better weapons. Heck, a skilled person with crappy weapons>a novice with better weapons (usually) and a lot of people with crappy weapons ~> a few people with better weapons (assuming the few aren't lucky and the many aren't superstitious about the weapons orthe people using them).QuoteI've thought about DF elves a bit lately and I think it's more their style to be really good with natural poisons
Interestingly enough many of the greatest poisons on earth have been artificial for both their availability and their wide area of use. While some civilisations made use of poison they never quite had enough to field a certain number of poison soldiers with potent poisoned weapons.
I am actually quite frustrated by the Elves' mysterous survival skills that betray all logic and reason. Sponsoring HUGE populations on essentially nothing except possibly hunting. Despite being a "Retreat" they don't migrate either.
So while I have no problem with them getting access to poisons from their poisonous friends (assuming they live in an area with poisonous plants and animals), I don't want magical poison gathering tricks unless they ARE outright magical.
Eh. DF flora & fauna is already heavily fantastic. I don't have a problem with elves harvesting natural poisons. Besides, all the poisons in the game currently are creature extracts, though dwarves ought to be able to mine stuff like arsenic if poisons become a real part of the game. As far as scale of use goes, the relationship between the number of entities DF works with and the population of the real world in the ancient/medieval era is... super wide open to interpretation.
Elves are weirdly dominant in world-gen right now but that stuff changes wildly from version to version, I'm not getting hung up on that just yet.
What's an army in DF? Like 40 people. Is that a metaphorical stand-in for 4000 people or does that mean 40 people? All in the mind of the player.I always assume that those are highly trained units of operatives fighting each other.
That, and once civs get bigger I start discovering battles with thousands on one side and maybe two or three survivors on the other. And the two or three WIN. Despite being DEAD. I think that I'm not mixing events.
(Of course, if I was one of a handful of soldiers fighting a thousand, I'd surrender. But then, I wouldn't wall myself into the caverns or charge into a siege of war elephants or furies or whatever without my buddies-at-arms just because they are there.)
Alright. Mithril. Bad idea. I get it. Sorry about that. But I would really like to see some use for Cobalite and different metal colors (without modding it in: that's the point of the "suggestions" page).I put mithril in the same boat as hobbits: Good idea, but needs less Tolkein and more difference between it and elves/adamantine.
Personally, since I played D&D for years before finding out about DF, I think adamantine would be normal-metal-weight but sharp and REALLY hard, while mithril would be light and maybe a bit sharper, but not really harder. Of course, neither would be blue, and anyways I don't expect this idea to be taken, but I think it would be cool if there were different super-metals for different purposes. A sharp, red one for blades, a light, white one for armor/shields/other stuff that weight is the only notable factor for, a dense, green (?) one for hammers and maces, and a yellow, extra-valuable one that is crap for armor and weapons but like X1,000 for value and effectively boosts the smith's skills.
. That doesn't show enough frustration at myself.