April 23, 2024: Dwarf Fortress 50.13 has been released.
News: February 3, 2024: The February '24 Report is up.
News: February 4, 2021: Dwarf Fortress Talk #28 has been posted.
News: November 21, 2018: A new Threetoe story has been posted.
Forum Guidelines
It's silly to talk about balance for dwarves when we haven't even gotten the complete the army arc yet, or more detailed behavior for megabeasts, or magic (which, recall, dwarves will usually be on the receiving end of.) Those are the things dwarves need to be balanced against.
Imagine if Toady had wasted time balancing the 2d version (as many people in the forum suggested back then.) It would have all gone to waste, since things changed so completely. The game still isn't done in several vital ways, so it can still change and negate any balance suggestions we're making here... balance should simply not be a consideration except in the most absolutely broad areas (e.g. "don't give dwarves the ability to shoot lasers from their eyes.")
Even aside from that, though, I strongly and completely disagree with all the suggestions made here. Contrary to what is suggested, I do not think these things would actually make the game harder, overall; in fact, the importance of 'high-value' dwarves is what lends much of the game's difficulty right now. Whether they use super-dwarves or not, fortresses rarely die to external attackers (I almost never depend on my dwarves to fight); but they do fall apart when a high-value dwarf cracks.
The game is all about epic works of art and legendary warriors. It's central to what Dwarf Fortress is. I would say that having legendary dwarves in the game world (people who can accomplish great things and, conversely, destroy your whole fortress in a tantrum) is, in fact, more important than having a balanced game, because without them it just isn't Dwarf Fortress anymore.
(I also think that the original post completely misses what is unbalancing about the game at the moment. The strength of individual dwarves isn't a big deal; the ease with which food can be produced and enemy forces totally negated by fortress design are big balance issues. I simply do not see the points this thread is focusing on as being major balance concerns compared to food, fortress design, and things like that.)
[ May 30, 2008: Message edited by: Aquillion ]
quote:
Originally posted by Torak:
<STRONG>Sure it was uncalled for, but im not going to tolerate with someone who says "This game is in ASCII, so I wont play it until it gets graphics."</STRONG>
Regarding this idea, though... well, on one hand, it would attract more people to Dwarf Fortress, which I think is a good thing. Dwarf Fortress is a good game, and we all want more people playing it, whether we agree with them on the look and interface or not.
...on the other hand, the biggest advantage of a more fancy interface to Dwarf Fortress would be the increased amount of information that the screen could show clearly. With more detailed graphics, things like 3D environments, objects in clouds or underwater, large numbers of objects in the same place, 'special' effects, water/liquid depth, and so on could all be shown much more clearly. Very minor details could be used to influence the display, showing details like quality to the player easily at glance.
Hey, that all sounds good, right? But there's a catch... several catches, really. All that will require support from Toady. It would have implications for designs, for game balance, for the way the underlying 'interface system' is designed, for what information the game tracks and reports at all... you get the idea. Having an interface that Toady isn't really involved in eliminates many of the benefits. It also splits the community; suddenly, people are barely talking the same language, making requests, suggestions, and bug reports based on an entirely different-looking game that shows information differently... you get the idea.
I'm not sure it would be a bad thing; it might be worth trying. But I'd sort of rather wait for a far-future version of the game where Toady designs a new interface himself, even if that's years and decades away when everything else is complete.
...the irrigation bit is the hardest, since there's no way the AI is going to tell that lever X is the floodgates. So that would probably need to be kludged. But everything else is pretty simple.
Does time pass in the fortress while you're out adventuring? If it's frozen in time, that causes problems. What happens if your adventurer wanders into the fortress? What if they interact with something that relates to the fortress (remember, eventually armies and merchants will exist out there in the real world.) You could make an adventure, kill an entire army, then go back to fortress mode and no time would have passed.
While if time does pass, how is it handled? Can fortresses be self-sufficient? Can the game even handle managing that many dwarves without a player overseeing it? The first time anyone has a tantrum, everything could easily fall apart... not to mention demands, new arrivals....
First, dwarves could get them mended. This would make sense for anything high-quality. Dwarves could also attempt to mend their own clothes if they can't afford replacements, or if they're skilled at mending.
Second, they could be converted to rags through a job at a workshop. Rags could then be used to create low-quality ragcloth, which can be used to make anything you make out of cloth (so you could have ragcloth bags, say). At least two pieces of rags would be needed to make one piece of ragcloth, so you wouldn't get an infinitely reusable cloth supply this way.
Rags could also be used in cleaning jobs to speed up cleaning and make it more efficient.
[ December 25, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ]
quote:The problem with this (and all other suggestions for alternate ash sources) is that in Dwarf Fortress, all the real uses for ash involve using it as a source of potassium. Potassium is found in large amounts in wood ashes (used in the lye/potash/pearlash chain), but isn't there in ash from, say, chunks. Technically, you even need a specific kind of wood, but Dwarf Fortress is forgiving on this point...
Originally posted by Captain Failmore:
<STRONG>Personally, I think furnaces should use more than just wood to produce ashes. Any and all organic waste in addition to plant material should be usable in a furnace.</STRONG>
A distinction could be made between types of ash, but what's the point? There's no use for ash except creating lye/potash/pearlash, and that requires wood ash specifically.
Using it as bait for traps or composting it is a neat idea. (I think we'd need a general 'compost' stockpile where all sorts of organic things can be brought to rot into fertilizer. The refuse stockpile already sort of works this way, except that it doesn't produce fertilizer...)
Another idea: A 'sausage' option at the butcher's shop, where they take chunks of meat (as well as slightly damaged, worn, or spoiled meat, plus dead vermin corpses) and turn it into edible sausage. Not something every race could eat, but hey, dwarves are tough.
[ December 25, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ]
