Bay 12 Games Forum

Do you really think this is the place to have an inflammatory debate on religion?

No, Its not.

Thanks, there's a time and place for everything and a religious discussion in this place simply isn't prudent, even if you have to grit your teeth or chuckle to yourself like I do in the american south every day.

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What concerns me is the number of people suggesting medication for a severe chemical depression. Most depressions are caused by, much like in this case, the world simply taking a giant shit on you. Medication can certainly help, and in this case would have been appropriate, but the fact of the matter is that most people in an accute major depressive episode (lasting no longer than six months) will come out on their own with or without meds, the meds just, in some cases, can make the depression easier to deal with for the time when you have it. However the depression almost always ends when the problems are resolved as we've seen here. If it doesn't, funny enough, meds are LESS likely to work to such a degree that only 30% of chronic depressions respond to medications. But now I'm getting off-topic, I just wanted to say that it's always better to solve your problems (talking with friends, family, and internet forum or a trained professional can help you cope if the problem isn't solvable in the near future) than to rely on drugs in case this ever happens again.
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Anyway, I'm glad things are working out somewhat. I know you probably don't want to hear this, but you might just want to not talk to her for a few weeks and get together for lunch every now and again to stay in touch. This way you're backing off enough to keep the boyfriend content, but still maintaining the friendship until he's okay with you. Helping him move his stuff in would also be an option since I'm sure if you introduced yourself, smiled and shook his hand without any ill-will he'd be cooler with you and your friend spending time together.

I think the real question is whether or not there IS ill-will toward him. Do you want to be in his place with this girl? If so, are you unintentionally making things awkward or more difficult for her by having these feelings for her? Don't sit around and wait for things to fall apart, because you might be trying to cause it without meaning to. However never overestimate your influence on people. The human mind has a tendency to have the world revolve around it, and thus it tries to make everything out to be its own doing. Perhaps it wasn't your prayer that brought her to live near you, maybe it was her own choice due to some of the same reasons that you live there.


Regardless of your situation don't dawdle on it too much. There's a whole lot of life left for ya and it doesn't all revolve around right now. Take a deep breath and smile, because as damn cheesy as it sounds research actually has shown that smiling makes you feel a little happier.

The iron will still cut through armor better, but the bone sword will hit more often and hit solidly. I'm not sure what the difference in tissue damage would be, so I can't say whether or not the bone sword would be able to cut limbs off (due to having to cut through bone WITH bone, which would be difficult.) All in all I'd stay with the iron, since if you're fighting anything with armor it's much better.

I generally tend to just give bone weapons as uniforms to honorable positions in the fort, or I make a job title of "priest to armok" and have him perform ritual executions in my arena. It may be generally useless, but that doesn't mean you can't get creative with it.

Alternatively if you put it in a weapon trap and place it in the dining room or a noble's room it'll act the same as an artifact piece of furniture, boosting value and giving happy thoughts.

I liked the magic in Slaves to Armok 1 but things like runes, favor, rivalries between gods, being able to kill a god could be nice.

OP didn't suggest a list of spells. He suggested a way to make spells balanced and fun.

Huh... there's no capital F and the word gruesome was horribly misspelled.

In all seriousness though I see the magic system as being far more complex than that. I can see your system as being one possibility in the future, however if the game follows through with what's intended that will only be one possibility. Runes could be replaced with magic words, hand symbols, a prayer, or heavy concentration. Power could be drawn from gods, planes of existence, life force, or thin air. Misfired magic could either go into affecting something close to you, distorting the spell, casting another you already know, or simply fizzle out and do nothing.

With that said your idea does sound interesting, but I'd also like to see some more naturalistic magic. Elves growing houses from trees, making wood as sharp as steel, or speaking with animals. Having visions, spiritual quests, or something to that effect would be pretty interesting, especially if they had actual effects on gameplay. For instance you get killed by spirit snakes in your dream and afterward you're plagued by snakes wherever you go, or perhaps your liar skill falls.

All in all I think there are many things other than fireballs and ice spikes that comprise magic, and a rigid system would have a hard time successfully representing all of them. Plus, it wouldn't be dwarf fortress if a vampire, cursed by the gods, wearing jewelery made from each of his five thousand kills, didn't live in a castle served by faries from the dimension of friendship to which there is a happy, rainbow colored portal just behind his throne.

I like the addition, but there should be some kind of check during feeding to see if the dwarf is strong enough, fast enough, or aware enough to stop the feeding attempt. I find it kind of strange that my legendary axedwarf, that could at this point probably snap a bronze colossus's neck, can't push a child off of them.

I do support the addition of burrow features though. Perhaps an "Exclusion burrow" that you designate to allow people into it much like a normal burrow, but that also prevents anyone else from entering. Maybe this could be done by making assigned rooms "private" and having them only allow the assigned dwarf and his friends/family. Granted I'm guessing once the economy's back in and criminals start stealing things a "tresspassing" crime will come about and make vampires harder to get. Perhaps the fortress guard will actually patrol the halls and listen for screaming victims.

All in all they're a little unpolished right now, but I think that they have great potential. They're neat though, and only a hassle if you want them to be. I do have to ask, what's all this with mucking about in text files? There's an advanced worldgen parameters screen integrated in the game with the vampire option included...

While this might be true, I noticed something startling when testing the effectiveness of two handed swords wielded one handed vs multigrasp. While doing this I ran a side test to see what type of shield would be best, iron or featherwood. So I pit two teams against each other, one with iron shields vs the other with featherwood shields. The iron team lost over multiple trials.

Pretty much what it wound up being was that the added weight of the iron made the dwarfs wielding it much slower. So if you plan to keep your marksdwarves out of combat, or not train them in using hammers, it would be just as effective to have faster dwarves with wooden/bone crossbows. Or so it seems to me.

Haven't had tantrums except in cases where a dwarf was the only one left, driven mad by every other dwarf dying, and also his legs were missing.

Have I said I love this game? Because I love this game. I couldn't stop laughing at how that was just tacked on like it was a small, almost overlooked triviality.

Anyhow, masterwork platinum chains for prisons work wonders for stopping tantrum spirals if there's just a few people mad about family members dying. Make sure you have a few dwarves idling to feed them and everything should work out.

Not enough coffers? What do you think all those 10 dorfbuck larch chests are for? I generally buy every cheap chest I can purely for use in the hospital, while all the decent stonework coffers go into bedrooms.

Also, how many applications is a single bag of gypsum plaster good for? I usually ask for some from the caravan and buy 6 or so, but I'm not entirely how often I should renew my stocks.

Huh... I usually just built temples to Armok since they're the only structure you can really plan ahead of time in a randomly generated world. These usually consist of a small altar in the middle of my arena on a gold constructed, raised platform with only one access ramp.

Actual DWARVES though rarely get projects. But those who do I guess the order goes:

1) Adventurers (If dwarven, I don't make altars to humans/elves)
2) The best fighters in the military, usually nicknamed after their fighting style/personality
             - Made a huge above-ground temple to "Thunder" and "Lightning", a duo of a hammerdwarf in full steel with
               a silver warhammer and a swordsdwarf in bone and leather. Built a steel lightning rod over their tombs.
3) The mayor/bookkeeper/manager/everything. I usually turn off all labors for him so he can get his jobs done, but once he gets high levels in all of his skills he tends to have a lot of free time. Thus whenever there's a critical need of something he's the one to do it. After many years he becomes at least adept at most crafting skills, masonry, carpentry, and sometimes even fighting. He also pulls levers, so he's bound to avert a major crises at least once in the history of a fort, earning himself a place among the great. Plus, it's easier to do great things for the guy who already HAS the best bedroom, less work =p
4) Legendary weapon/armorsmiths.
5) Blacksmiths/metalsmiths/masons that provide for the entire fort
6) Sole survivors of peasant rushes. It's only worked once, but that little bugger got himself a private palace.