Bay 12 Games Forum

I seem to have encountered a bug... there's an up stair from the second floor to the third floor of the prison, but it puts you inside of a wall. You can move to normal floor space from there, but you can't go back--and there's no down stair anywhere on the third floor. Basically, you can get up to death row but not leave, so not only do prison breaks not work but your infiltrator is stuck.

I think this sort of reform is very logical and would tie in wonderfully with economic changes slated to go with the caravan arc. After all, human town A is going to have different supply and demand than human town B, even if they're of the same civilization (let alone the same race).

In the case of dwarf settlements, it offers an interesting tie-in to politics. Perhaps you could "steal" the allegiance of a nearby rival fort's hill dwarves with generous trading? If they belong to a different civilization, it could be cause for dwarf-on-dwarf war.

Being that "reverse discrimination" is a modeled issue, I'd say that it's moderate laws that should be colorblind. True liberal laws would make race and ethnicity more important to society, where traditionally oppressed groups fill the ranks of the courts, media, etc. to a greater extent than their relative population would suggest. If possible, perhaps some such people should get a heart bonus, but a penalty to the skills and attributes of their profession (modelling affirmative action)?

I think trade routes are essential to a proper economic system because without it, you can't properly model supply and demand--or even availability of items. With trade routes also comes the necessity of post-world-gen map-level effects, especially by the player.

For example, if you live in an evil biome, the route to you should have a high "path cost" for traders--caravans will take a wide berth around your fortress unless they expect enough profit out of you that they are willing to hire protection. You would have trouble in the early years, being able to only get caravans subsidized by the Mountainhome, but do well once you prosper (and word gets out). This would also bring in an aspect of civ politics, where not keeping your liege happy means dwarven caravans are not subsidized.

Similarly, lets say a fortress is behind a river. Caravans can take a route around the river, but that too will have a high pathing cost. If you embark on the river and build a bridge, that should dramatically lower the pathing cost to all fortress behind the river. But if you charge a high toll on passing caravans for use of the bridge, then caravans will consider whether it will be profitable to make the journey.

It's not strictly necessary for players to be able to make map-level changes like bridges for this to work, but it would be quite annoying if player trade was at the mercy of the dwarf civilization AI.

I think the existing teacher-apprentice relationship is very flavorful, and any expansion of necromancy should probably be based on that. It would be enjoyable if, for example, your fortress defeats the forces of an invading necromancer (but does not kill him) and then the necromancer encourages his teacher or his apprentice to attack your fortress, even if their towers are not ordinarily within range.

Well, being that the new update will introduce hostility levels (though I'm not sure that's implemented for fortress mode), it may be more straightforward for dwarves to act defensively (being that they are always on the defense) and merely to respond to the enemy's stance--capturing them if they surrender. Though I suppose a capture order could be useful for caravans and others who do not start out hostile. Makes me wonder if dwarven morality raws have something to say about killing prisoners.

As far as I'm aware, it is not planned for map-level armies to respect post-generation structures. So if you make a fort on an ocean and build a bridge to an island, or wall of a peninsula as you are suggesting, armies will not travel over the bridge nor will they be blocked by the wall. Because trade has been changed to a limited extent, I'm not sure building new trade networks will have a big impact.

The most important thing right now is reclamation of lost sites and site ownership change. This means monarchs will pass on their position or can lose it to a challenger, cities can be conquered or liberated, etc., and an abandoned fort might be reclaimed by the dwarf civilization without player involvement.