Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: HiEv on June 09, 2012, 07:43:48 pm

Bookkeeping requires hands.  From the Bookkeeper wiki entry:

Quote from: Wiki

A dwarf cannot update stockpile records if he loses his ability to grasp, as dwarven mathematics revolves around counting on one's fingers.

Thanks for correcting me, wouldn't want misinformation to be spread around.

Bedides, right now, challenge is not mechanics, but user interface - once that is fixed, mechanics can be tuned and most inapropriate exploits fixed. But you need to make people stop battling UI before you can make then battle goblins.

Main problem with UIs is this: Sheer amount of stuff. And it gets worse with every release because new creatures are being added (trees, minerals, item types ...). This ever increases screen clutter. Golden medal goes to interface for bringing items to depot - it is the one part that handles required sorting and filtering well. Contrast with Grime medal for actual trade interface which has nothing of that sort, yet is closely related.

It is hard to find items and creatures.

Secondary problem is organization. Menus show their history of commands being added. New features are not incorporated to existing structure, but being added. Why is there z-animals menu when there is u-animals menu which can both be merged? both are very late adition or had recent makeover.

It is hard to find commands to do something with items and creatures you had trouble finding.

Tertiary problem are inconsistencies. Same actions often have different commands. Similar concepts completelly different implementations.

If you found what to do and how to do it, you can't apply that to ther parts of game.

I wonder why toady never simply took month or two to develop stable and robust widged library - "item list", "being list"

For me? The military screen. That thing is utterly ridiculous. The menu at my local chili joint makes more sense, and they had to actually hire someone to explain it as people came in.
For new players, the WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO ARGH factor. Even if you manage to gen a world, the interface isn't conducive to learning. The fact that when I found the "?" menu it didn't tell me jack shit didn't help much either.
Everything else I like though.

Similar to some of these suggestions, I'm having a blast right now playing a two-dwarf fort.  After many hours of play the fort is 12 years old, has a population of 7 (five children), and a value of just over 50,000*.   I have learned a lot about the game this way that I never would have by playing normally, because I've had a lot more time to pay attention to what is happening.  For example, my "military" is a single marksdwarf who practices at the archery range constantly.  I've never been able to figure out how to get marksdwarves to practice regularly before, but now I understand the military screens well.  (By the way, you can put marksdwarves in a squad, set their alert status to "inactive", and they will go about all their normal duties as if they were a civilian and still practice at the archery range every day.). I have also learned how often a dwarf eats and drinks, how long they sleep, how often they go on break, how long their clothes last and a million other things that I never learned in 2 years playing this game because I was too busy fighting one fire or another to pay attention to any single dwarf.

So if you want a longer early game, I highly suggest turning off your migrants and letting your fort grow by reproduction instead.  It's a different experience.