Bay 12 Games Forum

"I have dreams father, dreams of blood and sand; of Dwarf, Man, Elf and Orc blended into a frantic orgy of death. I dream of the roar of the crowd as souls leap free of their mortal coils. I feel the blood gushing from fountains of corpses, and flowing like a river to cleanse us all. Pray tell me, holy one, what do these visions mean?" I, Amyclas Aigre knelt by the steps of the altar, lifting my hands to offer a sacrifice of slave's blood in a golden bowl as I besought the priest who sat on the throne of skulls as to the meaning of his visions.

"You have seen Amrok, my son!" Boomed a throaty resonating rumble from behind a skull mask. He raised his arms, lifting a scepter of bone, and waved them about proclaiming, "You are chosen." There is a long dramatic pause laced with tension scented with the promise of violence. "Your hands will forge beings, beast and stone into a maelstrom of pain. Build an Arena worthy of Amrok."

I bowed low at the revelation of oracle, and let the weight of the task sink in. I was but a humble soldier, without great wealth or renown, doing my part to appease the Blood God by the humble strokes of my axe and wounds of my body. But now Amrok had revealed a new destiny for me, that I will build his arena. I steeled myself to the task and made my way to the money lenders.

I borrowed a small fortune as capital, issued in notes equal to one million ☼. Violence is a steady employer, and the bankers were easily persuaded to support my enterprise. Next, I went to the masons guild to have them draw up plans and perform the construction of my new ludus. I sent my personal slaves out across the empire to procure weapon masters to train the gladiators and stocks of slaves to provide the blood that would quench the thirst of the crowd and appease Amrok.

Game Mechanics and arena testing notes:
The game is played using arena mode. We manage a Ludus which houses and trains gladiators for the arena.
Our sentient gladiators are dwarves (volunteers and those rounded up from the "surplus population"), elves and humans. Size deviations are disabled for these three races. All other races and creatures count as beasts.

Gladiators can own their own equipment, and have personal wealth from which to buy more equipment or better sustenance and shelter, all from their Ludus, of course. Better food and rooms give bonuses to experience gained during training. Proven gladiators can be paid wages and awarded bounties for their appearances. Comfortable gladiators are also less likely to rebel. For all others, the fear of the ludus guards and the prospect of facing combat under-equipped will be deterrent.

Skills and experience point gain are similar to the mechanics in fortress mode.
In my first test using wooden weapons and armour, one pair of dwarf fought for 33 pages before one succumbed to having a wooden sword jammed through his skull. The victor advanced 6 ranks in swordsdwarf, 2 ranks in shield, 3 ranks in armor and 8 ranks in armor.

In a second test, I used training weapons and wooden armour. Meaningful resistance from the loser ceased in page 36 when an artery, ligament and tendon in the right forearm (the sword arm) was torn, two subsequent strikes fractured the bone and further tore the muscles and subordinate tissues, and the loser lost consciousness. The winner then spent another 60 pages beating his unconscious victim before grabbing his head and shaking it until it came off on page 96. He gained 6 ranks in sword, 3 in shield, 5 in armor 10 in fighter, along with assorted striking, dodging, biting and wrestling skills.

Actual non-lethal "sparring" shall be done in adventurer mode, with one exchange simulating one hour of training.

In ten exchanges with two dwarfs wearing wooden armor and training swords, one dwarf gained 116 sword experience, 73 shield experience, 75 armor experience, 311 fighter experience and 48 dodging experience.
Experience gained in "live-training" matches to the death that deliberately prolong fights using inferior weapons might have to be scaled down.
I think unarmed dwarves are deadlier than those armed with training or wooden weapons. Tests done with pairs of unarmed and unarmoured dwarves show a similar length of time to defeat each other as those armed with wooden equipment, averaging about 30 pages.

Switching wooden weapons for copper weapons results in short deadly matches, even with wooden armor, which proves to be somewhat effective in dampening blows.
In a test "King of the hill" match with 8 dwarves equipped with wooden armor and copper shortswords, the victor  gained only 2 ranks in sworddwarf, and 3 in fighter as well as 102 shield and 302 armor experience. "King of the Hill" may be a viable way for selecting recruits.

Gameplay:
For now, we will run one Ludus in a LP fashion. Players can be dwarfed, manned or elfed as gladiators. A new recruit will be bought and generated when someone requests to be dorfed.

Slaves and Auctorati ("volunteers") can be purchased for a base price of 1000 db.
We can buy them equipment and set them wages or food allotments. Gladiators will also buy the best food, equipment and lodging they can get with their own wages.

Skills and experience:
Lvl    Title    XP
0    Dabbling          1
1    Novice          500
2    Adequate       1100
3    Competent       1800
4    Skilled          2600
5    Proficient *       3500
6    Talented          4500
7    Adept          5600
8    Expert          6800
9    Professional       8100
10    Accomplished       9500
11    Great †          11000
12    Master          12600
13    High Master       14300
14    Grand Master       16100

Experience is from hitting things in training. (experience from combat comes in ludicrous amounts, so we won't use it.)

Food affects xp gain:
Subsistence food normal xp gain
Simple Food allows double xp gain
Fine Food allows three times xp gain
Lavish Food allows five times xp gain
Not Eating results in the loss of 1 to 100 xp per day.

Sleeping on bare communal cell floor is free and gives no bonuses
2 by 2 private rooms with beds gives 10% free xp from xp gained that day.
Multi-Roomed Suites with Bedrooms, Dining Rooms and Offices give 50% free xp from xp gained that day.

I wrote out an elaborate inventory management system, but I'm positive that it will get in the way of violence and storytelling, so its been slimmed it down.

Our simplest food is the bowl of blood. Outside of ritual use, this is usually given as a form of punishment or torture for criminals and prisoners of war. Eating this counts as simple food. It has a cost price of 1 db.

Next we have dwarvern meat loaf, which is our first staple food. This is made with assorted meat cuts and prepared organs stuffed with starches, plump helmets and garnished with various spices. This is our "Fine" food. It has a cost price of 10 db and we sell it to the men for 15 db.

Lastly with have the dwarvern black broth. This is a porridge saturated with blood, dwarvern syrup and alcohol. This counts as our Lavish food. As a blood product, it has adverse morale effects on the undisciplined and unaccustomed. But eating it turns one into a "real dwarf". Our cost price for this menu offering is 20 db and we sell it for 30 db.

Equipment costs will be almost exactly the same as their value in fortress mode, marked up for internal sale to our own gladiators.

A list of weapon grade materials used in masterwork mod can be found here: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Masterwork:Metal

Weapons and armor are mostly similar to vanilla when using native dwarf weapons. Shields come in buckler, round shield, kite shield and tower shield. (The crazier masterwork shields like enormous shields may or may not be implemented. I've got to test it first.) Armor is the same, but comes in upgraded plate armor varieties that give better coverage. We have metal chausses to go with our plate boots, so shins shouldn't be flying off too often.

I've read and reread the weapon, armor, creature and entity files, so I almost know what I'm doing when spawning monsters and exotic weapons.

Combats are seldom to the death unless stated beforehand. A referee will stop the match once it is clear that one contender can no longer continue. Accidents are expected, and sudden deaths can easily occur from decapitations, bisections, loss of limbs and organ failure. If a combatant survives, his wounds are simply patched up, and all detached extremities are reattached.

"No-Quarter" matches to the death are more popular to the crowd, result in more rewards to the Ludus and the gladiator, and will result in the permanent loss of the dead combatant.

Beast Hunts are another form of combat, sometimes held against sentient creatures and monsters like orcs and minotaurs rather than actual animals. These are always to the death.

Most melee fighters and owners of melee fighters will avoid combats with ranged fighters. Ranged weapon users can fight themselves. These tend to be fast and nasty. UristVespasian arena http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=55161.0 has locations for distance fighting that we can use for these.

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Stats Screen:
Current Finances:
600,000 (400,000 setup cost)
Debt:
1,500,000 (increases 0.5% per day, compounded.)

Communal Cell Capacity: 100
Used: 0
Single Cells: 20
Used: 0

Staff:
10 starting dwarf guards, equiped in full iron plate, kite shields, and iron battle axes. All are competent axedwarves, armor users, shield users and fighters. Their total pay is 250 a day.
We pay 1 grandmaster trainer being paid 500 a day.

Gladiator 1:
Name:
Race:
Skills:
Personal Finances:
Current lodging:
Personal Equipment:

"I will endure, to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword."



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Our First Order of business is to acquire cannon fodder meat bags recruits to train. Each recruit costs 1000. They also need to be paid, fed, washed, spanked and burped before they work, and can be adopted by players.

Each turn is one day. We have 12 hours to train with in a day.

We can arrange a combat at any time! Because our civilization is full of rich fat dwarf nobles, retired overlords and recuperating overseers with nothing better to do but pay to watch violence. Revenue mechanics are fudged (decided arbitrarily). Missio will be given to the fallen by polling the forum audience.

The next major gladiatorial event is in 7 turns. We can submit gladiators for the event.

If my rules make any sense, you can also request to start your own ludus.

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I want to make sure that my civilians are equipped with backpacks and flasks full of food and alcohol - for use on long mining expeditions. Is this possible?

Can I just leave the items lying around and hope that the civilians will pick them up? (assuming I can get mass production going)

Also, can alter the clothes on civilians? Say... I want everyone to be equipped with full multi-layered clothing for protection, any way to do this?

I'm using masterwork mod, and vanilla 34.11 LNP

I want to edit migrant waves to give me either:
A. More Migrants per waves
B. More frequent Migrant Waves
C. Migrant waves regardless of whether the civilization survives.

If I can't do C. What steps can I take to increase the survivability  of the civilization?

I want more dwarves to perform ritual sacrifices... Amrok demands it.