Bay 12 Games Forum

Could the necromancer be killed if we sent out some warriors to try to get him?

I was wondering if you were planning to make a save of this 'game' available?  Others could also work on it.  One person testing out Dwarf eugenics is interesting.  Many people working on it and comparing notes is epic.

Do you plan to have one goal?  Super-Dwarfs?   Or many goals?  Dwarfs bred for mining, Dwarfs bred for war, Dwarfs bred for hauling?

I am suggesting Smart Doors - instead of locking them so no pets or no Dwarfs may use them I am thinking that maybe making doors that can allow or prohibit certain Dwarfs, either by name or maybe even jobs.  For example only allowing Miners, or certain Miners, into a mining region.  I would suggest this for two reasons -

1.  While I find barrows useful for a Red Alert kind of command, pulling everybody but the military into the Fortress's lower levels I would like to have some detailed control over traffic within the Fortress.  I don't mind my medical staff hauling stones in the living levels if it helps in building proper walls, floors, and roofs.  But I don't want them working in the deep, dark, a 100 levels down, mines.  Hauling gives them something to do - but I want their jobs to be short and I want them near the medical centers.  In order for barrows to work you have to adjust them as the Fortress grows which could be a tad confusing if you have overlapping ones.  With smart doors you would just have to slam in a few more or remove them on the needs of the Fortress, or edit those that you already have.

2.  Many players are starting to think about eugenics, breeding, and the whole 'Time Machine' split idea - making one race into two - and the use of doors to help split or at less decrease the chances of certain types of Dwarfs marrying would allow for more control over such 'projects' of Dwarf !!SCIENCE!!.

For example, allowing them to share the same stockpiles but using doors on the edge of the storage chambers to make sure they don't enter the other groups' living areas, dining areas, and work spaces would help greatly without having to mess with tracks, barrows, and pits.   We could, in fact, design areas for the breeding of miners, surface workers, nobles, and so on.  Making not just a class system with a slum area but a caste* system such as ants have.

Let us say your miners, or underground workers, enter from the west doors.  You can make it so only THEY can use that door.  And the east doors is used only by those coming from the surface or sub-surface society.  So they would not socialize with each other, share bedrooms, or even idle.  They would just run into each other during their work hours.   Of course, this would require more than one functioning Meeting Hall - I assume that would not be a problem.  They would both have access to the stone, wood, finished products, food, animal products, but have their own workshops (depending on their skills), so on.

Even without a advanced DNA system those underground and those near/on the surface would develop certain traits - like how they react to the sun. 

Children could be assigned to certain bedrooms in certain regions depending on their stats, and the wishes of the player.  Once they become an adult their skills could be adjusted to fit the society they will now live in.  What a Brave New world!

* Not sure if they has a 'e' or not.

Fill the passageways with traps.  Also blunt weapons and bolts work very well against zombies.   Fight to the last Dwarf!

I think when I take over I'm going to be fearful of touching a lever. 

Being a player of Rome: Total War and a person with a deep love of history I am wondering about such things as -

Flaming arrows for the archers?

Exploding barrels and/or flaming missiles for the catapults and/or ballistae?  A use for all the worn out coats, vests, and pants?  Oil soaked rag balls?

The use of a bee hive as a form of ammo for the catapults?  (oh the horror!)

Using goblin parts, from the last siege, as ammo for firing onto the next goblin army?  Or goblins, in return, firing the heads and body parts of Dwarfs they captured outside the walls into the Fortress?

Hot oil poured down from the towers from/or above the gates? OK, pouring hot ruck nut oil onto them would more likely annoy then kill but still....maybe used bath water?

And when would Goblins get rams?  Or trained elephants to ram gates or push over walls that may be made out of timber?  Or maybe setting it on fire? That last tactic was one I started to worry about a lot in my last long-lived game.  Of course fire and elephants can backfire on the battlefield.  A good wind going the wrong way...

Siege towers for firing into the Fortress or building one next to the wall to drop a drawbridge on it?  (If the players were leading Dwarf armies against goblin fortresses they would likely find a way to do that last one).

And of course, sapping.  Once again, a player can easily do this.  I would love to see a Goblin (or more like a human/elf) army try it.

I think many of these have been talked about before - I did do a search - but not all together.  I felt it better to post a combination vs. replying to a dozen different posts. 

(Sorry, been watching the Lord of the Rings movies again....)

The one thing I am really interested in and the one thing I don't think I have found - is that a siege can hurt both sides.  Those trapped in the Fortress can run out of food but the army outside is trapped by the very siege it has launched.  It needs food to be shipped in to feed the soldiers doing nothing but waiting.  Do the goblin, elf, or human armies get hungry, thirsty, or annoyed by long 'patrol-duty' when no combat is happening?  Is there programming that gives the invading armies their own problems?  Which grow bigger over the length of the siege? 

I would suggest that a army invading the region would end up slowly starving to death without proper back up.  And I don't see that kind of supply system being very effective in the time period suggested by the setting.  At least not for Goblin armies.  In this way, Goblin sieges may become less threatening.  On the other hand, it may allow Elf and Human foes to stay around longer, maybe even years, making them a much bigger threat.

Just a few suggestions - I am not sure about the code.