Bay 12 Games Forum

In my past three long term forts, none of them have gotten a single hillock to spawn near my fort.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I specifically chose dwarf civs that had ample populations, no wars, embarked decently close to the home mountain. But it just never happens. All I got was a bunch of economically linked elven and goblin sites in the first two years of the fort - and now it's gone all quiet.

I'm a duke without proper holdings.

I'm just wondering if there's some hardcap on sites? I tend to run small worlds, so I'm not sure if that influences anything.

Thieves are a pretty trivial threat. They'll 'sneak' up into your fort's entrance and likely be spotted by some random citizen, sending them fleeing in terror. The coming artifact release will likely only bring more useless thieves to a player's fort, presenting no issue or challenge.

So in addition to the current very open thieves (who will likely see improvements someday), I propose thieves that impersonate as fortress visitors. The coming release already gives NPCs the ability to create fake historical identities, so the system could be expanded into this fairly easily I'd imagine. A goblin thief could impersonate as a bard, walk right into the fort, maybe hang around the tavern for a while before going out and trying to find some valuables. If you just leave expensive items lying around on the stockpile ground, it'd be pretty trivial for the impostor to walk up and take it.

The issue of course comes with how the player is supposed to counteract these sort of thieves. For a justice system tie-in, I imagine that suspicious dwarves could report shady characters to the sheriff/guard captain (whether they are actually thieves or not), and possible actions could be made at one's discretion. Valuables behind locked doors that had some eyes on it (like guards, or even just passing dwarves) would be the most secure method of keeping your valuables safe. Of course, locked doors deep in a fort that don't see a lot of traffic should be lock pickable by thieves, with the consequences that come with being caught in such an act.

However, if the impostor can be spotted as a thief the moment they start walking around with the stolen good, then they'll suffer from the same issue as thieves right now - being easily stopped if your fort has any sort of internal traffic. So maybe some ability to conceal smaller artifacts, like crafts? More perceptive dwarves and guards should still be able to spot them. Larger items would likely be safe if they're secured in anyway.

Right now, I feel that visitors present this pretty odd dichotomy. Players are supposed to try their best to build up these secure fortresses, but any bard or scholar can just walk right in, sometimes deep into the fortress without issue or consequence. With impostor visitors, there'd be more of an incentive to make visitor-only locations that are separated from the fort proper - making it more difficult for a thief to just walk in under the player's nose without being suspicious. Your fortress would actually have some issues if it was just a revolving door where anyone could walk in. The justice system would get some more utility. By most importantly, thieves would actually have a fighting chance instead of being a total non-issue.

So, a while ago the combat AI gained the ability to remove helmets from their opponents if they found that their weapon wasn't able penetrate their head armor. This was done to prevent a solider from just constantly beating fruitlessly at a prone opponent with their iron axe just because the opponent happened to be wearing a steel helmet. Makes sense.

An issue arises from shields however. If the attacking solider in question is wielding a shield, they aren't considered to have a free grasp to perform the helmet removing action - leading to the aforementioned useless wailing situation. And now that the average solider properly wears all their gear, this issue is even more exasperated. The helmet removing action basically never occurs naturally.

So I propose that either shields aren't considered when the game is looking for a grasp to perform the action, or the AI just sheaths the shield to perform the action. Just something so a solider with a shield can actually properly take out their opponent with their weapon as intended.

How does it work exactly?

The beekeeper successfully installed 5 artificial hives with colonies (currently ranging from 10k to 15k in population), and I'm assuming once a colony is ready to split is the same time it'll be harvestable. But will the colony naturally grow on its own, or is the beekeeper supposed to continually populate the colony manually?

Spoilers below, be warned




In previous 3D version of DF, adamantine was an actual rare material found only in select mountain and volcanic biomes. Nowadays, literally every map tile has a bit of adamantine. It kinda takes away the magic and triumphant of the discovery when it's guaranteed no matter what. Not to mention we now have all those massive, far reaching dwarven sites that go pretty deep into the earth. And yet no one until your fort has ever bothered to utilize this super metal that's literally everywhere.

I say we make adamtine more a rarity again. Not necessarily as rare as it used to be, or as biome restricted - but still rarer than it currently stands. Just so it can get some of its wonder back. Discovering adamantine should be a great reward for only the most lucky and daring - not a routine thing. 

Has anyone got some way to counter these?

In my most recent fort, I lost about 20 dwarves just now to a disagreement caused by some poet. It escalated into a fully fledged loyalty cascade that ripped the fort in half.

Is there some way I can prevent or mitigate the damages caused by disagreements?

So we finally have proper adventure mode taverns...

But the poor hill dwarves are still making due with their fake taverns!

This issue needs to be rectified obviously. Drinking mounds should act as taverns for the hillocks. And why don't we find drunks in proper taverns? There really should be a few at least for most taverns.