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[ExecratedDwarf]

I was thinking along those lines too. You would also have to give up control of designating each square for digging in favor of instead designating an entire room. Once Toady has finalized dwarf sites this would be fairly straight forward. You could choose to build a forge workshop and it would create a ghost of the entire thing: the area to be dug out, where in that area the building will go, maybe a stockpile. Then you can move it where you want it, or let the appointed overseer decide. It would be awesome to be able to almost custom civilizations to embark from. And you could build the civ, then embark from it and build an awesome fortress, and then go into adventure mode to explore all of it.

And where is the OP, I wanna hear his thoughts on how we've changed his vision.

[Funburns]

Abstracting any of the game takes away the persistent detail which makes for amusing and unexpected situations. Every mechanical project players have created is an emergent design. There was a time before someone discovered water reactors; every frequently used room design or fortress optimization is also a result of players tinkering with routing and game mechanics until something useful was found.

Even preset room blueprints have issues. If the game can only abstract the behaviors of rooms on preset blueprints, would all rooms need to be preset to be properly simulated? At what point does the game have to become more like a cross between SimCity and The Sims instead of being mostly a physics simulator with fluidly defined zones and complex dwarf societies, as it is today?

It seems to me that there is no answer to any of this that doesn't remove something important about the game's spirit. The best solution is to wait for better computers in the future, and the eventual refactoring of enough code to allow for larger embark sizes.

Toady seems to be planning an inverted version of this suggestion with hill dwarves and army movements, though. The embark zone would remain fully simulated while the rest of the world starts being interacted with symbolically, with enough detail to make the world seamless in most significant ways except being able to flood the continent with lava... though we can hope!

[ExecratedDwarf]

With the idea of using this as a basis for a new game mode, there wouldn't be major issues with how the world is simulated. Just as in adventure mode time passes differently than fortress mode, so it could pass differently in this mode.

[Trebor1503]

A similar thought has occured to me, but applied differently. What if on the "Tab" screen there were 4 additional options; Expand map one tile North: Expand map one tile South: Expand map one tile East: Expand map one tile West:

This way you could start a 3x3 and then make it larger if you wanted. There have been times I wished the map were just a little bigger for something I planned. Or how about it you "conquer" your map, set all yor defenses just as yuou like then, then wish to widen your area to add a layer of complextity. Turing your 3x3 into a 5x5 would be just the ticket.

[GreatWyrmGold]

With the idea of using this as a basis for a new game mode, there wouldn't be major issues with how the world is simulated. Just as in adventure mode time passes differently than fortress mode, so it could pass differently in this mode.

If it was a new mode, sure. If it was Fortress Mode, it would still be an issue.

A similar thought has occured to me, but applied differently. What if on the "Tab" screen there were 4 additional options; Expand map one tile North: Expand map one tile South: Expand map one tile East: Expand map one tile West:

This way you could start a 3x3 and then make it larger if you wanted. There have been times I wished the map were just a little bigger for something I planned. Or how about it you "conquer" your map, set all yor defenses just as yuou like then, then wish to widen your area to add a layer of complextity. Turing your 3x3 into a 5x5 would be just the ticket.

Could be neat, but I think that it should wait for more optimization/better computers.

[Revanchist]

A similar thought has occured to me, but applied differently. What if on the "Tab" screen there were 4 additional options; Expand map one tile North: Expand map one tile South: Expand map one tile East: Expand map one tile West:

This way you could start a 3x3 and then make it larger if you wanted. There have been times I wished the map were just a little bigger for something I planned. Or how about it you "conquer" your map, set all yor defenses just as yuou like then, then wish to widen your area to add a layer of complextity. Turing your 3x3 into a 5x5 would be just the ticket.

Would that be in (C)ivilizations?

[Trebor1503]

GWG... my computer will run a 5x5 map ok (as long as there is not too much water/magma), but if I knew I could eventually get to a 5x5 there would be little reason to start there. I could run the first 5-7 hours optimized on a smaller map until I was ready to use more. It is just a wish is all, I can keep starting with 5x5 or 4x4 for now.

[helmacon]

I would just like to point out that many of the problems discussed earlier are the same faced when retiring a fortress, as you are essentially abstracting a custom site. Toaday has talked about doing that before, so that would solve some of the problems.   

[GreatWyrmGold]

Not all. *cough* whatifyourunhalfafortressatonce */cough*

[helmacon]

i said some