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Author Topic: Dark Ages Dwarves  (Read 1337 times)

Dwarf_Eater

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Dark Ages Dwarves
« on: January 04, 2013, 02:10:48 pm »

It's been pretty long ago, starting my fortress I mean.
I miss the times, when I just got wiped out in instant. I guess it was due to (un)famous Dwarf Fortress learning cliff...

Lately I thought how could we turn that "cliff" to little more dwarfy "mountain" of learning. (let's get hardcore  ;D). My suggestions will be separated into parts, which won't be necessarily dependent to each other

Overall gameplay:
I suggest making new gameplay types. We would have then:
-adventure mode
-dwarf fortress mode
-dark age fortress mode

Dark age fortress mode:
Whole world is on lowest tech level. Implementing "eras", like from Age of Empires 2, would help players to control everything. I mean players advance to next "era" would obviously mean getting access to better stuff. I thought of 2 ways of that: other races advancing along player, or separately, every one of them at different time. By advancing player would increase his own "danger level" which would trigger many interactions with other races. Like: goblins would only need danger level of 1 to think of player as a threat and attack him, and facing furious buckload of goblins, even without their simpliest mettalurgy could be devastating. I mean on fist lvl player would get only rock/wooden/leather/cloth equipment.
The idea of "eras" would allow also to restrict some races from attacking, because they see player as too dangerous to attack. So basically rush for tech advance would allow us to frighten everyone. But it would be the case only for most experienced players, which could overwhelm technically best races: try to advance only techs, and not millitary nor economically and you'll be seen by frostgiants as danger.
I would advise making "advancing" really pricey, so endgame won't be gotten by "walk in a park". It would be achieved in some kind of building, by offering stuff made in current era, or needed for stuff in next era (like gathering whole bunch of ores to experiment, and in the end inventing melting)
This gameplay would make the game more comprehensible to newcomers, by restricting the choice of buildings available on the very beggining. As well it would make it NECCESARY to use full extent of the game. Even pros would have to make it through wooden weapons, not aiming only for metals, which is just too easy now.

In later "eras" it could be possible to make better buildings:
You get the tier II buildings
You can build some new buildings as well as upgrade existing ones, up to level, when tech is enough for dwarves to work in their own room as long as they have needed stuff, as anvil and hammer.
Going after that, massive tool overhaul is needed, as chisels, pliers and much more
I'll work on tech list some time ^^


Building:
I think that it should be really much more costy. I mean making whole building from one wood log? Or one rock? Get the sh*t real.
I think that with current overavaibility of resources, especially rock, it should be MUCH more costy. How much? I mean like 10 rocks/logs at least. Along with new DF version we'll get multiple logs from one tree, so it would seem ok for me. Just making whole 3/3 building of log, which is enough only for one door is just strange. Moreover rocks could be cut into blocks, but i think that 2 blocks from one rock is enough, as rocks most of the time just lay around. btw. in current state, when rock is enough for building which is let's say 1,5/1,5/1,5 it would be possible to make 3375 rock mugs and would leave 1,36 m^3 of rock mass usable for earrings and stuff... I am surprised at theese numbers D:
Damn, I haven't played vanilla loong time. So I don't know which stuff excactly is implemented x) but adding some more advanced buildings, giving more efficient ways of crafting, forging and stuff like blast furnance from Masterwork mod. and even more to that, make it possible for better buildings to take more space not only horizontally, but also vertically. It would be neat to have great forge taking 3 elevations to build.
Moreover I think, that pipes should be more commonly used: for metalworking buildings to let smoke out fortress - each furnance/smithing object would need pipe form it location, up to surface, allowing buildings to be attached to pipe, so most efficient way of building workshops would be above or under each other. Well it would be player choice: pipes and full protection, channeling and chance to be poisoned by fumes (or even crops got destroyed), or getting fortress full of smoke <3

oh oh, and... i don't know where i should put it, so i'll pu it right here: for more hardcore wouldn't it be best to make dwarves unable to work in the dark? I know that dwarves are fearless and great and awesome, but their physiology SUGGESTS, as they HAVE eyes, that they NEED them, so living whole life underground and keeping eyesight? yup, while making masterpieces :P
It could even make me to find a way to produce candles x) and it would be cool to make oil from plants, making torches, and pools with burning oil in them *.*

Farming
Pretty much everything were thought of by NW_Kohaku and Impaler[Wrg]. Farming is pretty much one of the weakest points of DF. I'll just say that best option would be to allow "zone farming". Instead making plot, just make zone, where dwarves would sow seeds. By all means make crops  less common, and reward manufacturing food, and using harder to get plants. Just get dwarves some neat buff for eating/drinking something complex and rare. It annoys me, that even with starting resources i can feed my whole fortress and even get too much food because of fishing. Okay, no more, others said everything up till now.

I had bunch more suggestions but i have to remember them x)

but, but, but. If Toady get to read this. I don't mean I want all this implemented. I think that implementing just possibilities of doing things is enough. Modders will get the work done  :D
« Last Edit: January 04, 2013, 03:50:03 pm by Dwarf_Eater »
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Dark Ages Dwarves
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2013, 03:28:39 pm »

The Dark Ages thing is a neat idea and will probably come into play with technology in general.

The other idea is a bit stupider. No offense. Multiplayer's been suggested a lot.
Explicitly disallowing pause fixes one issue and raises another. Just imagine, say, discovering the caverns and having your dwarves digging into the cavern proper as you scramble to cancel the designations, or a forgotten beast/other cave nasty entering the hole before it can be fixed because you couldn't pause as you hit b-c-w, moved it into place, selected materials, etc. Or a goblin ambush which kills a bunch of people, including off-duty military dwarves, before you can raise the militia. Or trying to view the stats of a dwarf as it wanders around.

There's a reason most menus autopause the game.
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Dwarf_Eater

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Re: Dark Ages Dwarves
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2013, 03:40:16 pm »

yeah, i guessed it was suggested alot.
about slaughter, hey losing is fun  :D
the other thing is that would simply make people change game style. instead raising milita, they would have some dwarves mobilized, guarding in case of ambush/siege or whatsoever.
Accidentally finding cavern could be fixed with similiar thing to damped/warm stone: dwarves see the cavern, they automatically cancell designation adject to it
moreover it would just make players to stick more to "higher grounds" as (in my opinion) making entrance defence isn't so hard (against monsters) i think hardest thing would be not ambushes, not massive sieges from other races, but other player... but nevermind it would probably end in just great mayhem, as they would just try to disturb eachother.
You're right, i'll think more about other stuff ^^
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Dark Ages Dwarves
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2013, 04:45:23 pm »

about slaughter, hey losing is fun  :D
It should also be preventable.
The simple fact is, DF without pause isn't playable. If I couldn't pause, I couldn't dig more than a little, with some big, square rooms and other boring stuff. And Armok help me if something came up IRL...
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10ebbor10

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Re: Dark Ages Dwarves
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2013, 04:55:58 pm »

about slaughter, hey losing is fun  :D
It should also be preventable.
The simple fact is, DF without pause isn't playable. If I couldn't pause, I couldn't dig more than a little, with some big, square rooms and other boring stuff. And Armok help me if something came up IRL...
Yup, the difference between artificial and real dificulty. Removing pauze is similair to making the program reshuffle your keybinds every so often. Besides, it probably would require a lot of changes in the programming somewhere.

As for the tech thing idea. The idea of a tech level, and associated buildings just seems too gamey to me. A more modified, vague distinction of techs, vaguely associated with some tech tree like progression (So no real tech tree, but no progressing from wood to ademantine in 5 seconds either). However, I don't think it needs a seperate mode. Hopefully, in the future we will be able to get this by default by cutting a worldgen short.

As for the building thing, I remember there being a great suggestion once that proposed to turn workshops into zones. That way you could make a forge workshop with multiple forges, drawbenches, and whatever, all of your own design. Much more freedom, and accomplishes basically the same things.
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Dwarf_Eater

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Re: Dark Ages Dwarves
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2013, 05:22:59 pm »

@10ebbor10
As for tech idea as another gameplay - You just wrote excact reason, why it should be as other gameplay type - not everybody would prefer that, so it should be separated, optional
And for workshops as zones - yeah, great, but only for those, who know game mechanics. Implementing that whould make game even harder to comprehend for newcomers. I think that it should be also optional.
And again for tech thing i think that no artificiall tech will be necessarily needed :P just adding some items needed to be build from to buildings would be enough. eg. chisel needed for woodcrafting or just needed to build woodcrafter's workshop (if it's separated from craftsdwarf workshop)
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blaster339

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Re: Dark Ages Dwarves
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2013, 04:40:30 am »

I agree with the dark age mode thing
Its mostly for players who'd like to try a different experience of DF
However, I disagree with the building thing
Having more than one log from a tree can increase the rate of making your stockpiles full
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Dark Ages Dwarves
« Reply #7 on: January 05, 2013, 10:04:30 am »

That's already happening, kinda, with the next update.

-----

Would people get angry if I brought up that the Dark Ages idea could fairly easily be modded in?
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Di

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Re: Dark Ages Dwarves
« Reply #8 on: January 05, 2013, 03:57:56 pm »

No no no, Dwarf_eater, you did everything wrong. Here we suggest various quirks and gameplay details that He may have missed when created His concept of the game, not the project of a game based on Dwarf Fortress.
If examined piece by pice your suggestion would fall apart on several ideas that either are planned such as dealing with farming, construction and so on or have been discussed already like tech levels, pipes, smoke, ventilation for which you should have considered reviving the relevant threads should you have anything to add to those.
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