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Author Topic: Parties: worth it?  (Read 7704 times)

backflip

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Parties: worth it?
« on: February 06, 2013, 09:14:53 pm »

I've always employed the one zone tile meeting area to curb parties, but are they really good for anything?  I know they bring production to a halt, but is there any real benefit?
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TruePikachu

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2013, 09:55:11 pm »

They improve a dwarf's mood by letting them make friends.
So yeah, no benefit.
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Mageziya

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2013, 10:03:32 pm »

It's a huge disadvantage if dwarves make friends in this game.
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Every dwarf, every dwarven man, women, and child, that comes to our forts will die there; it's truly sad when you think about it. And we ask our selves, why? Why do we push forward, knowing this fate, that we are destined for failure? Because, this game grasps the concept of mortality. Some games you can never lose, but we all stop eventually, causing a 'death' to those game's 'worlds'. Dwarf Fortress gives us a definite end, knowing that we will leave that world eventually, and move on to more.

edgefigaro

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2013, 11:28:30 pm »

Parties are fun!
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wierd

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2013, 11:41:53 pm »

Parties are of the DEVIL! The DEVIL you hear!? THE DEVIL!

(LOL! But seriously, parties are seriously faustian in this game. Dwarves don't let dwarves have friends! Dwarves really are happiest in a horrible dystopia, locked in isolation booths. For real.)

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Valikdu

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2013, 12:15:49 am »

The magic of friendship!

Tevish Szat

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2013, 12:46:30 am »

Parties are a short term cost for a medium-term gain and long-term loss.  The partying dwarves won't work, but they'll socialize at a legal party site, which makes them happy both from making and talking with friends, and by admiring whatever wealth you've stashed at the probable party site.  Parties organized around a lucky artifact statue in the main dining room can give a swath of your fort a huge boost in their mood!

But on the other hand, as everyone has said, friendships will make future tantrum spirals worse, since dwarves will get bad thoughts for losing friends to tragedy when something inevitably goes wrong.

Personally, I don't run draconian isolation forts, so I find my dwarves make friends whether I give them a place to party or not.  At which point, I might as well try to maximize the gain from the parties by creating a good designated area with LOTS of value to admire.  Done well, a timely party can actually generate enough happy thoughts to counteract the early stages of a tantrum spiral. 

Also, dwarven relationships give you dwarven babies. Which, while sponges for a while, are kind of satisfying to rear so you can proudly have fortress-born taking over.
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wierd

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #7 on: February 07, 2013, 12:56:01 am »

If you don't mind the micro-management, you can "Iso-booth" 2 to 3 dwarves in a living/producton unit.  This imposes harsh limits on the interconnectedness of the social interaction graph, and still permits socialization and partying.

To set up, you have to seriously pre-plan the fortress in advance, and build a powerfully complex automated infrastructure, then build redundant living, socialization, food storage, and work areas for each of the "pods".

This gives you the maximal advantage of partying, and hardening against catastrophic loss of a fortress via tantrum spiral.  It also makes it considerably harder for goblins to kill all dwarves in the event of an unrepelled invasion force, because the pods cannot be entered or exited. If properly established, the dwarves in the pods can chill in there until the next caravan arrives, and lures the invaders away.  Further, some of the pod inhabitants can actively kill goblins inside the fortress by pulling internal levers attached to infrastructure, geurilla style.

It's hard to play a fortress that way, but it can be done, and does give the most benefit.
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Thundercraft

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #8 on: February 07, 2013, 01:40:31 am »

Weird, that sounds pretty good. I've thought of some similar measures to reduce possible tantrum effects while allowing some socializing, etc. However, nothing to that extreme.

Have you a fort which employs this strategy that you wouldn't mind showing off? I'd love to see something like this. If you don't want to upload game save, perhaps you could upload maps to the wiki or the DF Map Archive?
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wierd

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #9 on: February 07, 2013, 03:23:27 am »

I dont currently have one... I can probably convert my current "green glass megaproject" fortress into a demo unit though, but it will take a considerable amount of time. Especially since the entire fortress is above ground, and made of constructed materials, allowing me to rebuild whole areas to suit the new purpose.  Invaders are currently off, because this is not intended to be an actual play fortress, but is instead an experiment in building infrastructure, abandoning, and then embarking over the top again with JustEmbark!. It's kind of a science project, but only informally so.

The trick, is in constructing an automated pickup and delivery system to get raw materials in (including dwarves!), and finished goods (including children!) out.  Roller powered minecarts with fill quota requirements on isolated tracks looks like a promising solution. Goods fall directly on top of the minecart, and-or, the isolated minecart systems are also secondary work-center pods, with full-time operation staff.  Not sure how to manage that.

Inside each pod, are all the amenities and requirements for dwarven living. These include a farm plot, a still, several overflow stone pots, a farmers workshop and clothing chain, bedrooms, an actual intended use workcenter, and a well decorated dining hall.  Essentially, a mini-fortress, designed for 3 or 4 dwarves. Seed overflow/destruction becomes a necessity to keep these systems operational.  Dwarves can theoretically live inside their pod forever. All dwarves have farming, clothes making, spinning, plant processing, and brewing labors enabled, and orders are given as needed. This ensures that pod residents are never naked, nor go hungry or thirsty in the event that the distribution system fails.

All entry in and out of the pod occurs using a 1z drop zone, using a retracting bridge over the "input" side of the pod, and another such retracting bridge inside the pod, over the top of the distribution "output" chute.  Dwarves are dropped in and out using special burrow designations that have them stand on the bridge.  All levers to activate these bridges are inside the pod, after final comissioning. (This is tricky. You cant make the pod impenetrable from the start, because the mechanic that sets the bridges and levers up has to be able to walk upstairs to the bridge to link them. This means that the pods need to have at least 1 constructed wall to block up the pathing hole, and need at least 1 dwarf inside to further commission them. After trapping Urist in there, he is then the lever operator, and can safely operate the dropchutes to get dwarves in and out.) The levers to things like the "Flood the fortress with magma!" subsystem are installed in these isolated pods, so that even with a SEVERE contamination of the green skinned menace, a full fortress decon is possible, without risking dwarves being in the hallway (since they are all in pods, except for the broker, and the loading/unloading crew for the trade depot, who are themselves just an isolated pod with a unique function.). Just be sure to use magma-safe bridges for the dropchute covers.  Bridges are indestructible to building destroyers, making them the preferred system-- further, they dont get compromised by vermin like kobolds, who render doors and hatches unlockable until reclaimed.

Handling more than a dozen pods will quickly become impossible to manage though. That means each pod should ideally have at most 16 dwarves inside, and should be designed to be able to accommodate this number. (That will give you a max pop of ~200.) Residents of a pod will never encounter residents of other pods ever again after being installed, unless they are children being micromanged into a new pod to fill a vacancy, and or to maximize/control genetic expression. (Dwarves need to be unrelated to pair up, and cant be more than 10 years apart on age.) Losing a single pod should ideally not result in any adverse thoughts of any other pod's members, because they are isolated communities.  children should be removed from their mothers as soon as they start walking on their own, to avoid inter-pod friendships and relations. Completely unwanted children can be isolated, and terminated.

A "Special" meeting hall that nobody uses, is used to process migrants for integration.

I think I can get this all set up over 4 Z levels. (top level contains a perimeter wall surrounding windmills to power the minecart network, next level down contains the "Fortress main level" which has the migrant processing hall, and all the dropchute activity zones, next level down contains the isolation pods, and the layer below that contains the distribution tracks to return goods to level 2. Level 1 and level 4 are connected by one multi-stacked section of vertical axles from the wind farm above, to supply power to the minecart network.

The greenglass megaproject embark I can use for this is conveniently on top of a volcano, near an ocean, with an aquifer, making all necessary resources copiously abundant. (I can *manufacture* obsidian for all the magmasafe stone mechanisms I need, and the magma is conveniently close to the surface, and easy to direct and place.)

I might just do this.

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Lich180

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #10 on: February 07, 2013, 08:44:52 am »

I've seen suggestions about having a goblin or badger behind a fortification and floodgate/raised bridge near the party zone. When the floodgate or bridge opens, the dwarves see the terrifying creature and cancel the party.

On that note, why not just traumatize them while they party? Put a Coinstar in, drop puppies on them, the usual stuff. Then even if they have friends, they won't care as much when the inevitable happens!
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wierd

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #11 on: February 07, 2013, 08:49:59 am »

Purpetual puppy Plumeters have been around for a long time, and have the side effect of producing unbutcherable corpses, miasma, and lots of blood everywhere.

Coinstars require dwarves to purpetually reload them, but are VERY useful for mass replicating metal, by exploiting a bug.

The above Iso-Booth method is very labor intensive, and requires meticulous maintenance and planning.

All have their downside. This is as it should be.
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simonthedwarf

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #12 on: February 07, 2013, 08:53:01 am »

Segregation is the answer to friendship in DF.
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Laserhead

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #13 on: February 07, 2013, 09:07:22 am »

In my current fort I don't mind parties. 90% of my migrants are part of the same extended family anyway. I guess my parent civ is Alabama.
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Spectrelight

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Re: Parties: worth it?
« Reply #14 on: February 07, 2013, 01:01:03 pm »

The more parties your dwarves have, the more friends they'll make. The more friends they make, the more tantrums there will be when someone dies, and the sooner you get to see your fortress go out in a glorious outbreak of mass insanity. So, yes: definitely worth it.
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