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Author Topic: Dwarven Inequality  (Read 1871 times)

Enigma

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Dwarven Inequality
« on: August 20, 2013, 10:36:10 pm »

So I'm planning on doing something a little more interesting with my next fortress: Essentially, for the first year I will build a fortress and everyone will be fine and it will be a completely normal fortress, but after the first year ends and spring comes again, every immigrant who shows up will be sent to an alternative fortress, with its own food, its own sleeping areas and everything. The first-year-dwarves will have no interaction with the immigrants, and the immigrants will be living entirely underground in pretty awful conditions; a shared barracks to sleep, nothing but plump helmets for food and beverage (they may also supply the first-year-dwarves with their farming stuff and basic furniture if I'm feeling exceptionally fancy), and of course they would also be the primary/only source of soldiers, who would be poorly trained and armed with whatever equipment I can manage to scrape up between making the next round of masterwork steel goblets upstairs.

The key part here is that no doubt there will be plenty of tantrums and bad news happening down there, but I don't want my dwarven bourgeois seeing or feeling any of that. How hard do you think it would be to keep them entirely separate, NOTHING leaking from one to the other?
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AutomataKittay

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Re: Dwarven Inequality
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2013, 02:36:18 am »

Not difficult if you uses drawbridges for emergency sealing and minecart jumping the gap or dropchutes to supply between different parts automatically. At least I've done something similar with isolated parts of fortresses, it's quite a bit of work, though.

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metime00

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Re: Dwarven Inequality
« Reply #2 on: August 21, 2013, 08:16:48 am »

I had this idea too, except mine was for the privileged to retreat underground while the commoners have to live on the surface like dirty humans.

Pilfering what they can from the remnants of the old fortress, dying young and fast.

It seems dwarfier for the rich and powerful to live underground in vast cavernous palaces than on the surface. But it would be hard to have the commoners be the military and not ever see the special dwarves. If they're completely separate then it will be easy to keep one perfectly happy as the other is miserable or wiped out. But even with minimal contact, nice enough bedrooms, dining rooms, and food will distract them from the horrors of witnessing miserable dwarves. Dwarves don't make friends quickly, and they're actually easily pleased  if kept working, eating, and drinking
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Kerbalrocketry

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Re: Dwarven Inequality
« Reply #3 on: August 21, 2013, 09:21:57 am »

I've done this, it doesn't have to be completely seperate as long as you burrow them.
I have 'the pits' where all the worthless dwarves are dumped to work and above them are the Bourgeois who do no work and have great everything.
However I have a 'middle class' who have access to both sets of store-rooms and are basically at the level of living a fort normally is. They are a set of haulers and skilled dwarfs, haulers to move the raw materials and finished goods and skilled dwarfs because life in the pits is short so the only way to get good quality stuff is to have a middle class.
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