Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5

Author Topic: DF needs more LATE game challenges (with lots of examples of solutions)  (Read 6639 times)

GavJ

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile

Quote
On the embark screen, when you are selecting locations TAB changes the view (elevation, cliffs, etc.).  Change the view to civilizations, and then make sure hostile civs are not nearby (right now it only order the civs by distance and indicates if they are at war with no other information).  It limits your location choice, but you can play it safe if you really want to
There's a very big difference between embarking in an area with lots of hostiles and being given the courtesy of a couple of guaranteed seasons before attack, versus embarking somewhere with no enemies at all.

I absolutely DO want to be attacked, just not instantly.

The reason I presume it's a bug is that as far as I can tell, you do still get the grace period for your very first spring fort on a new world, but not for later ones that start at other times. Which makes it seem pretty clear to me that it's a calendar mechanics oversight / bug, not a feature. Otherwise the spring forts would be equally affected yes? (In other words, it's hard coded to give the grace period in spring, when it should be coded to give it based on whenever you started the fort)

Quote
Another possible addition to the arsenal of large, organized armies could be battering rams or massive siege beasts that have a next tier building destroyer ability that could target any construction including bridges, constructed walls etc. How cool would battering ram siege elephants or cave dragons be.
I really like this idea. I think that tunnelers should still be included, not replaced by this, but it's a great in-between ramp-up of difficulty.
(note that if it's only this and no tunnelers, then you can make obsidian or ice casting front doors and still turtle but come and go as you please. Just a little bit more technically difficult, but people would probably memorize the plans quickly)

Improving AI in general is also a good plan all around. I think already on the list for Toady, too. He's talked about making invaders remember where their comrades died and avoiding it if there were living witnesses, etc.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2014, 01:40:59 pm by GavJ »
Logged
Cauliflower Labs – Geologically realistic world generator devblog

Dwarf fortress in 50 words: You start with seven alcoholic, manic-depressive dwarves. You build a fortress in the wilderness where EVERYTHING tries to kill you, including your own dwarves. Usually, your chief imports are immigrants, beer, and optimism. Your chief exports are misery, limestone violins, forest fires, elf tallow soap, and carved kitten bone.

Scruiser

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile

Quote
On the embark screen, when you are selecting locations TAB changes the view (elevation, cliffs, etc.).  Change the view to civilizations, and then make sure hostile civs are not nearby (right now it only order the civs by distance and indicates if they are at war with no other information).  It limits your location choice, but you can play it safe if you really want to
There's a very big difference between embarking in an area with lots of hostiles and being given the courtesy of a couple of guaranteed seasons before attack, versus embarking somewhere with no enemies at all.

I absolutely DO want to be attacked, just not instantly.
I think the best (most realistic+most playable) solution to this would be to make knowledge of a forts locations a requirement to attack.  So that way a goblin scout would have to make visual contact with your fort (or with strong evidence, i.e. wagon tracks) before the army even knows to go to it in the first place.  This should make at least a few seasons relief before the first attack very probable.  If the player immediately burrows in and doesn't let dwarfs or pets wander the surface, then the goblin scout should have to walk right up to the entrance to realize there is a fort location. (Camouflage as a construction/designation?)

Just to clear up, in my research, I found that a site with a traveling army nearby was going to most likely get attacked in summer or autumn (I went to adventure mode, found a small army, and embarked right near it. Got attacked right as summer came, eight goblins).

I also found that it is incredibly hard to prevent an autumn invasion (The only way I found was digging in and keeping only basics for the whole year, no metalwork, don't even prepare for the traders). Even then I still got attacked (I tried this way three times, and got attacked once).

So you can still be attacked if there is a traveling army, but it is not as likely otherwise.

NOTE: I traveled with my adventurer to track the movement of the army, then approximated where they would be. Sheer luck I hit near them, but once I did, I settled in the same place, and kept abandoning after winter to replay a different method. I double/triple checked it all, took roughly a week.
Nice SCIENCE!  I think embarking right in the path of a traveling army is a reasonable condition to get attacked even immediately after embarking.  The embark screen should give some kind of warning though (Warning: scouts report army movement nearby) or at least indicators (a map display option that shows common historical army movements).  But otherwise at least a few seasons for the goblins to actually locate, scout out, and organize an assault seems reasonable.

I think AI knowledge of traps is the first stepping stone to tunneling and wall destruction.  If the AI can identify obvious traps, organize that information, and utilize, then it should be reasonable to extend it to planning the use of ladders, tunnels, or siege engines. 
Logged
Things I have never done in Dwarf Fortress;

- Won.

Melting Sky

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile


Quote
Another possible addition to the arsenal of large, organized armies could be battering rams or massive siege beasts that have a next tier building destroyer ability that could target any construction including bridges, constructed walls etc. How cool would battering ram siege elephants or cave dragons be.

I really like this idea. I think that tunnelers should still be included, not replaced by this, but it's a great in-between ramp-up of difficulty.
(note that if it's only this and no tunnelers, then you can make obsidian or ice casting front doors and still turtle but come and go as you please. Just a little bit more technically difficult, but people would probably memorize the plans quickly)

Improving AI in general is also a good plan all around. I think already on the list for Toady, too. He's talked about making invaders remember where their comrades died and avoiding it if there were living witnesses, etc.

Yeah, I've always been a big fan of the tunneling and undermining siege idea. The battering rams and siege beast suggestion was meant as a lower tier threat and a slightly more commonly used tactic. I think digging should be reserved for highly organized late game sieges as far as the civilized races go since it will be a very powerful tactic that leaves a lot of damage to the embark area. A siege with diggers would be the sort of thing you would expect an enemy civilization to send against a mountain home or very wealthy and powerful fort.

I was going to suggest it would be cool to give burrowing to some of the logical wild life varieties such as moles, giant moles and giant earth worms but if these creatures were common in an embark they would literally turn the whole thing into swiss cheese in a matter of years. Perhaps some rare digging animals with very low populations would be balanced enough to include in the game. One of the things I loved about the tree bug that had them growing through the ceilings is that it was the first time in DF that we were faced with a threat that could alter the terrain. I think relatively low population and rare burrowing animals could fill that niche in a less buggy manner. A giant mole or earthworm would be of little threat itself, but rather its digging habit would be what made them a challenge to deal with.
Logged

Scruiser

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile

Instead of making it rare, what about a tag for [BURROW:SMALL:SOIL:SAND:HOME] for ordinary creatures like moles.  It wouldn't leave a passable mined out tile, but would alter the tile so that other burrowers could pass through it (a "burrowed" type tile).  The tag [BURROW:MEDIUM:SOIL:SAND:CLAY:HOME] would let the burrower mine out the tile, but would limit how fast/how many the could mine out.  The tag [BURROW:LARGE:SOIL:SAND:HOME] would mine out the tile and would dictate larger mined out areas, but would only occur on some giant creatures (the SMALL if replaced with LARGE for giant variations).  The tags SOIL SAND ROCK CLAY tags would indicate what materials the burrower could go through.  The tag HOME or TRAVEL or DEFENSIVE would indicate under what condition the creature burrowed (to make homes, to travel underground, or as a defensive ability.)
Logged
Things I have never done in Dwarf Fortress;

- Won.

Urist McDworf

  • Bay Watcher
  • Cute until proven guilty
    • View Profile

I really like these ideas!! Late-game would be much more entertaining since there are currently really only sieges and forgotten beasts and spoilers to think about.

Do you think these would be better through a mod or vanilla DF? I think it would best as a mod idea (either standalone or an addition to something like Masterwork) since they would be constructed faster (hypothetically) and bugs could be addressed more quickly.
Logged

GavJ

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile

There are lots of ways to avoid critters turning the mountain into swiss cheese.

The "burrowed" tile subtype isn't bad. Also, though, you could code limited behavior when they are non-aggressive / default. Such as "dig out a little nest for yourself, and then stop digging unless you have a good reason to otherwise (like dwarves trying to kill you, or a goblin riding you into battle)
Logged
Cauliflower Labs – Geologically realistic world generator devblog

Dwarf fortress in 50 words: You start with seven alcoholic, manic-depressive dwarves. You build a fortress in the wilderness where EVERYTHING tries to kill you, including your own dwarves. Usually, your chief imports are immigrants, beer, and optimism. Your chief exports are misery, limestone violins, forest fires, elf tallow soap, and carved kitten bone.

Scruiser

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile

There are lots of ways to avoid critters turning the mountain into swiss cheese.

The "burrowed" tile subtype isn't bad. Also, though, you could code limited behavior when they are non-aggressive / default. Such as "dig out a little nest for yourself, and then stop digging unless you have a good reason to otherwise (like dwarves trying to kill you, or a goblin riding you into battle)
Yeah just mining out the tile, but having it limited in behavior, is probably more straightforward (no need to introduce entire new tile sub-type).  It would be nice if the RAWs for burrows/digging allowed fully specifiable behavior (like how trees growth works).
Logged
Things I have never done in Dwarf Fortress;

- Won.

Trev_lite

  • Bay Watcher
  • Likes the forum for its helpful members
    • View Profile

One idea is that diggers only dig out a home if they could not find an empty nest on the map. So they would prioritize empty nests over digging a new one. This would prevent the swiss cheese map if you keep the population down.
Logged

SixOfSpades

  • Bay Watcher
  • likes flesh balls for their calming roundness
    • View Profile

I'm seeing a lot of good ideas here . . . but what I'm NOT seeing is a lot of good ideas for bad things that have greater influence on the LATE game than the EARLY game. Natural disasters, moisture-sensitive aquifer layers, burrowing creatures--these are all well & good, but all quite impartial to the age of a fortress. Even the disease idea is largely time-neutral, with the only difference being that older forts are more likely to have larger networks of friends & family, so there's arguably a greater risk of transmission.

Enemies bringing siege weapons (especially those that can help scale walls, or bash right through them) is of course a very welcome concept, both because it discourages pure turtling, and because goblins are in dire need of more levels of complexity. Expanding the goblins' repertoire, and moving the "triggers" for these expansions waaay down the line (as opposed to the current setup, wherein it's easy to meet the conditions for "maximum invasion" as early as Year 2) just makes a whole world of sense . . . which is why suggestions like battering rams & goblin sappers have already been made. Several times. It's still a good idea, just not an original one.

I thought my earlier post about "I'm gonna achieve my goals, consequences be damned" post was very neatly lategame-only, and I'd never heard of anyone else suggesting such a thing before . . . but since only one other person reacted at all, obviously this was not the firebrand I hoped it might be. Which is okay, really, but I'm just wondering why no one else thought it was interesting. Was it because my aim of "something late-game" went TOO far into the late game? As in, a fort reaching the artifact cap is something that almost never happens, therefore this idea would have almost zero impact?
« Last Edit: July 29, 2014, 04:41:34 am by SixOfSpades »
Logged
Dwarf Fortress -- kind of like Minecraft, but for people who hate themselves.

GavJ

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile

Quote
but all quite impartial to the age of a fortress.
Unless you simply code them to be partial to the age of a fortress anyway.

I agree that it would be slightly more satisfying to have dangers that naturally made sense as being later, if possible, but i don't think that's a big enough concern to trash multiple otherwise good gameplay ideas. And I don't have many immediate answers for you anyway.
Logged
Cauliflower Labs – Geologically realistic world generator devblog

Dwarf fortress in 50 words: You start with seven alcoholic, manic-depressive dwarves. You build a fortress in the wilderness where EVERYTHING tries to kill you, including your own dwarves. Usually, your chief imports are immigrants, beer, and optimism. Your chief exports are misery, limestone violins, forest fires, elf tallow soap, and carved kitten bone.

martinuzz

  • Bay Watcher
  • High dwarf
    • View Profile

I've seen quite a few good ideas for additional !!FUN!! here.
I just need to say one thing.

I'm fine with adding them all. As long as there is an INIT option to turn them off, so those of us who feel like making an artistic megaproject or dwarven computer in peace will remain able to do so.
Logged
Friendly and polite reminder for optimists: Hope is a finite resource

We can ­disagree and still love each other, ­unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist - James Baldwin

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=73719.msg1830479#msg1830479

Scruiser

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile

I'm fine with adding them all. As long as there is an INIT option to turn them off, so those of us who feel like making an artistic megaproject or dwarven computer in peace will remain able to do so.
Is it still okay if some of them take some modding to the creature or entity RAWs to shut off properly?  Or if there is an INIT option for it, the INIT option is really just telling the game to ignore RAW entries relating to the hard content, and thus only works if set before generating the world.

Quote
but all quite impartial to the age of a fortress.
Unless you simply code them to be partial to the age of a fortress anyway.

I agree that it would be slightly more satisfying to have dangers that naturally made sense as being later, if possible, but i don't think that's a big enough concern to trash multiple otherwise good gameplay ideas. And I don't have many immediate answers for you anyway.
Yeah, I prefer a realism solution when possible, but if an idea is fun but too hard early game a few directly implemented mercy rules make sense.

I'm seeing a lot of good ideas here . . . but what I'm NOT seeing is a lot of good ideas for bad things that have greater influence on the LATE game than the EARLY game. Natural disasters, moisture-sensitive aquifer layers, burrowing creatures--these are all well & good, but all quite impartial to the age of a fortress. Even the disease idea is largely time-neutral, with the only difference being that older forts are more likely to have larger networks of friends & family, so there's arguably a greater risk of transmission.
I didn't say it directly, but I think the idea with natural disasters is to have them as rare enough events that you are unlikely to see them in your first couple of years, just because they are so uncommon.  But yeah, a directly implemented "No Natural Disasters for 1st year"  seems reasonable.

I thought my earlier post about "I'm gonna achieve my goals, consequences be damned" post was very neatly lategame-only, and I'd never heard of anyone else suggesting such a thing before . . . but since only one other person reacted at all, obviously this was not the firebrand I hoped it might be. Which is okay, really, but I'm just wondering why no one else thought it was interesting. Was it because my aim of "something late-game" went TOO far into the late game? As in, a fort reaching the artifact cap is something that almost never happens, therefore this idea would have almost zero impact?
   I think we had a couple of long posts, then we got into details about them, thus missing your post.
   Let's see, to ensure that these happen late game with a realism component, it could be based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs).  A dwarf most feel safe, happy, well-fed, etc. for x years (maybe 5 to 10, maybe adjustable by RAW tag or other personality traits) to begin pursuing self-actualization goals.  The dwarfs basic goals+religious values+ideology values+groups alignments determine exactly what and how they pursue these goals.  The pursuit of these goals would drive late game conflict within the fort.  Because these behaviors would be triggered by long term satisfaction, they wouldn't happen to young forts or forts that are already getting their fair share of FUN!  Isolating your fort could increase the odds of neurotic late game goals happening (either by direct personality modifier "hasn't talked to someone outside the fort in a long time", "is going stir-crazy" or by lacking home civ moderation in the form of liaisons, outside news, and nobles).
   Hypothetical example:  Your fort has hit ten years old and two of your original seven both begin pursuing their goals.  Unfortunately, they worship opposing deities, and are both deeply religious.  They both have a wide number of friends and are members of guilds and such.  The fort was sealed off 5 years ago, so there are no outside influences (liasons, diplomats, travelers with world news) to moderate things or distract your dwarfs.  Thus the fort is spontaneously divided into two factions.  One of the original migrants desired to create a great work of art, so he starts making religious artwork that merely incites riots.  The other migrant desired to become a great warrior, so he mobilizes an unauthorized militia and starts militarizing his religious faction.  The player can manipulate things to seek conflict resolution, exacerbate the conflict, or favor victory of one side or the other (or try to prolong it  ;)).
   Yeah this idea would be limited to players who get late game forts and then let things stabilize enough.  Some of the min-maxing players would probably trigger minor conflicts just to stop these scenarios.  It could also punish isolationist behavior.
Logged
Things I have never done in Dwarf Fortress;

- Won.

martinuzz

  • Bay Watcher
  • High dwarf
    • View Profile

Is it still okay if some of them take some modding to the creature or entity RAWs to shut off properly?  Or if there is an INIT option for it, the INIT option is really just telling the game to ignore RAW entries relating to the hard content, and thus only works if set before generating the world.
Sure. I trust the modding community here to be able to handle that just fine if that's what it takes.
Logged
Friendly and polite reminder for optimists: Hope is a finite resource

We can ­disagree and still love each other, ­unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist - James Baldwin

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=73719.msg1830479#msg1830479

Urist McDworf

  • Bay Watcher
  • Cute until proven guilty
    • View Profile

One interesting possibility might be to upgrade various dwarves' hopes & dreams to the point where they become biological imperatives, operating in a way roughly similar to moods. To ensure that this is a late-game event, it could depend on the fort's reaching the effective artifact cap: The existing trigger for moods would always continue to fire, but if the fort is already at the temporary "limit" for artifacts, then instead of going into a strange mood & creating a masterful example of their craft, a random dwarf will flip out and achieve their goals by any means necessary.

It doesn't even have to be a biological imperative.  It could work similar to the existing necromancy secret behavior in world gen.  Given enough traumatic events of the right kind, the ordinary goal becomes something unnatural.
A dwarf who dreams of finding love after enough traumatic rejections decides to research a way of forcing it and events a dark magical mind control method.  The player could let it progress (and deal with a dwarf suddenly warpign every existing relationship) or declare them an enemy of the fort and try to kill them (and deal with a dwarf who can gain instant allies).
A dwarf who dreams of becoming a great warrior grow impatient after his comrade soldiers are killed over and over again researchs a secret martial arts technique.
Hmm... late game (once artifact cap is reached), the game could search out the most traumatized dwarf closest to having their goal go abnormal and then push them over the edge.

I definitely think it's a good idea, SixOfSpades. Both the original idea and Scruiser's addition. They could exist separately, too, since one focuses on desires about creating something leading to it's production whatever the cost and the other delves more into the effect of repeated trauma to the sanity of a dwarf with ambition.
Logged

Shadow Of Fate

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: DF needs more LATE game challenges (with lots of examples of solutions)
« Reply #44 on: August 04, 2014, 05:54:42 am »


I'm seeing a lot of good ideas here . . . but what I'm NOT seeing is a lot of good ideas for bad things that have greater influence on the LATE game than the EARLY game. Natural disasters, moisture-sensitive aquifer layers, burrowing creatures--these are all well & good, but all quite impartial to the age of a fortress. Even the disease idea is largely time-neutral, with the only difference being that older forts are more likely to have larger networks of friends & family, so there's arguably a greater risk of transmission.
I didn't say it directly, but I think the idea with natural disasters is to have them as rare enough events that you are unlikely to see them in your first couple of years, just because they are so uncommon.  But yeah, a directly implemented "No Natural Disasters for 1st year"  seems reasonable.

I believe I already came up with the point of percentage based chances which increased over time. Like a probability curve. For a catastrophic earthquake, the chances would start at or near zero, and gradually rise with the time. Then after awhile, the chances of it happening would rise faster and faster. When it finally happened, the chances would reset to zero and repeat the process. This would ensure that it wouldn't happen too soon, that it would be much more likely to happen late game, and that there would be a period of calm in between repeating disasters. I also stated that more severe forms would have a much lower inherent probability than less severe forms. I had given the example of a catastrophic quake being rare, but small rumblings being fairly common and with a much higher probability to happen. Same thing with illness. A severe plague could follow a catastrophic disaster probability track, while more mild illness might be more common. Like a severity/probability counter.

Although, there should be other disasters which are not based on the chance flow but certain conditions which can spike what would otherwise be a generally low and stagnant probability. I think this would add more variety to it. For example, there could be certain controllable conditions (like letting the rat population get out of control) which may spike the chance of a specific type of plague like disease to happen. But if it was kept under control then the chances would be next to none. That specific disaster's determinant would be entirely separate from the probability flow which would dictate other severe diseases and other catastrophes. Then there was my idea of seasonal disasters, like weather related ones. So they would be much more frequent than something like an earthquake, but only during certain times of the year. So during those times (seasons) they would be more likely to happen and the probability would spike, and the probability would be much less or even nothing during the rest of the year. Perhaps we could program in a few years calm years in the start so that severe whether gave you a chance to build shelter?

Anyway, the point is that I think that a probability curve was a pretty good way to balance it so that it happens later on and that there are breaks between catastrophes of the same kind. This makes most of the additional challenges have more influence late game.

I thought my earlier post about "I'm gonna achieve my goals, consequences be damned" post was very neatly lategame-only, and I'd never heard of anyone else suggesting such a thing before . . . but since only one other person reacted at all, obviously this was not the firebrand I hoped it might be. Which is okay, really, but I'm just wondering why no one else thought it was interesting. Was it because my aim of "something late-game" went TOO far into the late game? As in, a fort reaching the artifact cap is something that almost never happens, therefore this idea would have almost zero impact?
   I think we had a couple of long posts, then we got into details about them, thus missing your post.
   Let's see, to ensure that these happen late game with a realism component, it could be based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs).  A dwarf most feel safe, happy, well-fed, etc. for x years (maybe 5 to 10, maybe adjustable by RAW tag or other personality traits) to begin pursuing self-actualization goals.  The dwarfs basic goals+religious values+ideology values+groups alignments determine exactly what and how they pursue these goals.  The pursuit of these goals would drive late game conflict within the fort.  Because these behaviors would be triggered by long term satisfaction, they wouldn't happen to young forts or forts that are already getting their fair share of FUN!  Isolating your fort could increase the odds of neurotic late game goals happening (either by direct personality modifier "hasn't talked to someone outside the fort in a long time", "is going stir-crazy" or by lacking home civ moderation in the form of liaisons, outside news, and nobles).
   Hypothetical example:  Your fort has hit ten years old and two of your original seven both begin pursuing their goals.  Unfortunately, they worship opposing deities, and are both deeply religious.  They both have a wide number of friends and are members of guilds and such.  The fort was sealed off 5 years ago, so there are no outside influences (liasons, diplomats, travelers with world news) to moderate things or distract your dwarfs.  Thus the fort is spontaneously divided into two factions.  One of the original migrants desired to create a great work of art, so he starts making religious artwork that merely incites riots.  The other migrant desired to become a great warrior, so he mobilizes an unauthorized militia and starts militarizing his religious faction.  The player can manipulate things to seek conflict resolution, exacerbate the conflict, or favor victory of one side or the other (or try to prolong it  ;)).
   Yeah this idea would be limited to players who get late game forts and then let things stabilize enough.  Some of the min-maxing players would probably trigger minor conflicts just to stop these scenarios.  It could also punish isolationist behavior.

I have mixed feelings one this one. On one hand, I really like the idea of self actualization goals. I think it adds more unique character and personality to the dwarves. It makes things interesting. And if there was anything that could punish an isolationist fort, the psychological angle would certainly make sense. I do also have a morbid fascination with tantrum spirals, civil wars, and the like. But this idea also comes with some significant concerns.

1. It seems to be punishing you for doing well more than punishing you for being an isolationist. Heck, I'm not sure it really threatens an isolationist. An isolationist (being the control freaks we tend to be) could just take away their beds for a bit, or purposely manage the food supply, or whatever for a brief period every so often so that the dwarfs were uncomfortable enough where this would never happen. It would take a bit of micromanaging, but it's quite doable. Or better yet, you could find ways to spread miasma to the fort on purpose. Then they would never be happy enough to worry about it. (In fact, I myself have experimented with controlled miasma labyrinths.) There wouldn't necessarily be a punishment for being isolated. Just for being healthy and happy. Yet at the same time, any fort (isolationist or not) which is doing really well is more prone to this because many of the dwarfs are happy and safe. So again, you wind up punishing me for doing well and not to turtle up and be secluded. I'm all for adding challenges, but punishing us just for doing well is way too artificial an approach for making it harder.

2. I like the idea of not having outside contact being a determining factor in increasing the chances. And it seems to be the main thing which makes it more likely to be an issue for isolated forts. However, this factor seems especially chaotic and hard to control. Not every dwarf will have a need to contact the outside whether the fort is isolated or not. And what counts as outside contact? Traders? Who would need to meet them? Maybe just your trade dwarf and the occasional escort of soldiers to keep them safe. It seems that whether the fort was isolated or not, there would be plenty of dwarfs that would not even go to see traders. Maybe the migrants might count as an outside influence for a bit? But in a large fort, particularly one that has hit population cap, you may not have the need to receive migrants. And if migrants do come then how do you know they even interact with the other dwarfs in a large fort? First of all, I would need more clarification on what qualifies as outside contact. Then I would need to be sold on why all the dwarfs need to meet said outside contact, or at least how they might qualify for having done so. Here's an example of what worries me here. Say I have a dwarf whose role is to sit in the forge and craft metal things. He doesn't need to go outside and meet traders or whatever. His bed is nearby, there's a nearby dining facility so he doesn't have to go far to eat/drink, etc. His place is to eat, sleep, and forge metal and this is generally good for production. My hypothetical fort has armies which patrol the outside, deals with traders, has hunters and fishers, etc. Point is there is much outside contact and it is not an isolationist fort. There are plenty of people who go outside and make outside contact. But that dwarf has no need to. Would that dwarf be considered isolationist even in a non isolationist fort?

3. I sort of like the idea of this being made so that dwarfs have to feel happy and safe before they pursue the more extra curricular goals. It seems realistic that a dwarf who is worried about starving or fighting for his life would have less room to , where as an established dwarf might have the luxury to look at other things. So the happy and safe requirement makes a certain amount of sense. But at the same time, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. How does this counterbalance the unhappiness factor? It seems like the idea is that you can avoid most of this for dwarfs that aren't safe and happy. Yet this is contrary everything. Generally, dwarfs cause trouble if they are made unhappy. This is what typically causes tantrum spirals and incentivizes you to keep them happy. Now there's a problem with them being happy as well? How do I stop them from spiraling out of control just based on mood? Do we have to worry about exactly centering every single dwarfs happiness to unhappiness balance now? It seems like a little much. This brings me to my next point:

4. Do self actualization pursuits always have to be bad? The fact that this only happens to forts that have dwarves which are doing well and have nothing else to really worry about means I can't do too well without worrying about this. So again, you are punishing me for doing well and keeping my dwarfs safe and happy. And in some ways, this seems as bad or worse than a dwarf who throws a tantrum out of unhappiness. Maybe this idea would be better served if there were positive results from self actualized pursuits as well. Kind of like a mixed bag. Depending on their personality, trauma, outside influence, or whatever would dictate if some dwarfs were more prone to start trouble versus doing something good when they pursued self actualized goals. This way there is not only a new potential danger for a fort that is doing well, but the chances for something good to come out of it as well. I realize this is not in any way the original intent of this idea as a threat to late game isolationists, but it seems sub par for that to me anyway.   

Don't misunderstand. I do like the idea overall. I just think the application of such an idea, particularly in the way it was described, wouldn't necessarily accomplish what it was meant to. It might do more harm than good.
Logged
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5