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Author Topic: Adventure Mode Housing?  (Read 19699 times)

Bumber

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #30 on: September 28, 2015, 11:59:39 pm »

because its the easiest and simplest stop gap until they do a full replacement.
The reason it is there is because the team quickly figured out their desired economic model, loosely ripped off from medieval society would not work, so they came up with a simple ant-like model for use that would work. They misdiagnised the nature of the problem, thinking that it was solely due to the undeveloped nature of their society and once sufficiant wealth was established everything would work, but they were wrong.
Disagree here, too. The Great Toad thrives on unnecessary detail and procedural generation. If he had the time and know-how he'd have implemented a procedural economy generator that allows each civ to have its economy shaped by world factors. DF dwarves are neither ants nor medieval humans. They're whatever Toady or the DF engine says they are. IMO, Toady will not be satisfied with the current economy for the primary reason that it does not interact with his world enough. I don't think the aim is necessarily entirely medieval (that's for the tech level,) but what allows for a good story (Urist stole a plump helmet to feed his starving child and Fun ensued.) A fiat economy is known to work IRL, enables this complexity, and fits the tech level / fantasy setting. In the meanwhile, Urist has to be hammered for "violating a production order" instead.

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No, the elves are the one's who not only would have the hardest time sustaining the ant-society but really would have a hard time actually mantaining a society AT ALL. The reason is the very opposite of the situation with dwarves. Elves are hunter-gatherers (minus the hunting) who go about the place living in trees and picking fruit, that is to say that if dwarves are ants then elves are MONKEYS! Trees are everywhere about, as are plants to eat, so why do elves even need to cooperate at all ever?
Their society is kind of a theocracy with tree spirits, which may call for ceremony.

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If all human sites are full of homeless, starving peasants like you would have it then all that would realistically happen is that all said peasants would go off to the dwarf fortress.
This supposes a dwarf fort is preferable to humans over anywhere else they could go.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2015, 12:12:13 am by Bumber »
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JesterHell696

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #31 on: September 29, 2015, 07:03:36 am »

Yes, but it does not mean that everything we should be doing here is solely coming up with new ideas.  We can engage in constructive criticism of their existing ideas.

Of course we are free to criticize existing mechanics, I just don't think the return of the economy is bad you do.

Sorry, I mean Future of the Fortress Reply September 2015.

Future of the Fortress

Cheers. :D

edit: I remember reading the part about adventure mode reputations before, I guess I just missed that part.  :-[

The answer is framed by the question being asked and by the terminology being used.  The Economy has come to basically mean coins and payment, quite different from what an economy actually means, the main problem with it is not the abscence or presence of coins but the massive glut of surplus value that cannot be absorbed except by an anachronistic caravan that acts as an infinite demand sink.  When a person asks "when is the Economy coming back" the whole question is really "when is coins and payment going to come back". 

true, with the current over abundance of goods just applying a currency system doesn't fit but we know toady wants to change the farming system to require more land and work which will change the rate of production when combined with dwarf greed (slightly higher then human) and their obsession with materials and items of personal preference with a more limited production base (higher percentage of farmers less crafters) it opens the possibility for a currency system to exists.

I also remember something about apprenticeships and lower then normal quality goods (shoddy/poor) for novices and the like giving items of higher quality even more "value" to the consumer.

To which the team tend essentially to respond (quite wisely), "when it makes sense".  The real question we should be asking here is not "when will the Economy come back?" but "what is the Economy going to actually do and why does it make sense?".

what should it do? handle supply and demand, because dwarf are depicted as being more materialistic and greedy then humans they need a economic system that can represents this.

This is why I said that you consider altruism essentially subhuman.  You are shown a whole fictional society (ablait one created seemingly by accident) of sentiant creatures that work selflessly for the common good, creatures that presently have a history, emotions, art, soon enough music, literature and poetry and the first thought that comes into your head is not that they resemble sentiant ants but that they do not resemble sentiant creatures. 

They do resemble sapient ants, except that sapient "Ants" are always portrayed with some kind of "Hive Mind" and a "Hive Mind" is sub human imho, some examples are the Rachni in mass effect, the "buggers" in Enders game, Bugs in Starship Troopers, Xenomorphs in aliens ect. and even when they have individuals its the exception rather then the rule.

I don't believe this level of altruism is as inherent to humans as it is to a Hive Mind and I see dwarfs as being closer to humans then anything else so I find this level of altruism as being so improbable to the point that saying an entire race of almost humans use it as a part of their economic model is unreasonable.

I see a future of dwarf fortress where dwarfs that you give jobs they don't like will emigrate out of your fortress to follow their passion for cheese making http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=136384.0 or where a dwarf coward will refuse to join the militia even if you assign them to it, to put it simply I want dwarfs to be individuals who personality facets are deciding factor in weather they accept your decision as overseer and if not they leave the fortress or "rebel" against you.

As it stand DF doesn't model personality facets in decision making processes nor does it effect the "hard" values of a civilization but when you take civilization entity "Values" combined with the recent scholar addition where Toady said there was the possibility for scholar to change civilization values in a future update but that it wasn't a part of the current development arc then the potential for the reformation of dwarf civs is great.

There is no fundermental problem with sentiant ant-people existing JesterHell, the only problem is that we are supposed to have dwarf-people not ant-people.  The problem is that fantasy dwarves have always been depicted behaving in a fundermentally similar way to ants, so an ant-person is actually a better dwarf than a dwarf-person.  The reason we accidentally have ant-people is because the perfect dwarf *is* an ant-person.

I don't think i said sapient ant people can't exist... did I? my point was that dwarfs aren't ant people sapient or otherwise.

I never seen dwarfs as behaving "fundamentally" like ant people, the only thing the have in common in my eyes is that they live underground, they have always been depicted as loving wealth, holding grudges and being stubborn to a fault none of which I think of as being ant like.

I don't think dwarfs aren't supposed to be the perfect ant-people you seem to think they should be but that their subterranean humans with a focus on crafting and a greater lust for wealth.

The Star Trek Federation is not built on altruism.  It is built upon a technology called the universal replicator that allows a single person to produce pretty much an infinite amount of surplus value.  It is basically what we would have on a global scale if we tried to make a world of DF games.  Every player dwarf with any skill at all produces a vast amount of surplus value, so much that if the whole world consisted of player dwarves we would be living in a post-scarcity society (aka Star Trek). 

I know about the replicator and understand the basic of how it influences the star trek world, I just don't see it (star trek society) as the likely result.

The thing you are missing here is evolution, biological evolution, social evolution, epigenetic adaptation (it does not matter as it is all going to be working the same way).  Dwarves and ants live in a similar manner, they both live is vast underground edifaces of *collective labour*; I cannot stress this difference enough. 

I'm not missing evolution, I just don't see that because they both live underground meaning that they would have similar social pressure to cause them the adapt in similar way, their would only be minor similarity's in my mind because biology of ants and dwarf (Humans) are to different to result in the same society/economy.

Compare this with humans who have lived for most of their existance in small bands wandering the wilderness picking berries and then they live scattered about as individual families in peasant hovels all working to grow enough to eat.  At no point in this evolution did they live in vast underground bunkers, each human family does not fundermentally depend upon other human families for it's survival in the same manner. 

The vast majority of the dwarf population in my worlds lives in hillocks above ground.

I think the issue is that I see dwarfs as a offshoot of humanity that adapted to living in the caverns underground, starting off ass nomad in the cavern layer and then went on to build the vast underground edifaces as they gathered in larger and larger groups and I just don't see the adaptation to underground living as resulting in ant society not because its impossible but because its improbable enough to be that it might as well be.

What dwarves happen to be believe or even what they happen to personally be like does not determine the fundermental economic reality.  The fundermental economy reality is the enviroment in which the dwarves live, *not* what the dwarf is prior to any exposure to his reality. 

The sky over a human peasants head and the ground under his feet were never created by the collective labour of his whole society.  He is free therefore to hoard food while his neighbors starve to death, he is also liable to invent laws, ideologies and governments that secure his 'right' to do so.  The dwarf on the other hand, his sky is mantained by the collective labour of all the dwarves in his fortress, he cannot hold up the sky alone; If the other dwarves perish, then the sky will fall and he will die.  The self-interest of every individual dwarf is to ensure the wellbeing of every individual dwarf because the collective surplus labour of all dwarves is what holds up his sky. 

It does not matter that dwarves are not personally perfectly altruistic beings.  They are altruistic enough to sustain their society or else they will perish or cease to be dwarves.  If humans are as altruistic as dwarves, it does not mean that dwarves should cease to be dwarves and become human peasants; it means that human peasants can potentially become a functioning part of dwarf society. 

I see dwarf as originating in the caverns as tribal groups (if your world doesn't have caverns dwarf civs wont generate) and these caverns where not created by collective labor of dwarf society so these original groups operated like human tribal groups above ground only underground in caverns.

Because I see the origins of dwarf in this way I can see them as short subterranean humans with only some minor differences.

This brings us to the whole question of having seperate economic systems for different creatures.  The complication here is that while creatures systems may be based upon their environment, they are also not equal in their level of development.  Something that Tolkien did not apparently realise is that throwing a dwarf fortress into a basically medieval world is rather the equivilant of throwing a skyscraper in.  Considering that they have built a skyscraper without the modern tools to do so, just how SCARY are dwarves to everybody else. 

I don't see a dwarf fortresses as a skyscraper but more akin to Machu Picchu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu nor do I think dwarfs are any scarier then titans, dragons, night creatures, boogy men ect.

We know that the amount of surplus value required to build a fortress is considerably greater than to build any other kind of settlement (the forest retreat is actually probably free), but since dwarf fortresses are around in Yr 0 the conclusion follows.

How is it greater then any other kind of site? dwarfs start in the caverns and carve the fortress out of something that already exists (the stone layers), they don't have to harvest the resources to build houses, walls or roads, food is the only resource that the first fortress needs to stockpile and the creation of the fortress generates more materials not consumes them.

Until toady handles the myth generator what comes before year 0 is subjective which is a big influence on why I think dwarf developed they way I do.

The dwarves were clearly already hard at work building their first fortress long before Yr 0 because there is no way the first fortress could have been built (assuming realistic mining difficulty) within the same time frame as the first hamlet.  For that reason it is likely the dwarf fortress is actually the catalyst for the emergance of civilization in the first place, the others are essentially playing catchup, hence the model they are using for their own settlements is actually the dwarf model, adjusted according to their own values and nature. 

I think the civs developed simultaneously forging their own values as they developed, dwarfs have access to steel and adamantine because of where they developed not because they where the first civ to develop.

What a sad world you must live in if you cannot believe that people are capable of volunterily working to help people they personally know and would actually put up with people they personally know starving to death. 

They can so long as it doesn't cost them personally but once it becomes a case of helping others at a cost to themselves there is a sharp drop off in how altruistic people are, just look at the Syrian refugees many places don't want to get involved any more then necessary because it will cost them more money then they stand to get back making it a bad investment and and yes their are still people who want to help but significantly less then if it cost nothing personally.

What I am saying is that the whole thing was fundermentally redundant and a waste of development time.  If they repeat the same mistake all over again then they will have wasted 3X the time and if that does not work 4X of the time etc. 

What they should instead do is identify that they have created a perfect social order for ant-people.  Then come up with an ant-person and decide what personality/values the ant-person would generally have.  Then they should look at how their dwarf resembles an ant-person and how he resembles the opposite of an ant-person and figure out how the various elements of the ant-person society would break down.   

I disagree but only because I don't want ant-person dwarfs, if they do decide to make dwarfs ant-people then your suggestion is one I would support, I just hope they don't.

Having done this they can have the game proceedurely generate laws and institutions in order to 'fix' the problem, maybe creating new problems, to which new solutions can be generated. 

In this system, the whole society's economic order can shift as the creature's that make it up change (nature) or because their values shift (nurture).  Therefore there is no way society has to remain fixed in time, regardless of what happens and it is actually possible for people to actually change things, either for better or worse.   

I do fully support the Idea of procedural generation of cultural values for all civs, if this consistently results in ant-person dwarfs then so be it, I don't think it will though.

The reason it is there is because the team quickly figured out their desired economic model, loosely ripped off from medieval society would not work, so they came up with a simple ant-like model for use that would work.  They misdiagnised the nature of the problem, thinking that it was solely due to the undeveloped nature of their society and once sufficiant wealth was established everything would work, but they were wrong. 

I disagree, they removed the old economy because dwarfs couldn't afford rooms larger then a closet or any prepared food regardless of surplus thus "breaking" the game so they removed it and then made every thing "community" based until such a time as a dwarf fortress could support such an internal economy.

No, the elves are the one's who not only would have the hardest time sustaining the ant-society but really would have a hard time actually mantaining a society AT ALL.  The reason is the very opposite of the situation with dwarves.  Elves are hunter-gatherers (minus the hunting) who go about the place living in trees and picking fruit, that is to say that if dwarves are ants then elves are MONKEYS!  Trees are everywhere about, as are plants to eat, so why do elves even need to cooperate at all ever?

Elf society is therefore clearly an echo of some other society, elves are organised into a society in order to protect the woods they live in because while the world is mostly empty at the moment with too low a population to do much damage they can forsee a future when it isn't but they being immortal must face that future.  As mentioned before, forest retreats are the cheapest type of site to construct in surplus value terms, so probably the elves were the last civilization to form before Yr 0. 

I've got to admit I've never really understood Toady's elves as with no need for anything other then fruit they could live easily as individual immortal hermits, the current system they have seem like "working" anarchism and I said it fit them because I thought ant-person -work ethic =hippy community. 

Mostly it works because elf society has high values harmony and working together is harmonious... but the also believe in competition... hmmm I've never actually looked at the elf raws before but looking at them now they make no sense regardless of how hard I look....

Your definitely right in this....

Now I hate elves even more congrats.   ;D

You are trying to say that Hutterites aren't human.  Groups of 200 human people have been known to cooperate in the same ant-like manner that the dwarves presently do.  The sky also does not fall on Hutterite heads if they fail to cooperate properly. 

I will say I've never heard of these Hutterite's before which I think shows how successful they are and when you factor how few of these "colony's" there is it show how impractical it is compared to other methods for the propose of growth.

The fortress does not work based upon a "hive mind"!  It works because we have a Mayor/Expedition Leader, a Manager, a Militia Captain, a Captain of the Guard, a Bookkeeper and a Broker. 

At times it feels like a hive mind, a dwarfs whose personality clashes with overseer decision just follows orders when they should refuse, rebel or emigrate.

A dwarf with a VIOLENT value of  0-9 "would flee even the most necessary battle to avoid any form of physical confrontation" should refuse to serve in the militia or desert it.
A dwarf with a BRAVERY value of 0-9 "is a coward, completely overwhelmed by fear when confronted with danger" should flee if you try and make them a part of the militia.
A dwarf with a PERSEVERENCE value of 91-100    "is unbelievably stubborn and will stick with even the most futile action once [his/her] mind is made up" should refuse unwanted career changes.

I suppose that I just feel that personality facets should be the most important aspect of deciding how dwarf acts in game and how you treat that dwarf.

The peasant is homeless and his site does not want homeless peasants so they build him a home.  If the site government does not give him a home, the peasant will not go through the bother to build a home of his own simply to remain part of a site that treats him like dirt; he moves to another site that is prepared to house him. 

If all human sites are full of homeless, starving peasants like you would have it then all that would realistically happen is that all said peasants would go off to the dwarf fortress. The fortress, which craves the surplus value that human immigrants provide will invite the homeless, starving peasants over and give them food+housing.  Hence the wretched human civilization with all it's starving homeless peasants ceases to exist and only those human civilizations who can ape the dwarves and provide for the wellfare of their people survive.

the point is to remove fortress surplus and make the fortresses have poverty stricken peasants too then it evens out also I don't think humans would like the unlit darkness of a fortress.

The adventurer has very little to offer people at the moment other than the ability to become like him, an adventurer.  As said before, you cannot take a guard that guards a settlement, offer him a life of adventure and then simply set him to guarding your own mansion, which provides him with a worse quality of life than he got at the site without this being seen as a betrayal.

Which I don't feel will last, I think that as more adv roles get added you will be able to offer things like personal wealth, non-martial fame and safety beyond what a site can offer, do you mess with the people protected by the guy who has killed 5 dragons, 3 bronze collois, 12 giants ect. all be himself? or that farming community off to the side there?

The devs of the game have so far been behaving very much like fantasy writers in making their own, extremely deriative fantasy world.  For all the buzz about procedural generation, it is always essentially the exact same story, the dwarves are dwarves, the elves are elves, the humans are humans, the goblins are goblins.  The only really unpredictable elements of the game is what people and places are called, exactly what the map looks like and exactly what order every event happens in. 

I think that with the myth generator world will become vastly more varied and then toady wants to remove good and evil biomes and instead have biomes that are influenced by spheres creating further variation and if you add in generation for cultural values and the ability for values to change over time then every world will be unique in its own way.

They have created the game as an author creates a book.  They have a list of plot elements that they want to see happen, they create a world in order to support the plot, whether that plot is fortress mode or adventurer mode and during the course of the plot more and more of the world is revealed (mostly in adventurer mode at the moment). 

I think of it like this, who is the author of this book http://dnd.wizards.com/products/fiction/novels-ebooks/archmage R.A. Salvatore or the people who wrote the DnD core rules/setting?

I suppose this might just be a matter of semantics again and while I see the dev as the driving influence (source of lore) for the author (game) they aren't the author of the story itself (your world).

I actually want a proceedurely generated economy and I think I know how they could do it.  Everybody starts off with an ant-like communal society where everybody works for the collective good and shares everything (no changes needed here), then it breaks down in a particular area due to the values+personality of the creature itself.  If you actually have a creature that actually has the values+personality of an anti-person then nothing will ever change.  Then when a particular element breaks down, a solution is devised based also upon the nature and values of the creature in one respect but this solution can create new problems in practice. 

I totally agree, I feel the game should generate all of a civilizations values based on the host creatures personality facets and then allow the economy to grow from the pressure of supply and demand vs the ideals of values and facets.

My main problem is the idea of dwarfs as ant-people where as I see them as subterranean humans and if you go back far enough don't ancient human tribal society's have some trace of that simplistic "ant" economy where they shared resources for the common good? and if so why the change... because while that perfect system will give me what I need an imperfect system can get me what I want hence why I say its so improbable for sapient individuals to use such a system.

Until you posted about the Hutterite's had never heard of such a society in any sort of post tribal setting.

What I think it comes down to is that because I see the current economy as being a flaw in the simulations integrity and to me your suggestion sounded like keep the current system, expand it a bit and then poke some holes in it to give the player some conflict to resolve where as I thought we might as well have one that's really interesting even if its just medieval England's economy forced across all aspects of the DF world.

I didn't even think of a procedurally generated economy until the end of my last post and I knew instantly that toady would want to do it like that if its possible and that its far superior to my shoehorning England's economy into the game. :P

Dwarf society will likely never evolve to pay or coerce people to work hard because in that side of the equation they are rather ant-like. 

How? the fact that they live underground is the only real similarity with ants, other then that they are basically humans.

It is the latter element however that will lead to breakdown/change, since dwarves are not particularly altruistic or non-materialistic they will squabble over how the goods are assigned among individuals even while they are happy to work for free.  Initially the leaders will start to help themselves to nice things out of the collective wealth all the dwarves have produced, but since dwarves are not devoid of envy other dwarves also want to the same thing for themselves.  Since dwarves understand the value of craftdwarfship, the skilled workers band together to form guilds who disrupt the economy by going on strike.  Since dwarves are not sufficiantly cruel to simply kill the strikers, they have to negotiate a 'social compact' by which they are guaranteed certain privilages similar to those already enjoyed by the nobles in return for never going on strike.  As long as dwarves respect the law, the compact will hold up; so dwarf society has arrived at it's 'final form' (until somebody manages to convince them laws are silly).

I said it a bit by now but I think of dwarfs as humans that at best "evolved" but in my opinion adapted to the cavern layers and if you combine this with procedural civ values/law they shouldn't be that different from humans because I think they where nomadic cavern dwellers instead of nomadic surface dwellers.

I'm enjoying this discussion immensely :D
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #32 on: September 29, 2015, 09:54:07 am »

There's no contradiction. Not all sites are created equal, and not all goods are the same. The fishes highlight the problem with the current situation. You have way too much fish that will never rot, and won't be eaten particularly quickly. Add a few more fisherdwarves and your migrants begin to exist solely as a means to get rid of your surplus. So if we allow for a consistent world, and other sites are also drowning in fish, why in Armok's name would anyone want yours? Re-balance the food and you create meaningful jobs, as well as increase the buying power of food in a proper economy.

What we need here is not a different internal fortress economy but simply for Toady One to add in a proper metabolic model so that dwarves eat a realistic amount per year given their size.  The problem is that the amount they produce is realistic, but the amount they consume is unrealistic.  Of course since smaller creatures will eat less, they also have to produce less (converse with larger creatures), which is also realistic in some cases. 

Then the market is over-saturated with fish, which should mean something is unbalanced or you were relying too heavily on one good. At least your dwarves can get fed for practically nothing. Find something else to sell until next year. Maybe the civilization will grow and the capacity will expand.

It does not matter if the market is oversupplied because at the moment the caravan is willing to buy an infinite amount of fish.  If the value of fish goes down, it simply means that I can sell more fish to the caravan, since the amount of fish that the caravan demands per item goes up.  What needs to happen is once you have more fish than the market can absorb then the caravan should outright refuse to buy more fish off you, however much fish you might be willing to offer them.  The reason is that binary is at core essentially binary not relative, the fish you are selling them simply cannot be sold but the item you are buying obviously *can* be sold (or why are you buying it).  The fish value is 0 (no value) and the purchased item value is 1 (has value). 

There is a great danger that the team will not understand this but will simply try to simply adjust the value of everything, that is because as far as I know the economists fail to understand the principle either.  Not only does an item have an exchange value there is also a finite amount of an item that a buyer will accept (at any price). 

You've got a universal oversupply of steel goods? Must be nice. 

That is exactly what would happen.  Because the surplus value of one master fisherman can support the whole fortress, then the other 199 dwarves can get to work making a steel industry.  The end result is that we end up with an universal oversuppy of steel goods as well.  It does not matter if more labour is required to produce an overabundance of steel goods because the insane levels of surplus value produced by the fisherman makes the labour needed to make an overabundance of steel goods available.

You've got a universal oversupply of steel goods? Must be nice. 
This does not mean that everyone can then change their profession to fisherdwarf and go on break all day. There are other things to do, other places to find work. Only after everything is in abundance can we begin the endless party. At that point you've pretty much won the economy.[/quote]

Enter Star Trek....  ;D ;D ;D

And what if no such work becomes available for a prolonged time? Should they not find something to do in the meantime? Find another task that needs doing, or somewhere else to apply their trade?

Being dwarves they will probably want too.  The problem that since as a result of the global oversupply of everything, that the fisherdwarves of everywhere have created there is literally nothing for them do.  In real-life society there would be the problem that the fisherdwarves lack the skills to be profitably employed, but since in our society everybody works for free labour has no cost hence even the most unskilled will end up at least mitigating some of their negative value. 

It ignores the issue of who is entitled to what. Does the fish cleaner get the gold throne, does it go to the baron, or does it go to the smith that forged it with communal resources?

We are assuming here that gold is not universally superabundant like everything else, at the moment the problem is not there since everybody can have a gold throne. 

The issue of to whom should the collective give what, is the issue that should logically dominate the game's internal politics not the issue of motivating dwarves to work for the collective, since dwarves are hard-working in their values and not so selfish that they would object to doing so for the collective.  However they are also materialistic enough and selfish enough, that they will want the collective to give them nice stuff.  Since they understand the value of 'craftsdwarfship' it makes sense that the most skilled labourers in the fortress would band together into unions/guilds in order to gain access to whatever amenities they see the nobles enjoying, which they got because dwarves value power enough that the most powerful dwarves can simply help themselves to the nicest stuff. 

So the question would be, first the baron gets the gold chair.  Then the smiths that made the chair band together into a guild/union to get their own gold chairs, because otherwise they can refuse to make anything metallic.  Then the fish cleaners realise that the smiths and the baron have gold chairs.  They realise that they feed both the smiths AND the baron, so they can get the fortress to give them gold chairs as well.  As a result of the increased demand gold mines everywhere start to appear, along with a whole new set of opportunities for miners who depart the fortress for richer pastures.  The lowly haulers however, probably cannot ever manage to get gold chairs unless gold does actually do become superabundant because the haulers guild has little power when everybody can haul. 

I also said that they could create an embark wagon or otherwise emigrate. Too many beards are bad for FPS anyways.

Too many sites are also bad for FPS. 

An alternative is modern welfare capitalism, where you get necessities but not luxuries.

The inhabitants of the work-house get necessities but not luxuries as well......

Modern welfare capitalism is a similar system except that we would be paying our dwarves to have an endless party rather than to dig in holes and fill them in again.  The essence of it is that because governments are no longer 'allowed' to simply employ everybody, they instead pay people to do nothing.  It all gets down to what I have been talking about in relationship to player mansions. 

If everybody is automatically employed by the government, then the only way a private employer can hope to get labourers is to offer everything that the government does, since the government will rationally not tolerate private individual simply stealing it's labour hours.  That means that the only way for the private employer to actually get labourers to work for him is to actually set himself up as a 'government' himself, in which case he is no longer really truly a 'private' employer at all. 

The modern welfare state is a result of a contradiction, the government actually wants to hire everybody but it is not 'allowed' to do so.  The capitalists need 'starving peasants' to hire but we do not actually want to have starving peasants because we are not complete monsters.  So we pay people to in effect behave like starving peasants, begging for work because otherwise we would take their benefits away and they would become actual starving peasants; the end result is that the unemployed are frequently worse off being employed than they were before.  This results in semi-starving employed peasants, which we do not want either so we end up giving benefits to people who are employed, so we end up paying employers to hire people essentially (so the government is really hiring people, exactly what it is not allowed to do). 

What part of this madness would any sane fortress actually introduce? 

What makes the current economy part of the bigger picture? Why isn't the economy an anachronism of the in-depth world simulation (which includes detailed histories, emotions and motives, climatology, civilization growth, etc.)? And furthermore: Why is everything communally owned at the site level, yet the mountainhomes does not extend this courtesy when the caravan rolls in? (It's not even a 1:1 trade.)

Q1. The fact that all NPC's have the same lifespan regardless of their social status.
Q2. Because very little of that contradicts with the present economy (except for the apparantly aimless bandits and criminals).
Q3. The mountainhomes seem to send you the caravan however ruinously expensive it would be to them.  The caravan is presumably paid for by the central government, but how the central government is supported is not presently developed. 

The hero is no longer the hero when he perpetuates evil to ensure his livelihood. When the evil is vanquished the hero returns home (if it still remains) and picks up the pieces of his life. If he took up the calling for fame and fortune, he is more mercenary than hero.

Indeed. 

It's fine if there's no unemployment in player forts and long as there are NPC sites contain individuals that have motive to work for an adventurer over working in the terraforming industry.

Yes. 

But as you said earlier, the surplus of goods devalues the goods and the dwarves labor. You don't need any more fish, and the caravans shouldn't logically buy them. What you might really need is high quality armor, which you won't get by throwing more dwarves at it. In fact, you harm it by spreading out your skill gains. At a certain point each migrant can only add clutter and FPS death.

Think of it like this (as a simplified DF game), you are living in a desert with no alternative means of food production than the river in the middle of your map.  It takes 15 fishermen to support your present population of 30, each fishermen has a surplus value of 2.0, that is he produces twice as much fish as he needs to survive.  If there was no surplus fishermen value, then a fortress would be impossible because all of your population of 30 would have to be fishermen. 

Those supported by the surplus fisherman value are the other 15 dwarves.  There could be 5 miners, 5 masons and 5 carpenters, so we now have wood surplus value, mining surplus value and stone surplus value directly 'springing up' as a result of the fisherman's surplus value.  Because the carpenters and masons produce individual items that are divided up among the population based upon the total population, the more people in relationship to the total number of carpenters or masons the less wood-value or stone value everybody gets (their surplus value is 6.0).  Because dwarves live underground however, unless the whole fortress consists entirely of private rooms the mining surplus value is not divided up on a 1:1 basis, it is special surplus value.  This is because the same dining room or hallway can be enjoyed at the same time by multiple dwarves even though a single dwarf miner carved it out. 

Now let us add in 30 dwarves.  15 of these must become fishermen, since the fishermen's surplus value is 2.0. 5 of them must become masons since the masons surplus value is 6.0.  5 of them must become carpenters since the carpenters surplus value is 6.0.  But since the total surplus value of the miners is shared equally by all, there is no greater amount of mining surplus value needed when there are 60 dwarves than when there were 30.  This means we have 5 idle dwarves that can now do something else. 

The 5 idle dwarves can now become engravers, producing a new form of 'special surplus value', more than one dwarf can admire the same engraving at the same time.  Therefore every dwarf is now richer as a result of their population having doubled from 30 to 60.  As the population continues to increase they will continue to get richer, as more forms of special surplus value will now be sustainable.  The thing that is distinguishes dwarf civilization from elf civilization fundermentally, in the latter there is no special surplus value because nothing that elf labour produces is ever sharable by more than one elf.  The trees are freely available, they may share them but they did not make the trees but the whole of a dwarf fortress (the value of private rooms depends upon the hallways) is special surplus value.  Elf civilization could cease to exist with them all devolving into monkeys and they would be no worse off for it. 

I'll also mention that nutrient levels for soil are planned to be tracked. This means that, alongside a food nerf, it will get to a point where the migrants begin to starve you out. This leads to a different kind of war over refugees.

That is Malthusian thinking.  To refer back to the previous response, it is what happens when we have a 'fortress' that has only fishermen because they all produce 1.0 surplus value (ie none at all).  It is also what happens when the whole fortress as a collective entity produces no surplus value. 

Any reduction in the amount of fish in the river would reduce the amount a fisherman catches to below 1.0, causing everybody to starve to death.  Up to the point where overfishing sets in in nobody cares if there are more fishermen in the site, it neither benefits nor hurts them but as soon as it reaches the limitation of the available fishes then everybody starves to death. 

In the actual fortress however we have surplus value.  Surplus value is what makes commerce possibile, if every fisherman can only manage to produce enough to food for himself to eat then he cannot sell it.  We see this in the moment in the way in which the caravan, with it's infinite market manages to act as a sink for our presently vast amount of surplus value.  To continue on from the earlier scenario......

The fortress population has now reached 120, which means that there must be 60 fishermen.  However the river can only support 50 fishermen, meaning that the Malthusian population limit would be 100 people.  However by increasing to 120 people it now has 10 extra people, since more special surplus value is *not* needed as the population grows, in addition to the 10 who cannot become fishermen.  These 20 can then be employed to make wooden crafts to buy plump helmets from another settlement.  Therefore the dwarves are actually producing a new kind of special surplus value, since everbody has a choice between whether to eat fish or plump helmets (and they are healthier). 

Since the caravan consumes surplus value itself, what the 10 leftover dwarves from the last two migrations are doing is working to support the caravan.  If the population had remained at 60, the fact that the society itself as a whole has no surplus value means that the caravan is impossible and consequently by allowing migration even beyond local Malthusian point the dwarves are richer than they would have been had they capped their numbers at 100.  The larger population supports the caravan, which is itself a form of special value since the caravan benefits everyone and is not divided up equally among all dwarves. 

I disagree. Most of the time I've seen the term used, it has more to do with ending shared items than anything.

The disturbing thing about shared items is they put an end to any logical need for money.  There is no mechanical problem with shared items, even if we got rid of the present ridiculous amount of surplus value, the only reason not to have shared items seems to be so that we can internally use money.  Hence the logic of the old Economy, we need to end shared items not because it is a rational thing for our dwarf fortress to do but because we need to limit their availability in order to have a reason to use money internally. 
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Bumber

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #33 on: September 30, 2015, 01:29:20 am »

There is a great danger that the team will not understand this but will simply try to simply adjust the value of everything, that is because as far as I know the economists fail to understand the principle either. Not only does an item have an exchange value there is also a finite amount of an item that a buyer will accept (at any price).
There's already some consideration for it in the caravan weight limit.

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That is exactly what would happen. Because the surplus value of one master fisherman can support the whole fortress, then the other 199 dwarves can get to work making a steel industry.  The end result is that we end up with an universal oversuppy of steel goods as well. It does not matter if more labour is required to produce an overabundance of steel goods because the insane levels of surplus value produced by the fisherman makes the labour needed to make an overabundance of steel goods available.
Assuming you have access to both flux and iron, that is. Imagine, if you will, an embark where the flux layer is an aquifer.

Quote
...since the government will rationally not tolerate private individual simply stealing it's labour hours. That means that the only way for the private employer to actually get labourers to work for him is to actually set himself up as a 'government' himself, in which case he is no longer really truly a 'private' employer at all.
I'm not convinced of this. I think you're overstating the government's desire to keep what amounts to minimal superfluous labor, and major overcrowding (if it was modeled for sentient creatures.) The citizens also have the right to live where they please.

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What part of this madness would any sane fortress actually introduce?
Basically just the free necessities for the poor.

Quote
The disturbing thing about shared items is they put an end to any logical need for money. There is no mechanical problem with shared items, even if we got rid of the present ridiculous amount of surplus value, the only reason not to have shared items seems to be so that we can internally use money.  Hence the logic of the old Economy, we need to end shared items not because it is a rational thing for our dwarf fortress to do but because we need to limit their availability in order to have a reason to use money internally.
There's no mechanical problem with shared items in fort mode. The problem occurs when a dwarf takes up a life of adventuring and needs to buy stuff from some human traders. His years of labor need to have counted for something. Internal money has a bonus to fort mode in that dwarves can be enabled to autonomously purchase goods without involving the player.


Edit: I just realized this has become another GoblinCookie-hijacked economics thread, even though it wasn't about economics. Discussion seems to be winding down a bit, at least. So how about them houses? Should a player be allowed to construct a home all on their lonesome (a la advfort,) or should they be required to hire labor for use in a sort of fort-based blueprint mode?
« Last Edit: September 30, 2015, 01:37:17 am by Bumber »
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #34 on: September 30, 2015, 07:21:39 am »

There's already some consideration for it in the caravan weight limit.

Not really since the physical size of the caravan increases as the caravan grows in size due to the profits that it makes.  The caravan is completely elastic, as you give it more stuff one year it gets bigger next year.

Assuming you have access to both flux and iron, that is. Imagine, if you will, an embark where the flux layer is an aquifer.

We are talking on the global scale.  The whole world will end up having a global oversupply of steel goods as a result of the global oversupply of fish.  I was talking not about a single fortress but all the sites in the world. 

I'm not convinced of this. I think you're overstating the government's desire to keep what amounts to minimal superfluous labor, and major overcrowding (if it was modeled for sentient creatures.) The citizens also have the right to live where they please.

Yes they will have to house the immigrants using their present supply of surplus value (what all the dwarves in the fortress produce on top of what they presently consume).  Space is not an issue because space can be made either by building upwards (for surface dwelling creatures), think massive tower blocks or by mining downwards.  If they still manage to run out of space they can simply expand the fortress area (the game engine does not allow us to do this I know but realistically they would) or they can send their existing population off to live in satellite settlements like hillocks or mountain halls, which provide reliably surplus value to the fortress through the fortress's commercial monopoly.   

Consequently they have a limited capacity to absorb migrants, but they also have a finite ability to actually absorb them.  Dwarf fortress would look at any drifting group of migrants as they would look at a vein of gold ore, all that they need to do is 'mine' the immigrants by building them suitable housing BUT they can only mine/house so many in a given time-frame.  However a larger population produces a larger surplus value, which given that the larger portion of that surplus value is spend upon shared values means that the more beings there are in the site, the richer each individual being is. 

Basically just the free necessities for the poor.

That would mean that things would be basically working as they do at the moment.  Everybody gets a stockpile of basic goods available to them for free but some dwarves get nicer goods (royal bedrooms) assigned to them. 

There's no mechanical problem with shared items in fort mode. The problem occurs when a dwarf takes up a life of adventuring and needs to buy stuff from some human traders. His years of labor need to have counted for something. Internal money has a bonus to fort mode in that dwarves can be enabled to autonomously purchase goods without involving the player.

Yes, we mainly need money when our fortress (or it's dwarves) are dealing with outsiders.  However we do not need money when dealing with outsiders who are doing something of value for our fortress, since they can temporarily migrate to our fortress, be given what they need, perform a certain amount of labour sufficient that they provide the fortress with surplus value and then leave. 

We actually need money when we have outsiders who need or want things that exceed the value of the labour (if any) that they are able to perform.  Thus only when we have outsiders who produce negative value for our fortress we will need to be compensated for supplying such individuals with what they need/want; that is when we start needing money. 

Need is the key thing, money does not just drop from the sky, money is an institution that has to be invented and in order to be invented it must serve a need within the moneyless economic order (what we largely have at the moment).  Money will thus arise when we have lots of individuals trying to use sites as bases but without those individuals doing anything of sufficient value for the site that supports them. 


Edit: I just realized this has become another GoblinCookie-hijacked economics thread, even though it wasn't about economics. Discussion seems to be winding down a bit, at least. So how about them houses? Should a player be allowed to construct a home all on their lonesome (a la advfort,) or should they be required to hire labor for use in a sort of fort-based blueprint mode?

Thus far the 'hijack' has been fairly civil, unlike previous experiences.   :) :)

It was always an economics thread as the question of adventurers building homes is an economic question.  As I said before, at the moment it does not make economic sense for anyone to have hired servants working on/building their mansion because as unemployment does not exist (nor is there any reason for a site to invent it) the only way to acquire a mansion of your own would be to rehire the inhabitants of some of site, which means you would have to give them a better deal than their own site is presently giving them.  The only way to compete with a site is to become a site yourself, with amenities competitive with the others. 

In other words, the player building a mansion would basically be a starting scenario.  The adventurer would recruit a bunch of dwarves from existing sites to build a new site, he would have the special position of mansion owner within the site but would also be expedition leader.  He could tie a room or set of rooms within the site to his position (something that should be available for other positions).  Then when the expedition leader expires and is replaced by the elected mayor he would be able to return to adventuring, the site would continue to develop as a normal AI site but he would remain mansion owner, with access to the rooms he earlier assigned to his position. 
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JesterHell696

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #35 on: September 30, 2015, 08:17:45 am »

It was always an economics thread as the question of adventurers building homes is an economic question.  As I said before, at the moment it does not make economic sense for anyone to have hired servants working on/building their mansion because as unemployment does not exist (nor is there any reason for a site to invent it) the only way to acquire a mansion of your own would be to rehire the inhabitants of some of site, which means you would have to give them a better deal than their own site is presently giving them.  The only way to compete with a site is to become a site yourself, with amenities competitive with the others. 

In other words, the player building a mansion would basically be a starting scenario.  The adventurer would recruit a bunch of dwarves from existing sites to build a new site, he would have the special position of mansion owner within the site but would also be expedition leader.  He could tie a room or set of rooms within the site to his position (something that should be available for other positions).  Then when the expedition leader expires and is replaced by the elected mayor he would be able to return to adventuring, the site would continue to develop as a normal AI site but he would remain mansion owner, with access to the rooms he earlier assigned to his position. 

But the thing you seem to not take into account is that like many suggestions its not about what make sense right now but what fits in with the future development of DF and adventurer homes and personnel hire's do seem to fit some of the dev goals.

Quote from: JesterHell696
Toady is the fortress mode economy ever going to return? if so how and if not why?

We were hoping to do a bit this time, but it didn't turn out that way.  It's hard to do it justice without some more information, and we're going to be setting up a lot of the framework in the release after the artifact release.  After that release, we'll have outlying dependent sites, status, customs, property, law and all sorts of useful stuff.  Then we'll have to see where we branch -- we could get right into production and caravans and agriculture, or we might go somewhere else.  The framework is meant to handle the economy, the justice system, and more nuanced diplomacy -- many avenues will open at once. That's three big pushes down the line, so it would be pointless to speculate more.

By the look of things Toady does want something and even if he doesn't know how it will work right now, if only to provide motive and reason for the standard fantasy tropes and He'll probably adjust the simulation until it does work, because I doubt he'll drop all the dev page goals that would benefit from such an economy just to keep the status quo.


Also, why no reply to my other post?  ???
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #36 on: September 30, 2015, 11:05:11 am »

By the look of things Toady does want something and even if he doesn't know how it will work right now, if only to provide motive and reason for the standard fantasy tropes and He'll probably adjust the simulation until it does work, because I doubt he'll drop all the dev page goals that would benefit from such an economy just to keep the status quo.

Also, why no reply to my other post?  ???

I was working at the time and I used up my lunch hour on Bumber's shorter post. 

It is not what Toady One is going to do (it is not my game, I cannot argue with it), but merely how he might go about trying to add in.  I am just trying to bring him (and everyone) to a greater understanding of the nature of his own society as it follows from the basic mechanics he has built the game upon (not the specific economy order as such).  I feel that there is a danger that Toady One will thoughtlessly add in (more) anachronisms drawn from history or other fantasy world than do not make any sense nor even function when integrated.  He cannot now make a medieval society and economy unless he were to throw out the whole game basically and start from scratch. 

Congrats on your response from Toady.

Quote from: Future of the Fortress
We were hoping to do a bit this time, but it didn't turn out that way.  It's hard to do it justice without some more information, and we're going to be setting up a lot of the framework in the release after the artifact release.  After that release, we'll have outlying dependent sites, status, customs, property, law and all sorts of useful stuff.  Then we'll have to see where we branch -- we could get right into production and caravans and agriculture, or we might go somewhere else.  The framework is meant to handle the economy, the justice system, and more nuanced diplomacy -- many avenues will open at once.  That's three big pushes down the line, so it would be pointless to speculate more.

Toady seems not to be giving me much reason to worry here.  He seems to understand well that development of the economic system depends upon development of the wider framework and so does not seem to be about to give us Old Economy Mk.2 anytime soon.  The only potential danger is that the wider framework will be senseless and arbitery in order to make the economy make sense, but since I am confident that Toady One now understands the kind of issues I raise in these kinds of threads I am not that worried.
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Nibblewerfer

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #37 on: September 30, 2015, 02:24:37 pm »

I don't really know what to say about the ridiculously long discussion over economics relating to building a house.
One thing I was thinking about building your own housing is that I was wondering if the player would be able to make the same sorts of buildings and mechanisms that a dwarf could make, which would certainly make mansion security a breeze if you could just lock it down in some fashion when you leave that only you knew how to reopen it. Also if you were a necromancer you could just fill some attic compartment with zombies that opens when someone comes inside or some manner of protection.
My apologies if this makes no sense because this is my second post, and I am also in class.
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #38 on: September 30, 2015, 03:16:38 pm »

true, with the current over abundance of goods just applying a currency system doesn't fit but we know toady wants to change the farming system to require more land and work which will change the rate of production when combined with dwarf greed (slightly higher then human) and their obsession with materials and items of personal preference with a more limited production base (higher percentage of farmers less crafters) it opens the possibility for a currency system to exists.

I also remember something about apprenticeships and lower then normal quality goods (shoddy/poor) for novices and the like giving items of higher quality even more "value" to the consumer.

It does, but the relationship between scarcity and currency is not as direct as you think it is. 

what should it do? handle supply and demand, because dwarf are depicted as being more materialistic and greedy then humans they need a economic system that can represents this.

Money does not work well as a system of rationing.  The reason is that those setting the prices cannot easily determine how much money ever single dwarf has to spend and their Save/Spend preference (how much of that money they are willing to spend on your item vs saving).  This means that when prices are set for scarce resources we either set the prices too high, in which case the scarcity is artificially increased by the fact that people cannot afford to buy the item or prices are set too low in which case the first comer buys up too much stock and the late comers get nothing because the stocks are empty. 

If you want to ration scarce resources, what you do is ration scarce resources.  If you are producing 800 fish a month and you have 200 dwarves you give each dwarf a ration of 4 fish per month and now everything works smoothly.  Nobody therefore aside from an idiot or madman would ever introduce money in order to ration scarce resources because actually rationing scarce resources works so much better. 

The reason why money would exist is because of negative value.  The workers of a fortress generally produce some amount of surplus value (there is no fortress otherwise), their work produces more goods than they consume, which means that the present moneyless system is quite optimal for them and if goods are scarce they are rationed not sold.  However an adventurer who turns up in a site wants to aquire goods but he does not wish stick around long enough to produce goods for the site.  This means that he produces negative value, the very opposite of surplus value since he consumes more goods than he produces. 

If you are living in Star Trek or the present DF Economy, then this does not matter since unless there are an insane amount of visiting adventurers or they take an insane amount of wealth from your fortress they merely eat into a small amount of your colossal surplus value, which greatly exceeds your demands anyway.  If surplus value is finite however (as in reality) then the visiting adventurer is making your site poorer.  In order to compensate for this, it is reasonable for the site to demand something of equal to or greater than the value than the adventurer extracts from the site in return. 

Thus the adventurer has to set out to the site with goods equal or greater in value to the goods he needs to acquire.  However goods have two problems, their value is uncertain and they have a binary value as well (only a finite quantity can be sold at any value at all).  Without money the adventurer or his home site has to guess what will be in demand, but if the items he brings with him cannot be sold for the items he needs he is in trouble.  However given that all items in the game at present have fixed value and a limitless demand, there is still no reason for anyone to have money, since money is just another item with fixed value and limitless demand (but is also useless). 

The utility of money is that it has the properties that all items in the game presently have, a fixed value and limitless demand. Once items start to have a fluctuating demand and a finite value then money will start to make sense since it alone will have those properties which are needed by an adventurer or other travelling person in dealing with sites. 

They do resemble sapient ants, except that sapient "Ants" are always portrayed with some kind of "Hive Mind" and a "Hive Mind" is sub human imho, some examples are the Rachni in mass effect, the "buggers" in Enders game, Bugs in Starship Troopers, Xenomorphs in aliens ect. and even when they have individuals its the exception rather then the rule.

I don't believe this level of altruism is as inherent to humans as it is to a Hive Mind and I see dwarfs as being closer to humans then anything else so I find this level of altruism as being so improbable to the point that saying an entire race of almost humans use it as a part of their economic model is unreasonable.

I see a future of dwarf fortress where dwarfs that you give jobs they don't like will emigrate out of your fortress to follow their passion for cheese making http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=136384.0 or where a dwarf coward will refuse to join the militia even if you assign them to it, to put it simply I want dwarfs to be individuals who personality facets are deciding factor in weather they accept your decision as overseer and if not they leave the fortress or "rebel" against you.

As it stand DF doesn't model personality facets in decision making processes nor does it effect the "hard" values of a civilization but when you take civilization entity "Values" combined with the recent scholar addition where Toady said there was the possibility for scholar to change civilization values in a future update but that it wasn't a part of the current development arc then the potential for the reformation of dwarf civs is great.

It is perfectly possible for dwarves to emigrate because you do not give them jobs they like under the present economic system. 

The Hive-Mind is not the same thing as an Over-Mind.  A Hive-Mind is a metaphor for the way in which information spreads among the ants and since they all make the correct decision they appear to act in unison according to a higher mind with no government commanding them to act in unison.  Among sentiant beings a Hive-Mind is known as....

Consensus Decision Making

All the ants are very much individual beings, it just happens to be that they all make the correct altruistic decision in relation to the information collectively available and appear thus to be something more than individual beings following their own wills. 

I don't think i said sapient ant people can't exist... did I? my point was that dwarfs aren't ant people sapient or otherwise.

I never seen dwarfs as behaving "fundamentally" like ant people, the only thing the have in common in my eyes is that they live underground, they have always been depicted as loving wealth, holding grudges and being stubborn to a fault none of which I think of as being ant like.

I don't think dwarfs aren't supposed to be the perfect ant-people you seem to think they should be but that their subterranean humans with a focus on crafting and a greater lust for wealth.

I never said that dwarves were perfect ant-people!  I said that dwarves and ants have a fundermental similarity that is quite critical for how dwarf society would realistically work.  That similarity is not that they live underground but that they CREATE an underground. 

I know about the replicator and understand the basic of how it influences the star trek world, I just don't see it (star trek society) as the likely result.

The Star Fleet as the equivilant of the present fortress mode caravan.  A vast demand sink for the immense surplus value produced by those humans who still want to work, despite the lack of any need for payment for doing so.  I cannot see what is unlikely about it. 

I'm not missing evolution, I just don't see that because they both live underground meaning that they would have similar social pressure to cause them the adapt in similar way, their would only be minor similarity's in my mind because biology of ants and dwarf (Humans) are to different to result in the same society/economy.

Society and economy are *not* the result of biology.  The nature of the creature (including biology) is the ultimate result of society and economy; that is why I said evolution.

Dwarves like ants live in vast underground edifaces, which means that unlike with real-life humans, there is no prospect of surviving or prospering from the breakdown of society.  Since human peasants live in individual hovels with their own family vegetable plots under a sky that nobody made it is quite possible for that individual peasant to succeed from the ruination of the whole society around him, as his neighbors starve to death he can even expand his farm to get richer. 

Dwarves on the other hand, the society they are part of built and mantains the very place they live in.  The dwarf unlike the human peasant can never profit from the ruin of his society because if the society fails then the sky will fall on his own head due to lack of maintanance.  In this key respect the dwarf's economic reality has more in common with that of an ant that it does with that of a human peasant. 

The vast majority of the dwarf population in my worlds lives in hillocks above ground.

I think the issue is that I see dwarfs as a offshoot of humanity that adapted to living in the caverns underground, starting off ass nomad in the cavern layer and then went on to build the vast underground edifaces as they gathered in larger and larger groups and I just don't see the adaptation to underground living as resulting in ant society not because its impossible but because its improbable enough to be that it might as well be.

I see dwarves in much the same way myself. 

To put it simply: That is why dwarves are not ant-people. 

I see dwarf as originating in the caverns as tribal groups (if your world doesn't have caverns dwarf civs wont generate) and these caverns where not created by collective labor of dwarf society so these original groups operated like human tribal groups above ground only underground in caverns.

Because I see the origins of dwarf in this way I can see them as short subterranean humans with only some minor differences.

Yes, but they are not medieval humans.  They have no history behind them of living in peasant hovels and thus they have never invented a whole set of economic, cultural and legal institutions suited to that reality.  Since they have skipped the whole peasant hovels stage of historical development, they are going to have invented a whole set of institution suited for their present ant-like existance instead. 

The real-issue then is to what extent given their recent history of being cavern wandering quasi-humans can they realise the optimal form of society for the reality in which they have to exist? 

I don't see a dwarf fortresses as a skyscraper but more akin to Machu Picchu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu nor do I think dwarfs are any scarier then titans, dragons, night creatures, boogy men ect.

Machu Picchu is basically just an Inca Palace/Castle. 

The various inca peasants lived scattered about in hundreds of villages and their collective surplus labour built the place.  Having been built it then continued to consume the surplus value of these peasants, resulting in no more Machu Picchu's being built. 

The fortress on the other hand was not created by the hillocks.  The fortress existed first and it's surplus value created the hillocks around it as well as other fortresses, the exact reverse of the situation with Machu Picchu.  The hillocks are therefore not quasi-human peasant villages, the hillocks is a topsoil fortress, that replicates the society of the fortress on the surface if not the exact architecture.  The hillocks is a nutrient mine, it exists because the fortress wished to get it's hands on more nutrients that it already had but it already had the ability to produce enough surplus value to survive since it's own surplus value CREATED the hillocks. 

How is it greater then any other kind of site? dwarfs start in the caverns and carve the fortress out of something that already exists (the stone layers), they don't have to harvest the resources to build houses, walls or roads, food is the only resource that the first fortress needs to stockpile and the creation of the fortress generates more materials not consumes them.

Until toady handles the myth generator what comes before year 0 is subjective which is a big influence on why I think dwarf developed they way I do.

Just like I am not assuming the existance of Star Trek Post-Scarcity, I am not assuming that mining is really as simple as simply forging a dwarf a pick and sending him off to mine. Mining realistically needs shovels to remove rubble, beams to hold up the ceiling, pillars to hold up large underground rooms (like the kind dwarves intend to live in). 

Yes, a fortress is the most expensive site to construct, which means that dwarf definately without a doubt got there first.  Elves got there last because their site is the cheapest to construct and their society would never independantly arise at all. 

I think the civs developed simultaneously forging their own values as they developed, dwarfs have access to steel and adamantine because of where they developed not because they where the first civ to develop.

Adamantine makes sense, steel does not.  Steel is made of things that can be found close to the surface. 

They can so long as it doesn't cost them personally but once it becomes a case of helping others at a cost to themselves there is a sharp drop off in how altruistic people are, just look at the Syrian refugees many places don't want to get involved any more then necessary because it will cost them more money then they stand to get back making it a bad investment and and yes their are still people who want to help but significantly less then if it cost nothing personally.

Depending up the society and economy, what is selfish or altruistic changes. 

If the Syrian refugees were all transplanted into a DF world then the sites would be fighting, not over who has to harbour the refugees but over the refugees themselves.  This is not anything to do with the people being more altruistic, it is simply that the nature of the present economy and society makes the situation different.

In real-life Capitalism, the people are all in a stupid war over who gets to do the most work.  That is because nobody has yet managed to turn off the Economy in reality's ini. file (though many have tried).  Everybody only gets to avoid destitution if they find work, but they are competing with all the other people in the market.  The few competators they have the better chance they have of finding work and the less chance a competator will steal their job. 

In DF present society, the more people the fortress has the greater it's total surplus value.  This means that more things can be built or done that improve the collective wealth of the fortress, enjoyed equally by all dwarves.  While initially feeding and housing the migrants consumes surplus value, they will look at it rather like they look at mining, it costs value now to house the Syrians but they produce in the long run far more surplus value than it took to house them. 

I disagree but only because I don't want ant-person dwarfs, if they do decide to make dwarfs ant-people then your suggestion is one I would support, I just hope they don't.

We do not need a whole new economy and society (does not mean we should not have one) to not have ant-person dwarves.  We just need to give dwarves more ways of disrupting the functioning of the cosy Hive-Mind consensus. 

I do fully support the Idea of procedural generation of cultural values for all civs, if this consistently results in ant-person dwarfs then so be it, I don't think it will though.

My idea is only to have the status quo 'Ant-Person' economy/society as the basis.  According to the nature of the creature and it's values that society then evolves, so that some elements of the initial society are retained but not others. 

Instead of Toady One simply decreeing "Let there be money and wages", an actual event happens in which a real historical characters introduces money and wages to the fortress, if the creature is too lazy or too selfish to work for the fortress without direct material incentives.  Another ruler however might instead decide "Let the idlers get punished", instituting forced labour instead.  In this way the eventual state of things is not fixed but unpredictable and amenable to change by the agency of actual historical characters. 

I disagree, they removed the old economy because dwarfs couldn't afford rooms larger then a closet or any prepared food regardless of surplus thus "breaking" the game so they removed it and then made every thing "community" based until such a time as a dwarf fortress could support such an internal economy.

They did not institute the economy initially upon embark; that was because it did not work.  They thought that if only the fortress was more advanced it would work, but it did not.  Now according to you they have still learned nothing, if the fortress can be developed more then it will work.  Bottom line is....

It does not work because it is an irrational system unsuited for the dwarf society.  You cannot just transplant an economy wholesale from medieval society as if they were medieval peasants when they are not. 

I've got to admit I've never really understood Toady's elves as with no need for anything other then fruit they could live easily as individual immortal hermits, the current system they have seem like "working" anarchism and I said it fit them because I thought ant-person -work ethic =hippy community. 

Mostly it works because elf society has high values harmony and working together is harmonious... but the also believe in competition... hmmm I've never actually looked at the elf raws before but looking at them now they make no sense regardless of how hard I look....

Your definitely right in this....

Now I hate elves even more congrats.   ;D

Now this might enable you to understand why I keep making the dwarf/ant comparison. 

Because the elves do not depend in any sense on the collective for their personal wellbeing elf society does not make sense.  That is because the elves would personally in no way suffer if all the other elves except from a few personal friends and family were to dissapear.  The nuts and berries will still be there, more of them as well with no other elves around.  Since the elf society is entirely based upon the natural, in no sense does all the elves cooperating to form a site benefit the individual elf in any way. 

Now dwarves (or ants) are in the exact opposite situation.  Since the dwarves live in an artificial manner, inside something that they have collectively created if the dwarf society where to fall apart then every individual dwarf would lose everything.  This means that just as elf society makes no sense, the dwarf society makes too much sense.  Individual autonomy is therefore something that needs to be absolutely bound into a Hive-Mind consensus must be created by any means.  The ant-people have already done this, which makes them perfected dwarves. 

Real dwarves suffer from annoying leftover evolutionary throwbacks to when they were more like elves.  As a result the development of dwarf economy would thus be the story of the dwarf economy finding new ways to bring the individual dwarf's annoying autonomous and selfish tendencies back into line with itself whether by force or by compromise. 

I will say I've never heard of these Hutterite's before which I think shows how successful they are and when you factor how few of these "colony's" there is it show how impractical it is compared to other methods for the propose of growth.

The purpose of growth? 

Quote
Hutterites (German: Hutterer) are an ethno-religious group that is a communal branch of Anabaptists who, like the Amish and Mennonites, trace their roots to the Radical Reformation of the 16th century. Since the death of their namesake Jakob Hutter in 1536, the beliefs of the Hutterites, especially living in a community of goods and absolute pacifism, have resulted in hundreds of years of diaspora in many countries. Nearly extinct by the 18th and 19th centuries, the Hutterites found a new home in North America. Over 125 years their population grew from 400 to around 42,000.

At times it feels like a hive mind, a dwarfs whose personality clashes with overseer decision just follows orders when they should refuse, rebel or emigrate.

A dwarf with a VIOLENT value of  0-9 "would flee even the most necessary battle to avoid any form of physical confrontation" should refuse to serve in the militia or desert it.
A dwarf with a BRAVERY value of 0-9 "is a coward, completely overwhelmed by fear when confronted with danger" should flee if you try and make them a part of the militia.
A dwarf with a PERSEVERENCE value of 91-100    "is unbelievably stubborn and will stick with even the most futile action once [his/her] mind is made up" should refuse unwanted career changes.

I suppose that I just feel that personality facets should be the most important aspect of deciding how dwarf acts in game and how you treat that dwarf.

I agree with you.  None of that however requires a whole new economy to be introduced. 

the point is to remove fortress surplus and make the fortresses have poverty stricken peasants too then it evens out also I don't think humans would like the unlit darkness of a fortress.

Unless everbody was a poverty stricken peasant, in which case the whole fortress would be abandoned as they ALL leave for greener pastures I cannot see why reducing the amount of surplus value would result in poverty stricken peasants in a dwarf fortress.  It just does not work, whatever fortress invents poverty stricken peasants then finds all it's poverty stricken peasants take their labour to the more egalitarian fortress.   That utopian fortress then cannibalises the dystopian fortress, until it sees sense and starts looking after all it's people. 

The unwillingness of the human peasants to live in the darkness is easily solves by the dwarves building apartment blocks above the fortress.  Failing that they can always cart them off to create a subordinate human hamlet in the vicinity of the fortress (aka Dale in Lord of the Rings).

Which I don't feel will last, I think that as more adv roles get added you will be able to offer things like personal wealth, non-martial fame and safety beyond what a site can offer, do you mess with the people protected by the guy who has killed 5 dragons, 3 bronze collois, 12 giants ect. all be himself? or that farming community off to the side there?

The 6th dragon will probably kill you, if it does not kill him (you are not a demigod).  The idea that the adventurer can offer safety has got to be the stupidest idea ever. 

I think that with the myth generator world will become vastly more varied and then toady wants to remove good and evil biomes and instead have biomes that are influenced by spheres creating further variation and if you add in generation for cultural values and the ability for values to change over time then every world will be unique in its own way.

Except that if you had your way they would all have starving peasants.  Because some things cannot be allowed to not happen however much variation you want.  A world of quasi-Hutterites living in perpetual pacifist peace and harmony with no starving peasants? Nah! 

I think of it like this, who is the author of this book http://dnd.wizards.com/products/fiction/novels-ebooks/archmage R.A. Salvatore or the people who wrote the DnD core rules/setting?

I suppose this might just be a matter of semantics again and while I see the dev as the driving influence (source of lore) for the author (game) they aren't the author of the story itself (your world).

They are because they created the game-engine that made your world.  R.A Salvatore was merely inspired by the D&D rules, his books do not follow them to the letter and there is no reason they should. 

I totally agree, I feel the game should generate all of a civilizations values based on the host creatures personality facets and then allow the economy to grow from the pressure of supply and demand vs the ideals of values and facets.

Making everything based upon personality facets is bloody biological determinism.  The same human nature created the Hutterites as created Nazi Germany (they are both German in origin), so how were values created based upon the inherant personality facets of the German creature type?

My main problem is the idea of dwarfs as ant-people where as I see them as subterranean humans and if you go back far enough don't ancient human tribal society's have some trace of that simplistic "ant" economy where they shared resources for the common good? and if so why the change... because while that perfect system will give me what I need an imperfect system can get me what I want hence why I say its so improbable for sapient individuals to use such a system.

Until you posted about the Hutterite's had never heard of such a society in any sort of post tribal setting.

What I think it comes down to is that because I see the current economy as being a flaw in the simulations integrity and to me your suggestion sounded like keep the current system, expand it a bit and then poke some holes in it to give the player some conflict to resolve where as I thought we might as well have one that's really interesting even if its just medieval England's economy forced across all aspects of the DF world.

I didn't even think of a procedurally generated economy until the end of my last post and I knew instantly that toady would want to do it like that if its possible and that its far superior to my shoehorning England's economy into the game. :P

I find the present economy very interesting.  The whole idea of how the present economy might develop all the institutions that exist in the dev page and how it might change over time into something different (and likely worse) based upon the nature of the creature and decisions of individuals is far more interesting than the prospect of trying to clone the society of medieval England and force creatures who live in a manner that resembles them not one bit to play along. 

You should pay more attention to the Hutterites, since they knock a massive hole in your entire opinion of human nature.  Since we know that humans can successfully manage to live in communal harmony at a scale roughly equivilant to a dwarf fortress then why is there any fundermental problem with dwarves doing the same?

How? the fact that they live underground is the only real similarity with ants, other then that they are basically humans.

In order to survive a society must produce surplus value as with no surplus value and the society cannot support any children or immigrants, hence extinction.  If the people refuse to produce surplus value for the 'collective' then they must be bribed to do it; that means personal wages which requires some withdrawal of items from general availability in order to work.  Alternatively they can be punished for not working to pretty much the same effect.

Since dwarves have hard-working values and productive values (craftsmanship) but are not so selfish as to inherantly opposed to the idea of working for the collective good, they will produce plenty of surplus value, meaning no dwarf ruler would ever really have to abandon the whole idea of working freely for nothing.  Unless the fundermental values of dwarf society were to change in the direction of either selfishness or laziness that is  ;)

I said it a bit by now but I think of dwarfs as humans that at best "evolved" but in my opinion adapted to the cavern layers and if you combine this with procedural civ values/law they shouldn't be that different from humans because I think they where nomadic cavern dwellers instead of nomadic surface dwellers.

I'm enjoying this discussion immensely :D

Glad to hear it.  :) :)
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Bumber

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #39 on: September 30, 2015, 09:57:41 pm »

Thus far the 'hijack' has been fairly civil, unlike previous experiences.
It's still lengthy as ever. Try scrolling through just this page.

Quote
It was always an economics thread as the question of adventurers building homes is an economic question.  As I said before, at the moment it does not make economic sense for anyone to have hired servants working on/building their mansion because as unemployment does not exist (nor is there any reason for a site to invent it) the only way to acquire a mansion of your own would be to rehire the inhabitants of some of site, which means you would have to give them a better deal than their own site is presently giving them. The only way to compete with a site is to become a site yourself, with amenities competitive with the others.
I have to wonder what makes an evil glacial embark competitive with others.
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THE xTROLL FUR SOCKx RUSE WAS A........... DISTACTION        the carp HAVE the wagon

A wizard has turned you into a wagon. This was inevitable (Y/y)?

GoblinCookie

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #40 on: October 01, 2015, 06:21:18 am »

It's still lengthy as ever. Try scrolling through just this page.

It turns into a series of essays, each taking over an hour to write.  That is because of the nature of the subject matter does lend itself to such an outcome.  Building houses = Economics = Long-Essays. 

I have to wonder what makes an evil glacial embark competitive with others.

At the moment what makes it competitive is just that it produces wealth, the greater the wealth the greater the number of migrants attracted.  What is not taken into account is the nature of the biome (creatures should be disinclined to migrate to places they would never 'naturally' build a site at) as well as the lack of security at the site and the travel time from where they are. 

But migrants are presently not actually real people, with the exception of a few historical migrants.  They were actually just invented, which is why they do not show up as having a former site government.  In that respect migrants is similar to the caravan, they are a fortress mode abstraction that is intended to eventually be developed into a real thing that exists outside of fortress mode.

When it is a hope that more factors than simply wealth are taken into account, it should be very difficult to get people to migrate into evil glaciers 
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JesterHell696

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #41 on: October 01, 2015, 07:40:30 am »

I was working at the time and I used up my lunch hour on Bumber's shorter post. 

Ah, I originally thought as much but after your second reply to Bumber I though maybe you'd just decided not to reply, my bad I apologize.

It is not what Toady One is going to do (it is not my game, I cannot argue with it), but merely how he might go about trying to add in.  I am just trying to bring him (and everyone) to a greater understanding of the nature of his own society as it follows from the basic mechanics he has built the game upon (not the specific economy order as such).  I feel that there is a danger that Toady One will thoughtlessly add in (more) anachronisms drawn from history or other fantasy world than do not make any sense nor even function when integrated.  He cannot now make a medieval society and economy unless he were to throw out the whole game basically and start from scratch. 

Ah, I see.

I do think there is a danger of hurting the sim by just slapping on an economy to what we have right now but I feel that is largely from the static nature of value the game currently has combined the the starting site of dwarves (Fortress). if you change the first dwarven site from a fortress to an cavern based hillock/hamlet type site then dwarves with spaced out hovels can exist and dwarves can adopt a less inherently communal nature.

Congrats on your response from Toady.

After you posted the link to future of the fortress I wanted to know what the big man himself had to say.

Toady seems not to be giving me much reason to worry here.  He seems to understand well that development of the economic system depends upon development of the wider framework and so does not seem to be about to give us Old Economy Mk.2 anytime soon.  The only potential danger is that the wider framework will be senseless and arbitery in order to make the economy make sense, but since I am confident that Toady One now understands the kind of issues I raise in these kinds of threads I am not that worried.

I don't think there much reason for either of us to worry, once the "three big pushes" are done a lot of the economy framework will have grown out of the stuff that now exists.

I'm confident that I'll be able to get my rich adventure his private mansion with a personal cook and you seem confident that he'll do it in a way thats not broken.

It does, but the relationship between scarcity and currency is not as direct as you think it is. 

From my layman's perspective it seem like a major part but I'm no expert so I'll take your word for it.

Money does not work well as a system of rationing.  The reason is that those setting the prices cannot easily determine how much money ever single dwarf has to spend and their Save/Spend preference (how much of that money they are willing to spend on your item vs saving).  This means that when prices are set for scarce resources we either set the prices too high, in which case the scarcity is artificially increased by the fact that people cannot afford to buy the item or prices are set too low in which case the first comer buys up too much stock and the late comers get nothing because the stocks are empty.   

Which is how we get those poverty stricken peasants that enable tropes for maximum !!!FUN!!!

If you want to ration scarce resources, what you do is ration scarce resources.  If you are producing 800 fish a month and you have 200 dwarves you give each dwarf a ration of 4 fish per month and now everything works smoothly.  Nobody therefore aside from an idiot or madman would ever introduce money in order to ration scarce resources because actually rationing scarce resources works so much better. 

The reason why money would exist is because of negative value.  The workers of a fortress generally produce some amount of surplus value (there is no fortress otherwise), their work produces more goods than they consume, which means that the present moneyless system is quite optimal for them and if goods are scarce they are rationed not sold.  However an adventurer who turns up in a site wants to aquire goods but he does not wish stick around long enough to produce goods for the site.  This means that he produces negative value, the very opposite of surplus value since he consumes more goods than he produces. 

If you are living in Star Trek or the present DF Economy, then this does not matter since unless there are an insane amount of visiting adventurers or they take an insane amount of wealth from your fortress they merely eat into a small amount of your colossal surplus value, which greatly exceeds your demands anyway.  If surplus value is finite however (as in reality) then the visiting adventurer is making your site poorer.  In order to compensate for this, it is reasonable for the site to demand something of equal to or greater than the value than the adventurer extracts from the site in return. 

Thus the adventurer has to set out to the site with goods equal or greater in value to the goods he needs to acquire.  However goods have two problems, their value is uncertain and they have a binary value as well (only a finite quantity can be sold at any value at all).  Without money the adventurer or his home site has to guess what will be in demand, but if the items he brings with him cannot be sold for the items he needs he is in trouble.  However given that all items in the game at present have fixed value and a limitless demand, there is still no reason for anyone to have money, since money is just another item with fixed value and limitless demand (but is also useless). 

The utility of money is that it has the properties that all items in the game presently have, a fixed value and limitless demand. Once items start to have a fluctuating demand and a finite value then money will start to make sense since it alone will have those properties which are needed by an adventurer or other travelling person in dealing with sites. 

Which is why it doesn't make sense to implement right now but we know Toady does want to model supply and demand economy and while we don't know how Toady will implement such an economy and do know that he want to create a system where the standard fantasy tropes are possible so discussing suggestions that depend on such an economy like this topic's main idea is fine even if it doesn't fit the status quo.

It is perfectly possible for dwarves to emigrate because you do not give them jobs they like under the present economic system. 

The Hive-Mind is not the same thing as an Over-Mind.  A Hive-Mind is a metaphor for the way in which information spreads among the ants and since they all make the correct decision they appear to act in unison according to a higher mind with no government commanding them to act in unison.  Among sentiant beings a Hive-Mind is known as....

Consensus Decision Making

All the ants are very much individual beings, it just happens to be that they all make the correct altruistic decision in relation to the information collectively available and appear thus to be something more than individual beings following their own wills. 

In that case think of sapient ants as being like the Tau from Warhammer 40k then, the Consensus Decision Making you present doesn't fit ants imho chiefly because they communicate though pheromones and the queen's pheromones are the strongest and without her the colony dies the are biologically dependent on such cooperation for their survival.

A dwarves by comparison is not so limited, their is evidence by players that a single dwarf can survive without that level of cooperation. this evidence generally come from either survival of a fort with one dwarf cutoff from the stockpiles (forgotten beast, dragon, undead ect.) whom has to take care of their own needs or in the "hermit" fortress challenge which is all about doing the same thing intentionally.


Also thanks for showing me how to change how a url appears in a post.  :)

I never said that dwarves were perfect ant-people!  I said that dwarves and ants have a fundermental similarity that is quite critical for how dwarf society would realistically work.  That similarity is not that they live underground but that they CREATE an underground.

Okay fair enough, you said the perfect dwarf is an ant-person which is differant... my bad.

I think your underestimating how much biology would play in how they form their society, just creating underground doesn't mean they same the same social pressures, dwarves don't have a progenitor queen who survival is the colony's survival so in the end each dwarfs survival is not dependent on the existence of any other dwarf and there no reason that dwarves can't live like humans in the cavern layer.

So the question is why don't they? when I think about it I see dwarves starting in a fortress as a leftover mechanic from past versions and I feel that as the game develops they will change to be more like humans in that fortresses get built later during world gen, as it stands it only make sense if you look at dwarf society like you do.

The Star Fleet as the equivilant of the present fortress mode caravan.  A vast demand sink for the immense surplus value produced by those humans who still want to work, despite the lack of any need for payment for doing so.  I cannot see what is unlikely about it. 

As I said I'm a pessimist and I think that having replicators would mean that basic food and water are free but that the replicator codes for "intellectual property" items would still has a price tag, you want can of coke then you better buy the coke replicator code from the coke company...

Some people will always want more then they need or others have and those with money want that money to mean something, I feel they would block intellectual property from being free and by extension you would still end up with poor and rich people, you just wouldn't have homeless slums.

Society and economy are *not* the result of biology.  The nature of the creature (including biology) is the ultimate result of society and economy; that is why I said evolution.

I suppose that I just feel that social and economic development is heavily effected by a creatures biology and that the biological nature of ants is different enough that you would see it effect every aspect of their civilization.

I feel that the brain chemistry of a sapient ant would be very different then that of a mammalian primate, in Enders Game the "bugger" admit that they didn't understand that every human was a complete individual because they live in a hive mind so while an ant wouldn't be as different as that (supposing they don't have a hive mind), they would however be so different as to be "Alien" in their thought patterns to us and vice versa.

I see dwarves in much the same way myself. 

To put it simply: That is why dwarves are not ant-people. 

Agreed

Yes, but they are not medieval humans.  They have no history behind them of living in peasant hovels and thus they have never invented a whole set of economic, cultural and legal institutions suited to that reality.  Since they have skipped the whole peasant hovels stage of historical development, they are going to have invented a whole set of institution suited for their present ant-like existance instead. 

I don't think they skipped it just that it takes place before year 0 and the myth generator will tell us how or failing that it should take place during world gen with fortress coming later.

the optimal form of society for the reality in which they have to exist? 

My stand point is that this current "Optimal" society is just a place holder that until pre-history generation of the how's and why's of dwarven civilizations formation, then we will know their early tribal history.

Machu Picchu is basically just an Inca Palace/Castle. 

The various inca peasants lived scattered about in hundreds of villages and their collective surplus labour built the place.  Having been built it then continued to consume the surplus value of these peasants, resulting in no more Machu Picchu's being built. 

The fortress on the other hand was not created by the hillocks.  The fortress existed first and it's surplus value created the hillocks around it as well as other fortresses, the exact reverse of the situation with Machu Picchu.  The hillocks are therefore not quasi-human peasant villages, the hillocks is a topsoil fortress, that replicates the society of the fortress on the surface if not the exact architecture.  The hillocks is a nutrient mine, it exists because the fortress wished to get it's hands on more nutrients that it already had but it already had the ability to produce enough surplus value to survive since it's own surplus value CREATED the hillocks. 

This is why I've come to see the current situation of the fortress being the first site as a leftover game mechanic from previous versions, as the game develops more I feel that the first dwarven site will switch to an underground hillock type site and that the fortresses will develop later, like human fortresses or tomb sites.

Just like I am not assuming the existance of Star Trek Post-Scarcity, I am not assuming that mining is really as simple as simply forging a dwarf a pick and sending him off to mine. Mining realistically needs shovels to remove rubble, beams to hold up the ceiling, pillars to hold up large underground rooms (like the kind dwarves intend to live in). 

Yes, a fortress is the most expensive site to construct, which means that dwarf definately without a doubt got there first.  Elves got there last because their site is the cheapest to construct and their society would never independantly arise at all. 

True, there are lots of parts to fortress construction that aren't handled or modeled in game at the moment.

I just don't think dwarves got their first though, the first sites appear simultaneously at the moment even if separated from the dwarven example by sea, this means they developed at the same time but interdependently of each other.

I don't think toady thought "dwarf fortresses came first and the other civ are playing catch-up" but rather that part of the simulation (Pre-history) hasn't been touched on yet.

Adamantine makes sense, steel does not.  Steel is made of things that can be found close to the surface. 

If dwaves start in the caverns then they had the materials to make steel earlier then humans and are more likely to study metallurgy then goblins.

They can so long as it doesn't cost them personally but once it becomes a case of helping others at a cost to themselves there is a sharp drop off in how altruistic people are, just look at the Syrian refugees many places don't want to get involved any more then necessary because it will cost them more money then they stand to get back making it a bad investment and and yes their are still people who want to help but significantly less then if it cost nothing personally.


Depending up the society and economy, what is selfish or altruistic changes. 

If the Syrian refugees were all transplanted into a DF world then the sites would be fighting, not over who has to harbour the refugees but over the refugees themselves.  This is not anything to do with the people being more altruistic, it is simply that the nature of the present economy and society makes the situation different.

In real-life Capitalism, the people are all in a stupid war over who gets to do the most work.  That is because nobody has yet managed to turn off the Economy in reality's ini. file (though many have tried).  Everybody only gets to avoid destitution if they find work, but they are competing with all the other people in the market.  The few competators they have the better chance they have of finding work and the less chance a competator will steal their job. 

I pretty sure the present system does have refugee camps, I remember finding one during an adventure mode play though.

If real-life Capitalism is such a bad system how did it become the global standard, why isn't the Hutterite or Socialism systems the global standard, because its not about what system is the best for every one is its about what system can benefit me the most as an individual.

In DF present society, the more people the fortress has the greater it's total surplus value.  This means that more things can be built or done that improve the collective wealth of the fortress, enjoyed equally by all dwarves.  While initially feeding and housing the migrants consumes surplus value, they will look at it rather like they look at mining, it costs value now to house the Syrians but they produce in the long run far more surplus value than it took to house them. 

Which is why the current system should be changed significantly enough to make this setup as uncommon in DF as it is in ours.

We do not need a whole new economy and society (does not mean we should not have one) to not have ant-person dwarves.  We just need to give dwarves more ways of disrupting the functioning of the cosy Hive-Mind consensus. 

True we don't need it but certain dev goal would benefit greatly from having it, its a well known and popular fantasy setting staple and as for the cosy Hive-Mind consensus I don't think it fits with having a noble class for the peasants to get a say in this consensus.

My idea is only to have the status quo 'Ant-Person' economy/society as the basis.  According to the nature of the creature and it's values that society then evolves, so that some elements of the initial society are retained but not others. 

Instead of Toady One simply decreeing "Let there be money and wages", an actual event happens in which a real historical characters introduces money and wages to the fortress, if the creature is too lazy or too selfish to work for the fortress without direct material incentives.  Another ruler however might instead decide "Let the idlers get punished", instituting forced labour instead.  In this way the eventual state of things is not fixed but unpredictable and amenable to change by the agency of actual historical characters. 

I'm ok with it being the basis of pre-history because as I said if you go back far enough I think you'll find similar structures in many earlier human tribal society, my problem is with the retainment of this system after pre-history into world gen.

They did not institute the economy initially upon embark; that was because it did not work.  They thought that if only the fortress was more advanced it would work, but it did not.  Now according to you they have still learned nothing, if the fortress can be developed more then it will work.  Bottom line is....

Then have the economy be active at the founding of the fortress, increase the default embark points and add an adequate amount of "funding" (currency) from the mountain homes to pay the fortress dwarves wages for a set allotment of time based on your chosen starting scenario and if you don't become productive in time and can't secure more funding from the mountain home then can't pay your dwarves and they emigrate out of your fortress giving you a non-standard game over.

The point a which you become a barony is when you've paid back the the debt of investment to the mountain homes and have enough surplus wealth to mint your own money.

It does not work because it is an irrational system unsuited for the dwarf society.  You cannot just transplant an economy wholesale from medieval society as if they were medieval peasants when they are not. 

Its an irrational system for the current dwaven society but if you alter the society to fit the economy that is no longer a problem, its not the most palatable solution I admit but I feel its better then keeping the current system which doesn't allow for certain standard fantasy tropes or dev goal to reach there potential.

Now this might enable you to understand why I keep making the dwarf/ant comparison. 

Because the elves do not depend in any sense on the collective for their personal wellbeing elf society does not make sense.  That is because the elves would personally in no way suffer if all the other elves except from a few personal friends and family were to dissapear.  The nuts and berries will still be there, more of them as well with no other elves around.  Since the elf society is entirely based upon the natural, in no sense does all the elves cooperating to form a site benefit the individual elf in any way. 

Now dwarves (or ants) are in the exact opposite situation.  Since the dwarves live in an artificial manner, inside something that they have collectively created if the dwarf society where to fall apart then every individual dwarf would lose everything.  This means that just as elf society makes no sense, the dwarf society makes too much sense.  Individual autonomy is therefore something that needs to be absolutely bound into a Hive-Mind consensus must be created by any means.  The ant-people have already done this, which makes them perfected dwarves. 

Real dwarves suffer from annoying leftover evolutionary throwbacks to when they were more like elves.  As a result the development of dwarf economy would thus be the story of the dwarf economy finding new ways to bring the individual dwarf's annoying autonomous and selfish tendencies back into line with itself whether by force or by compromise. 

I do understand why you make the comparison I just feel that it doesn't make for ideal dwaves where as you said the perfect dwarf is an ant-person and I disagreed not in that it doesn't fit what they are right now but that it doesn't fit what I feel they should be.

I think dwarves should have an economy by any means necessary even if it result in a less then realistic economy being imposed, I do feel that the better solution is to adjust the simulation and dwaven society until the comparison doesn't fit anymore rather then forcing a bad one.... I'd just accept having a bad economy over no economy which is still what I see the current state as.

The purpose of growth? 

Quote
Hutterites (German: Hutterer) are an ethno-religious group that is a communal branch of Anabaptists who, like the Amish and Mennonites, trace their roots to the Radical Reformation of the 16th century. Since the death of their namesake Jakob Hutter in 1536, the beliefs of the Hutterites, especially living in a community of goods and absolute pacifism, have resulted in hundreds of years of diaspora in many countries. Nearly extinct by the 18th and 19th centuries, the Hutterites found a new home in North America. Over 125 years their population grew from 400 to around 42,000.

With a global population of seven billion they haven't grown all that much when you compare them to the other economy's around them, the need to feed the greed creates pressure to expand and claim more land and resources to generate more wealth, all driven by the peasants hoping that they can get their own source of wealth and become rich themselves.

I agree with you.  None of that however requires a whole new economy to be introduced. 

No it doesn't, I just kind of went off on a tangent there. :-[

Unless everbody was a poverty stricken peasant, in which case the whole fortress would be abandoned as they ALL leave for greener pastures I cannot see why reducing the amount of surplus value would result in poverty stricken peasants in a dwarf fortress.  It just does not work, whatever fortress invents poverty stricken peasants then finds all it's poverty stricken peasants take their labour to the more egalitarian fortress.   That utopian fortress then cannibalises the dystopian fortress, until it sees sense and starts looking after all it's people. 

The unwillingness of the human peasants to live in the darkness is easily solves by the dwarves building apartment blocks above the fortress.  Failing that they can always cart them off to create a subordinate human hamlet in the vicinity of the fortress (aka Dale in Lord of the Rings).

Well of course the whole fortress shouldn't be poverty stricken because as you said the fortress would crumple under its own weight but I feel their should be some poverty both for flavor and to create interesting stories.

I feel that some poverty is better then no poverty for many different aspects of this game.

The 6th dragon will probably kill you, if it does not kill him (you are not a demigod). The idea that the adventurer can offer safety has got to be the stupidest idea ever. 

why would the 6th dragon kill you, is it going to actively seek out the guy who killed several of its kin and in turn get itself killed, seems to imply that you think dragons don't have a survival instinct.

Quote from: nomoetoe
will a race (like goblins for example) be utterly terrified of you if you were to kill hundreds/thousands of them? and would they be scared of a weapon used to kill many of there kind?

That doesn't happen specifically along racial lines, but it probably should.  It can effectively happen sometimes based on entity rep (which can be somewhat racial), though the effect occurs more in terms of having people pass on ambushing or harassing you than general terror.  Lots left to do!

If your adventurer go's from goblin site to goblin site killing all inhabitants and ends up killing their master they should avoid anything that's connected to you, so if dragons are intelligent enough to want revenge they should be intelligent to be afraid of the adventurer who is killing them all and move in the general opposite direction of that adventurer.

Except that if you had your way they would all have starving peasants.  Because some things cannot be allowed to not happen however much variation you want.  A world of quasi-Hutterites living in perpetual pacifist peace and harmony with no starving peasants? Nah! 

I would accept a world of quasi-Hutterites only after all other options and possibility have been eliminated, its not a world I want to play in because I find it to be the definition of boring.

I will now say that I've never liked Star Trek (My father owns all the fact files) or the federation but have loved Warhammer 40k and his Imperial Majesty the GEoM since I was seven, ten thousand years of unending war? yes please! that sound like !!!FUN!!!.

They are because they created the game-engine that made your world.  R.A Salvatore was merely inspired by the D&D rules, his books do not follow them to the letter and there is no reason they should.   

Yes they don't have to follow the lore but they should write their story in line with the lore or approach it from an angle the lore's never covered and if they contradict the core lore then they fail.

I glad I didn't 40k as a example, not follow the lore? Heretic! :P 40ks the worst for lore integrity.


Making everything based upon personality facets is bloody biological determinism.  The same human nature created the Hutterites as created Nazi Germany (they are both German in origin), so how were values created based upon the inherant personality facets of the German creature type? 

I've always believed that nature was stronger then nurture but apparently nature is as powerful as nurture, because we can't know the exact nature/nurture make up all the people involved in both those movements its impossible to really know what was behind the differences but DF simulates historical figures, gives them a personality and tracks their family.

One way to do it would be to.
 
1. Give all the civs a base value of 0 in all values and a slight weight bonus for values typically associated with that race (craftdwarfship)

2. Look at the pre-history and see what local pressures applied to them and adjust values slightly (work ethic)

3. look at the child of the pre-history leader and then you can suppose that someone raised by an intolerant bigot is less likely to value peace and harmony, someone raised by the very greedy is unlikely to value fairness and sacrifice take those results and compare it to their own value in that same facet, someone raised by a bigot who is quite tolerant themselves will have a conflict and change the statue quo record the end state of pre-history gen for the civ and you've got the base values for that civ at the start of world gen.

4. have culture values continually change though scholars, leaders, historical events ect.

I find the present economy very interesting.  The whole idea of how the present economy might develop all the institutions that exist in the dev page and how it might change over time into something different (and likely worse) based upon the nature of the creature and decisions of individuals is far more interesting than the prospect of trying to clone the society of medieval England and force creatures who live in a manner that resembles them not one bit to play along. 

You should pay more attention to the Hutterites, since they knock a massive hole in your entire opinion of human nature.  Since we know that humans can successfully manage to live in communal harmony at a scale roughly equivilant to a dwarf fortress then why is there any fundermental problem with dwarves doing the same?

I see that you find it interesting but I see that economy as boring and don't want it to survive the myth generators Pre-history if at all possible, basically I'm fine with it acting as a base for the myth generator but by year 0 it should be 99% gone.

The Hutterites don't knock a massive hole, they knock a very small hole, fifty thousand is a fraction of a percent of seven billion I can write them off as an extremist exception to the rule.

fundamental problem? no, I just think it doesn't fit standard fantasy dwarves, its really boring and would rather there be an interesting economy from year 0.

In order to survive a society must produce surplus value as with no surplus value and the society cannot support any children or immigrants, hence extinction.  If the people refuse to produce surplus value for the 'collective' then they must be bribed to do it; that means personal wages which requires some withdrawal of items from general availability in order to work.  Alternatively they can be punished for not working to pretty much the same effect.

Since dwarves have hard-working values and productive values (craftsmanship) but are not so selfish as to inherantly opposed to the idea of working for the collective good, they will produce plenty of surplus value, meaning no dwarf ruler would ever really have to abandon the whole idea of working freely for nothing.  Unless the fundermental values of dwarf society were to change in the direction of either selfishness or laziness that is  ;)

They do have above human level of greed, I can't stress just how boring I find the current system.




The last point of contention between us seems to stem from the fact you want to watch the change happen though out world gen and I want the change to have already started before year 0 and of these two idea I think your one is the most likely for Toady to use. :)






On the topic at hand I feel it should be possible for an adveturer to own or build a house or mansion within a site boundary's without being a position holder in that site or civ but if the only way to have a mansion is to claim a embark tile out side of town as your own and basically rule it as the site government then I can accept that.
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Bumber

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #42 on: October 01, 2015, 09:53:14 pm »

On the topic at hand I feel it should be possible for an adveturer to own or build a house or mansion within a site boundary's without being a position holder in that site or civ but if the only way to have a mansion is to claim a embark tile out side of town as your own and basically rule it as the site government then I can accept that.
It should be possible if the adventurer pays a land tax. I'm not sure how it could be handled in a communal property system. Maybe better reputation (service) earns you more land?
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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #43 on: October 02, 2015, 09:11:13 am »

Ah, I see.

I do think there is a danger of hurting the sim by just slapping on an economy to what we have right now but I feel that is largely from the static nature of value the game currently has combined the the starting site of dwarves (Fortress). if you change the first dwarven site from a fortress to an cavern based hillock/hamlet type site then dwarves with spaced out hovels can exist and dwarves can adopt a less inherently communal nature.

It is not quite that simple.  Dwarf Fortress is at the very core a site-based universe that is basically tribal, with all those The Whatever of Whatever groups.  Real history was a land/people based universe in which sites in the DF sense were not self-supporting but dependant upon the land they owned/controlled/influenced/traded with for their very survival. 

I don't think there much reason for either of us to worry, once the "three big pushes" are done a lot of the economy framework will have grown out of the stuff that now exists.

I'm confident that I'll be able to get my rich adventure his private mansion with a personal cook and you seem confident that he'll do it in a way thats not broken.

Fingers crossed.   :-\ :-\

From my layman's perspective it seem like a major part but I'm no expert so I'll take your word for it.

I am glad you think I am an expert. 
 ;)

Which is why it doesn't make sense to implement right now but we know Toady does want to model supply and demand economy and while we don't know how Toady will implement such an economy and do know that he want to create a system where the standard fantasy tropes are possible so discussing suggestions that depend on such an economy like this topic's main idea is fine even if it doesn't fit the status quo.

The Star-Trek economy appears only to exist in fortress mode, the rest of the world seems to be living in a normal reality where surplus value is finite. 

In that case think of sapient ants as being like the Tau from Warhammer 40k then, the Consensus Decision Making you present doesn't fit ants imho chiefly because they communicate though pheromones and the queen's pheromones are the strongest and without her the colony dies the are biologically dependent on such cooperation for their survival.

A dwarves by comparison is not so limited, their is evidence by players that a single dwarf can survive without that level of cooperation. this evidence generally come from either survival of a fort with one dwarf cutoff from the stockpiles (forgotten beast, dragon, undead ect.) whom has to take care of their own needs or in the "hermit" fortress challenge which is all about doing the same thing intentionally.

Also thanks for showing me how to change how a url appears in a post.  :)

Well pheromones are just the smells that ants use to 'talk' to eachother.  We use sounds to communicate to much the same effect, except for one crucial difference.  Smells can stick to things while sounds cannot, which means that we have to invent writing while ants simply apply a strong enough pheromone to something that it sticks to it.  This is how ants tell which ants belong to their own colony, every ant walks around with a pheromone 'tatoo' on it which was that informs all other ants as to it's allegiance.  This is applies when an ant reaches adulthood, which means that while ants are unable to 'adopt' adult ants from a defeated colony they often adopt larval ants and steal eggs.

Individual ants do not need a queen ant to survive.  They can survive for the whole of their limited lifespans without ever seeing a queen ant, what they need a queen ant *for* is to lay eggs and produce more ants (they do get lonely and die quicker with no other ants around though. A queen ant is the ant that lays eggs, many ant species have multiple unrelated queens in the same colony meaning that the ants of those colonies are not necceserily actually siblings at all. 

The viability of hermit dwarf fortresses is only because surplus value is too great and mining is too easy. 

Okay fair enough, you said the perfect dwarf is an ant-person which is differant... my bad.

I think your underestimating how much biology would play in how they form their society, just creating underground doesn't mean they same the same social pressures, dwarves don't have a progenitor queen who survival is the colony's survival so in the end each dwarfs survival is not dependent on the existence of any other dwarf and there no reason that dwarves can't live like humans in the cavern layer.

So the question is why don't they? when I think about it I see dwarves starting in a fortress as a leftover mechanic from past versions and I feel that as the game develops they will change to be more like humans in that fortresses get built later during world gen, as it stands it only make sense if you look at dwarf society like you do.

I said that the perfect dwarf would be the ant-person because what the dwarf is trying to do, the ant-person would do perfectly.  This means whether the evolution is biological or social, dwarves are going to be evolving towards becoming ant-people, whether they like it or not.  If dwarves lived like humans in the cavern-layer, then it either means they would have been unable to build a fortress in the first place or it means that they would have to start evolving to shed their 'humanity'. 

Biology is an effect not a cause.  Ants have progenitor queens but the vast majority of insects do not, therefore nothing about progenitor queens created the hive-mind existance; it was the ant's hive-mind existance that created progenitor queens. 

The normal insect female produces 100s of eggs at a time and lays them into something.  Infant and oval mortality is pretty high, that is why they do not overpopulate their enviroment as a result and destroy their enviroment along with themselves.  Once insects start living in hives however, the eggs and babies start to enjoy a near 100% survival rate and as a result the total number of eggs laid needs to be reduced.  As only a small minority of the social insects are hence able to reproduce, but the cost is still there of mantaining the reproductive systems of all members even though they are consigned to celibacy.  The logical next step is simply to undevelop the reproductive systems of the majority of the ants, leaving only a small number (the queens) with a fully developed reproductive system. 

Among dwarves, 'married dwarf women' presently carry out the progenitor queen function.   ;D

As I said I'm a pessimist and I think that having replicators would mean that basic food and water are free but that the replicator codes for "intellectual property" items would still has a price tag, you want can of coke then you better buy the coke replicator code from the coke company...

Some people will always want more then they need or others have and those with money want that money to mean something, I feel they would block intellectual property from being free and by extension you would still end up with poor and rich people, you just wouldn't have homeless slums.

Superabundance in one area leads to superabundance is another area dependant upon that area.  The reason is that once replicators produce a superbundance of material goods, this frees up the whole population to produce intellectual property.  Since some people are willing to share intellectual property for free (Toady One for instance), then with an superabundance of intellectual properties everybody simply uses the freely shared ones.

Thing is though that the remaining paid intellectual properties discourage the development of free intellectual properties.  For instance in order to make my free mod I have to buy Forgotten Realms sourcebooks, this means that paid intellectual property is a nuisence to those who wish to make free intellectual property.  Since the later group now have the upper hand however in economic terms then it is likely that intellectual property rights will simply be abolished by the government just as they were created originally (there were no intellectual property rights before the 18th Century). 

I suppose that I just feel that social and economic development is heavily effected by a creatures biology and that the biological nature of ants is different enough that you would see it effect every aspect of their civilization.

I feel that the brain chemistry of a sapient ant would be very different then that of a mammalian primate, in Enders Game the "bugger" admit that they didn't understand that every human was a complete individual because they live in a hive mind so while an ant wouldn't be as different as that (supposing they don't have a hive mind), they would however be so different as to be "Alien" in their thought patterns to us and vice versa.

There is a reason that nearly all social insects (ants, termites, bees, bumblebees, wasps) live most of the time in hives or the equivilant and we never find the majority of individuals of a social insect group scattered above liberally across the area.  The reason is the Hive-Mind only works if there is a proximity between the majority of individuals in order to exist, since it is a function of having the same set of information and a general consensus among individuals as to the correct course of action to follow in relation to that information. 

All that Enders Game tells us is that Orson Scott Card did not really understand how a Hive-Mind works and confused it with the concept of the Over-Mind.  The Overmind is when we have a greater intelligence that uses the lesser intelligences that support it as tools to it's ends (pretty much any government).  An ant is very much an individual that obeys no other creature, it just happens to be that due to their proximity together they all have a common set of information and all simataneously make the correct individual decision for the collective welfare of the whole.

Ants then are basically an adaptation of insects to a dwarf-like existance.  What dwarfs will end up becoming in the end is whatever the mammalian primate equivilant of a social insect happens to be.  Interesting thing is we already have a mammel that has adopted an ant-like biology with a Hive-Mind existance due to living in a dwarf-like manner, the Naked mole rat.  Behold the ultimate fate that waits dwarves (maybe).   :D

I don't think they skipped it just that it takes place before year 0 and the myth generator will tell us how or failing that it should take place during world gen with fortress coming later.

I doubt the myth generator will provide us with anything but garbled religious mythology. 

My stand point is that this current "Optimal" society is just a place holder that until pre-history generation of the how's and why's of dwarven civilizations formation, then we will know their early tribal history.

Does not change the fact that it is the optimal form of society, which dwarves would adopt as much as possible if they want to survive and prosper.  The only question is to what extent does the inheritance (both biological and ideological) of dwarves left from before they lived in the present manner 'get in the way'. 

This is why I've come to see the current situation of the fortress being the first site as a leftover game mechanic from previous versions, as the game develops more I feel that the first dwarven site will switch to an underground hillock type site and that the fortresses will develop later, like human fortresses or tomb sites.

It is not something that can just be 'fixed'.  The reason is the very nature of the game, you see a palace or fortress is not a self-sufficiant site that does not need other sites around but the nature of the game is never going to be changed so that you need preexisting native populations to embark because your fortress depends upon the existance of pre-existing dwarf peasants spread across the region.  No evil glacier embark for you veteran player, because your fortress needs a preexisting peasant population to exist (sorry). 

I do not think you understand the sheer importance of the economic reliance of the fortress or palace upon it's creators.  It is not the peasants scattered about that make the laws, it is the people in the fortress or castle.  As result the palace has to create laws and concepts not according to it's own internal collective reality but according to the individual reality of the peasants that feed it.  Additionally it's need to extract surplus value from the peasants to survive clashes with the peasants desire to keep that value to themselves (or work less) and this means that it desires that the peasants are KEPT scattered about in order to reduce their ability to organise.  As a matter of course no palace creates something equivilant to a DF hillocks/hamlet or allows such a thing to exist since such a thing has absolutely no need for anything the palace has to provide it. 

Once the dwarf peasants bring a functioning dwarf fortress into existance the dwarf fortress now simply has no more need of them.  A palace does not compete with the peasants that created and is dependant upon them forever but a dwarf fortress once it exists is quite free to legislate and create culture to suit the fortress dwarves themselves.  Since the fortress has no need of the peasant dwarves and the latter do not make the laws, the fortress makes the laws that best increase the fortress's own wellbeing, ignoring the peasants that created it in process.  In the end the fortresses inherant hunger for labour causes it to devise ways to actually destroy the peasant hovels and absorb their inhabitants. 

This has never happened in real-life, as never has a peasant population gave birth to a palace that did not need them. 

True, there are lots of parts to fortress construction that aren't handled or modeled in game at the moment.

I just don't think dwarves got their first though, the first sites appear simultaneously at the moment even if separated from the dwarven example by sea, this means they developed at the same time but interdependently of each other.

I don't think toady thought "dwarf fortresses came first and the other civ are playing catch-up" but rather that part of the simulation (Pre-history) hasn't been touched on yet.

The other sites are organised along dwarf-lines.  Since the historical development of the human race seems to be following dwarf-lines rather than human lines, with hamlets replacing the dwarf fortress of the centralised hive-mind friendly site and the elves society would not naturally arise at all, it follows that everybody else is imitating dwarf society on the surface.  In a word the normal development of the human race by which scattered peasants form dependant sites that are bound to them and their lifestyle forever. 

They are thus the equivilant of wasps or bees, replicating the ant's manner of life on the surface even though it was living in a constructed underground that created that lifestyle in the first place.  However since the first hamlet is far cheaper (give realistic mining limitations) to build than the first fortress, for both to be finished on Yr 0 then it follows that yes the dwarves did come first before Yr 0 and the others quickly copied them. 

Dwarves coming first kills three birds with one stone, the relative cost of hamlets/forest retreat vs fortresses, the divergance of human society from it's regular development and the very existance of elf society. 

If dwaves start in the caverns then they had the materials to make steel earlier then humans and are more likely to study metallurgy then goblins.

By that logic only the dwarves ought to have metals at all.  Adamantine is only found deep in the earth so it would be concievable that only dwarves would know how to use it, but the materials for steel are no deeper down than anything else. 

I pretty sure the present system does have refugee camps, I remember finding one during an adventure mode play though.

If real-life Capitalism is such a bad system how did it become the global standard, why isn't the Hutterite or Socialism systems the global standard, because its not about what system is the best for every one is its about what system can benefit me the most as an individual.

The prevalance of something is no guarantee of it's functionality.  If there are 10 people in a room that are all infected with some disease and an 11th healthy person turns up then it does not imply that being sick is superior to being healthy, nor than sickness is more functional; even if the 11th person should then get infected.  The 10 people should all still become like the 11th person even though they are the majority. 

I have already explained why Capitalism became the prevalant system, because of the interdependance existing between the palaces that make the laws and the scattered peasants that supported the palaces.  Due to the way that human society universally developed they 'got there first' and they have socialised all the people to think along their own lines, along with possessing the means to violently suppress any localised challenge. 

Which is why the current system should be changed significantly enough to make this setup as uncommon in DF as it is in ours.

Which cannot realistically be done because at the core of the game is the idea of self-sufficient dwarf fortresses. 

True we don't need it but certain dev goal would benefit greatly from having it, its a well known and popular fantasy setting staple and as for the cosy Hive-Mind consensus I don't think it fits with having a noble class for the peasants to get a say in this consensus.

If you do not have a consensus then you do not have a Hive-Mind.  Then you start needing people in authority (nobles) to act as an Over-Mind instead to forcibly create a consensus.  We do not have a consensus (Hive-Mind) because the dwarves were not always living like dwarves presently do. 

I'm ok with it being the basis of pre-history because as I said if you go back far enough I think you'll find similar structures in many earlier human tribal society, my problem is with the retainment of this system after pre-history into world gen.

The very existance of dwarf fortresses realistically puts an end with the very processes that led to Feudalism and Capitalism in real-life.  The dwarves are evolving from the collectivist tribal setup into an actual hive and the rest of the world initially modelled their societies after the dwarf fortresses that were being built rather than developing along historical models. 

Of course Toady One could create a different setup for humans with the processes happening, but the real issue is then why the dwarf fortress society would not cannibalise that society with it's starving peasants. 

Then have the economy be active at the founding of the fortress, increase the default embark points and add an adequate amount of "funding" (currency) from the mountain homes to pay the fortress dwarves wages for a set allotment of time based on your chosen starting scenario and if you don't become productive in time and can't secure more funding from the mountain home then can't pay your dwarves and they emigrate out of your fortress giving you a non-standard game over.

The point a which you become a barony is when you've paid back the the debt of investment to the mountain homes and have enough surplus wealth to mint your own money.

Exactly what I was talking about.  The team were given the option of creating the whole game around the economy they wanted the dwarves to have, giving the initial setup money to spend.  They clearly realised, "that won't work for the initial setup" and decided "that is because things are not developed enough".  The illogic of the whole setup was pretty great because it involved the arbitery addition of a system when they had previously functioned quite happily according to an old system. 

If a particular economy cannot even build a fortress, then why would the dwarves ever have adopted it? 

Its an irrational system for the current dwaven society but if you alter the society to fit the economy that is no longer a problem, its not the most palatable solution I admit but I feel its better then keeping the current system which doesn't allow for certain standard fantasy tropes or dev goal to reach there potential.

In which case they have to fundermentally alter the whole game so we are no longer running self-sufficiant fortresses but instead ruling over land with people on it.  Enter Crusader Kings or Total War [Insert Name Here]. 

There are plenty of new tropes and scenarios that would logically arise given the setup at the moment, surely it is more interesting to do something different rather than mindlessly replicate the darker tropes of other fantasy games at any cost?  We already have one scenario already.

Refugee Camp Wars

I do understand why you make the comparison I just feel that it doesn't make for ideal dwaves where as you said the perfect dwarf is an ant-person and I disagreed not in that it doesn't fit what they are right now but that it doesn't fit what I feel they should be.

I think dwarves should have an economy by any means necessary even if it result in a less then realistic economy being imposed, I do feel that the better solution is to adjust the simulation and dwaven society until the comparison doesn't fit anymore rather then forcing a bad one.... I'd just accept having a bad economy over no economy which is still what I see the current state as.

So you are afraid of something different, is that it?  The whole idea of moving into uncharted waters with a whole new history, with all the possibilities that involves scares you. 

With a global population of seven billion they haven't grown all that much when you compare them to the other economy's around them, the need to feed the greed creates pressure to expand and claim more land and resources to generate more wealth, all driven by the peasants hoping that they can get their own source of wealth and become rich themselves.

They did not exactly have an easy time.  Despite being pacifists and quite harmless people still felt threatened by them enough that they had to go all the way from Austria, into Russia and then finally into America.  All the while being killed and persecuted by the people of the 'other economies' around them. 

You seem to overestimate the extent to which the 'other economies', which as I have already explained got there first are willing to tolerate and support alternatives.  You also forget that since they 'got there first' all the people who might have available to build a different system come from the existing system and the 'raw material' for other ways of doing things are heavily indoctrinated/socialised with attitudes that rule out any alternative way of doing things.  Aka what you wrote just before.

Quote
I'd just accept having a bad economy over no economy

Lots of people think the same way in relation to real-life.

Well of course the whole fortress shouldn't be poverty stricken because as you said the fortress would crumple under its own weight but I feel their should be some poverty both for flavor and to create interesting stories.

I feel that some poverty is better then no poverty for many different aspects of this game.

Poverty can still exist at a site level if you introduce some kind of social breakdown that disrupts production, crop failures, volcanic eruptions, trade disruptions, raids by rival sites and so on.  Relative poverty can also exist where there are people within a site that are less powerful than others, if there was site level poverty this could easily become actual absolute poverty (your beloved starving peasants). 

why would the 6th dragon kill you, is it going to actively seek out the guy who killed several of its kin and in turn get itself killed, seems to imply that you think dragons don't have a survival instinct.

This whole discussion is beyond silly.  You do not leave home with an armed mercenery if you want to increase your life expectancy. 

If your adventurer go's from goblin site to goblin site killing all inhabitants and ends up killing their master they should avoid anything that's connected to you, so if dragons are intelligent enough to want revenge they should be intelligent to be afraid of the adventurer who is killing them all and move in the general opposite direction of that adventurer.

The adventurer by nature goes looking for danger.  If it is not something that is too afraid to fight him that kills you, it will be something new. 

I would accept a world of quasi-Hutterites only after all other options and possibility have been eliminated, its not a world I want to play in because I find it to be the definition of boring.

I will now say that I've never liked Star Trek (My father owns all the fact files) or the federation but have loved Warhammer 40k and his Imperial Majesty the GEoM since I was seven, ten thousand years of unending war? yes please! that sound like !!!FUN!!!.

A world of quasi-Hutterites would indeed be boring, on this we are agreed.  That is mostly because they are pacifists however, though they might write some interesting theological tomes. 

Yes they don't have to follow the lore but they should write their story in line with the lore or approach it from an angle the lore's never covered and if they contradict the core lore then they fail.

I glad I didn't 40k as a example, not follow the lore? Heretic! :P 40ks the worst for lore integrity.

40k is just a world that makes little internal sense at all; I used to play it though.   :P :P

I've always believed that nature was stronger then nurture but apparently nature is as powerful as nurture, because we can't know the exact nature/nurture make up all the people involved in both those movements its impossible to really know what was behind the differences but DF simulates historical figures, gives them a personality and tracks their family.

One way to do it would be to.
 
1. Give all the civs a base value of 0 in all values and a slight weight bonus for values typically associated with that race (craftdwarfship)

2. Look at the pre-history and see what local pressures applied to them and adjust values slightly (work ethic)

3. look at the child of the pre-history leader and then you can suppose that someone raised by an intolerant bigot is less likely to value peace and harmony, someone raised by the very greedy is unlikely to value fairness and sacrifice take those results and compare it to their own value in that same facet, someone raised by a bigot who is quite tolerant themselves will have a conflict and change the statue quo record the end state of pre-history gen for the civ and you've got the base values for that civ at the start of world gen.

4. have culture values continually change though scholars, leaders, historical events ect.

At the personality represents the creature's inherant nature and values+ethics represent it's socialised/learned nature.  At the moment creature behavior is determined by a mixture of personality and values.  I think that the creature's economic+legal development over time should be determined by a mixture of those things but values should be independant, meaning I do not welcome the idea that personality should initially determine values. 

Randomised starting values is coming up by the way. 

I see that you find it interesting but I see that economy as boring and don't want it to survive the myth generators Pre-history if at all possible, basically I'm fine with it acting as a base for the myth generator but by year 0 it should be 99% gone.

The Hutterites don't knock a massive hole, they knock a very small hole, fifty thousand is a fraction of a percent of seven billion I can write them off as an extremist exception to the rule.

fundamental problem? no, I just think it doesn't fit standard fantasy dwarves, its really boring and would rather there be an interesting economy from year 0.

A very small hole applied to a key artery results in death, you should know that DF Player. 

Your claim was is that human nature in the modern world mandates a particular form of economy+society.  Therefore if any instances at all that demonstrate that a successful human society can exist in the modern world according to a different form of economy+society logically kills your argument quite dead. 

They do have above human level of greed, I can't stress just how boring I find the current system.

Dwarves are only slightly more greedy than humans but greed is the logical flaw that would lead to the development of the present system.  Dwarves have values of hard-work, craftsmenship and cooperation so what we see at the production level makes sense.  They should not be happy however to share everything equally but that logically makes sense when everybody collectively produced it, this is what in the dwarf society would cause change and FUN. 

The last point of contention between us seems to stem from the fact you want to watch the change happen though out world gen and I want the change to have already started before year 0 and of these two idea I think your one is the most likely for Toady to use. :)

I want real change to happen over history.  I want to see rulers and movements actually implementing/abolishing elements of society and economy, whether good or bad in my opinion.  I am happy to see things I do not personally like depicted in the game, as long as these are not presented as some unalternable and eternal nature.  The starving peasants are the result of the malevolant or misguided policies of King X, they are not just there because starving peasants are part of the basic game code/unalterable economic order. 

On the topic at hand I feel it should be possible for an adveturer to own or build a house or mansion within a site boundary's without being a position holder in that site or civ but if the only way to have a mansion is to claim a embark tile out side of town as your own and basically rule it as the site government then I can accept that.

It actually makes sense for the site to actually employ you to build a house for them within site boundries. 
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JesterHell696

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Re: Adventure Mode Housing?
« Reply #44 on: October 03, 2015, 05:19:31 am »

It should be possible if the adventurer pays a land tax. I'm not sure how it could be handled in a communal property system. Maybe better reputation (service) earns you more land?

Their probably should be some land rates for onsite property owners, payable with coin or valuable items (dragon bone, steel items or full blown artifacts).

I'd assume that in a communal system payment is made in service to the community, so killing the bandits next door or hunting the local dragon would pay your rates to different degrees.

Once you bring reputation into it things get a little more complicated, does the legendary hero of the entire nation have to pay this community or is his service to the nation enough? do you even want to try and charge the guy who single-handedly wiped out an entire dark fortress of goblins or just give him a free pass?

A hero with enough renown would probably be able to just claim land from a site owner or civ because of "services rendered" much like claiming a site now only with more legitimacy and once you get to that point you end up with starting scenario's like.

Quote
Urist Mc adventurer: "My lord it is I Urist Mcadventurer I have return from the fallen fortress of Laborpass with great news, I have slain the beast Ithbi Siegedattack the Spidery Lobster!

Urist Mckingly: "This is indeed great news Urist Mcadventurer! In recognition of this great feat and your other services to the Crown I hereby dub thee Urist McBaron and award you stewardship of the fortress of Laboredpass and the surrounding lands."

Urist McBaron: "Thank you your Majesty, this is a great honor."

Urist Mckingly: "You may now choose six dwarves to help in the reclamation of the fortress properer and gather supply under the authority of the crown for this endeavor but remember to ect...

Which is a completely different thing from adv housing.





It is not quite that simple.  Dwarf Fortress is at the very core a site-based universe that is basically tribal, with all those The Whatever of Whatever groups.  Real history was a land/people based universe in which sites in the DF sense were not self-supporting but dependant upon the land they owned/controlled/influenced/traded with for their very survival. 

I think one of the goals is to make the lands surrounding sites play a larger part of the simulation resulting in less self-sufficiency.

I know Toady said something about wanting hillocks to buildup around your fortress during play, not sure if he meant having the fortress as the "lords" keep and the surrounding being you dependents or something else.

Fingers crossed.   :-\ :-\

Yeah  :)

I am glad you think I am an expert. 
 ;)

It just seems like you've study economics on some level even if in an armature way, where as I like most people only care in so much as it effects my daily life.

The Star-Trek economy appears only to exist in fortress mode, the rest of the world seems to be living in a normal reality where surplus value is finite. 

Actually I think Toady said that he still needs to code the quantity of a resource a site has access to because as it stand it just checks if its available and gives an unlimited quantity.

Well pheromones are just the smells that ants use to 'talk' to eachother.  We use sounds to communicate to much the same effect, except for one crucial difference.  Smells can stick to things while sounds cannot, which means that we have to invent writing while ants simply apply a strong enough pheromone to something that it sticks to it.  This is how ants tell which ants belong to their own colony, every ant walks around with a pheromone 'tatoo' on it which was that informs all other ants as to it's allegiance.  This is applies when an ant reaches adulthood, which means that while ants are unable to 'adopt' adult ants from a defeated colony they often adopt larval ants and steal eggs.

Pheromones directly effect brain chemistry unlike words and all thought is influenced by the brain's chemical levels that why for example depression and ADHD are treated by altering the chemistry of the brain so as a primary method of communication I imagine it would have roll on effects to the way the creature actually works psychologically which in turn would change how their society functions and grows.

Individual ants do not need a queen ant to survive.  They can survive for the whole of their limited lifespans without ever seeing a queen ant, what they need a queen ant *for* is to lay eggs and produce more ants (they do get lonely and die quicker with no other ants around though. A queen ant is the ant that lays eggs, many ant species have multiple unrelated queens in the same colony meaning that the ants of those colonies are not necceserily actually siblings at all. 

An individual ant doesn't need the queen but unlike dwarves they do need a queen for the propagation of the species and one of the primary driving force of any species is the need to procreate, dwarves don't have this limitation and can therefore be more selfish before it results in the destruction of the site (fortress) or extinction of the species.

I only know of a couple ant species that allow for multiply queens per colony and the ones that do allow it are often related.

The viability of hermit dwarf fortresses is only because surplus value is too great and mining is too easy. 

I see no reason that lowing surplus value would mean a single dwarf couldn't survive by themselves, they could live in a fungi wood cottage on the edge of an cavern lake like a human on the surface and very slowly mine a small personal fortress area.

The biggest danger of the caverns are the forgotten beasts and Giant Cave Spiders but with titans, dragons, Cyclops's , Minotaur's and giant animals above ground living alone in the caverns both fishing and gathering food wouldn't be that much more dangerous.

I said that the perfect dwarf would be the ant-person because what the dwarf is trying to do, the ant-person would do perfectly.  This means whether the evolution is biological or social, dwarves are going to be evolving towards becoming ant-people, whether they like it or not.  If dwarves lived like humans in the cavern-layer, then it either means they would have been unable to build a fortress in the first place or it means that they would have to start evolving to shed their 'humanity'. 

in the absents of "magical" dark sight and magical caverns I think they would evolve towards being ant-people first by losing their eyes and then adapting further in that direction but they have dark sight and caverns filled with life so there's less pressure to evolve so radically.

I don't see why a fortress would be impossible, if dwarves start in the cavern an build a human society in those caverns, fishing in lakes gathering mushrooms and cave-wheat while hunting cavern animals for meat it would be possible for their society couldn't develop like the roman empire with the initial site gradually expanding up thought the stone over years until they reach the surface, with the first fortress being Rome itself.

Biology is an effect not a cause.  Ants have progenitor queens but the vast majority of insects do not, therefore nothing about progenitor queens created the hive-mind existance; it was the ant's hive-mind existance that created progenitor queens.

The normal insect female produces 100s of eggs at a time and lays them into something.  Infant and oval mortality is pretty high, that is why they do not overpopulate their enviroment as a result and destroy their enviroment along with themselves.  Once insects start living in hives however, the eggs and babies start to enjoy a near 100% survival rate and as a result the total number of eggs laid needs to be reduced.  As only a small minority of the social insects are hence able to reproduce, but the cost is still there of mantaining the reproductive systems of all members even though they are consigned to celibacy.  The logical next step is simply to undevelop the reproductive systems of the majority of the ants, leaving only a small number (the queens) with a fully developed reproductive system.   

As I stated previously I've always believed biology to reign supreme, that article I link challenge that belief by stating that biology and nurture are equals in the development of an individual's personality and this mean it is equally cause and effect the two playing off of each other resulted in the current circumstance neither biology of sociology being the sole driving force.

Among dwarves, 'married dwarf women' presently carry out the progenitor queen function.   ;D

50% of the population is breeding capable then individuals can be more selfish because their long term survival isn't hinged on one lynch pin.

Superabundance in one area leads to superabundance is another area dependant upon that area.  The reason is that once replicators produce a superbundance of material goods, this frees up the whole population to produce intellectual property.  Since some people are willing to share intellectual property for free (Toady One for instance), then with an superabundance of intellectual properties everybody simply uses the freely shared ones.

Thing is though that the remaining paid intellectual properties discourage the development of free intellectual properties.  For instance in order to make my free mod I have to buy Forgotten Realms sourcebooks, this means that paid intellectual property is a nuisence to those who wish to make free intellectual property.  Since the later group now have the upper hand however in economic terms then it is likely that intellectual property rights will simply be abolished by the government just as they were created originally (there were no intellectual property rights before the 18th Century). 

I get what your saying I just believe that the powers that be (wealthy) wont allow it to reach that point, they put in stop block by what ever means necessary to keep the status quo including limiting what people are allowed to produce for free by claim it copies their "private" intellectual property and enforcing restrictions (tightening) whats considered "free" use property by buying and owning entire idea's, anybody who uses elves has to pay the company that own the idea of elves even if yours elves are "different".

I also believe that enough people would prefer a system which can benefit their personal wealth over collective benefits for everyone that it won't be that hard for big companies to push their agenda.

To put it simply I see Shadow Run, Blade Runner, Deus Ex and Judge Dread as more likely futures then Star Trek.

There is a reason that nearly all social insects (ants, termites, bees, bumblebees, wasps) live most of the time in hives or the equivilant and we never find the majority of individuals of a social insect group scattered above liberally across the area.  The reason is the Hive-Mind only works if there is a proximity between the majority of individuals in order to exist, since it is a function of having the same set of information and a general consensus among individuals as to the correct course of action to follow in relation to that information. 

And yet I don't think that even with smart phone technology which can scan your thumb print no one would support a system where everyone thumbs are used to identify individual voters and enable every on to take part in an everyday consensus.

All that Enders Game tells us is that Orson Scott Card did not really understand how a Hive-Mind works and confused it with the concept of the Over-Mind.  The Overmind is when we have a greater intelligence that uses the lesser intelligences that support it as tools to it's ends (pretty much any government).  An ant is very much an individual that obeys no other creature, it just happens to be that due to their proximity together they all have a common set of information and all simataneously make the correct individual decision for the collective welfare of the whole.

I see a hive mind as being closer to an overmind then what we have now because it lowers the boundary's between individuals making them less then what we are now imho, that's mostly because I see our individuality as one of the most important aspect's of being human and the more you lower those boundary become the less individual we are, I am invoking the "Slippery Slope" fallacy but I still feel its true.

Ants then are basically an adaptation of insects to a dwarf-like existance.  What dwarfs will end up becoming in the end is whatever the mammalian primate equivilant of a social insect happens to be.  Interesting thing is we already have a mammel that has adopted an ant-like biology with a Hive-Mind existance due to living in a dwarf-like manner, the Naked mole rat.  Behold the ultimate fate that waits dwarves (maybe).   :D

I still think your to focus on the fact that because they build their society underground that are ants or Naked mole rats but the DF world have cavern for them to live in and I feel the fact that their current sites are all fortress like is a place holder until Toady builds a dwarven hamlets and towns in the cavern layer at which point the current dwarven society can broken down far more easily.

Does not change the fact that it is the optimal form of society, which dwarves would adopt as much as possible if they want to survive and prosper.  The only question is to what extent does the inheritance (both biological and ideological) of dwarves left from before they lived in the present manner 'get in the way'. 

The fact that its the optimal society doesn't mean dwarves adopt it any faster then humans have irl.

I feel like the majority of dwarven society should live in hamlets scattered around the 1st cavern layer and that the first fortress should be their Rome and not the standard of their society.

It is not something that can just be 'fixed'.  The reason is the very nature of the game, you see a palace or fortress is not a self-sufficiant site that does not need other sites around but the nature of the game is never going to be changed so that you need preexisting native populations to embark because your fortress depends upon the existance of pre-existing dwarf peasants spread across the region.  No evil glacier embark for you veteran player, because your fortress needs a preexisting peasant population to exist (sorry). 

Much like how the active world reduced the frequency and size of sieges was complained about? its not a bug but a change in the way DF's simulation works and the player has to adapt.

I'm pretty sure Toady said something about deepening the relationships between sites and the tribute system and making it so that hillock develop around your fortress so in the same way the active world required players to change the way they play so would the requirement of surrounding dwarven sites and if that means no embarking on an evil biome then the player will have to adapt their play-style because its the result of the simulation deepening and if you don't like it "Sorry but its to bad so sad" imho. :P

I do not think you understand the sheer importance of the economic reliance of the fortress or palace upon it's creators.  It is not the peasants scattered about that make the laws, it is the people in the fortress or castle.  As result the palace has to create laws and concepts not according to it's own internal collective reality but according to the individual reality of the peasants that feed it.  Additionally it's need to extract surplus value from the peasants to survive clashes with the peasants desire to keep that value to themselves (or work less) and this means that it desires that the peasants are KEPT scattered about in order to reduce their ability to organise.  As a matter of course no palace creates something equivilant to a DF hillocks/hamlet or allows such a thing to exist since such a thing has absolutely no need for anything the palace has to provide it.   

If framing, fishing and hunting is changed to cost more time and provide less food then hamlets and hillock need other site for protection there should also be mining sites that need food, the only purpose of farming hamlets and hillocks would be food production for fortresses and towns and other sites that can't produce enough for themselves.

This can act as an expansion upon the nobility system where hillocks around your fortress are the "Lands" of your baron, count or duke paying tribute to you in the form of the food your no longer able to produce for yourself.

Once the dwarf peasants bring a functioning dwarf fortress into existance the dwarf fortress now simply has no more need of them.  A palace does not compete with the peasants that created and is dependant upon them forever but a dwarf fortress once it exists is quite free to legislate and create culture to suit the fortress dwarves themselves.  Since the fortress has no need of the peasant dwarves and the latter do not make the laws, the fortress makes the laws that best increase the fortress's own wellbeing, ignoring the peasants that created it in process.  In the end the fortresses inherant hunger for labour causes it to devise ways to actually destroy the peasant hovels and absorb their inhabitants. 

This has never happened in real-life, as never has a peasant population gave birth to a palace that did not need them. 

Which is why we alter the simulation to make a palace or "fortress" need those peasants. :)

The other sites are organised along dwarf-lines.  Since the historical development of the human race seems to be following dwarf-lines rather than human lines, with hamlets replacing the dwarf fortress of the centralised hive-mind friendly site and the elves society would not naturally arise at all, it follows that everybody else is imitating dwarf society on the surface.  In a word the normal development of the human race by which scattered peasants form dependant sites that are bound to them and their lifestyle forever. 

They are thus the equivilant of wasps or bees, replicating the ant's manner of life on the surface even though it was living in a constructed underground that created that lifestyle in the first place.  However since the first hamlet is far cheaper (give realistic mining limitations) to build than the first fortress, for both to be finished on Yr 0 then it follows that yes the dwarves did come first before Yr 0 and the others quickly copied them. 

Dwarves coming first kills three birds with one stone, the relative cost of hamlets/forest retreat vs fortresses, the divergance of human society from it's regular development and the very existance of elf society.   

I would instead want dwarves to develop like I've suggested before, as humans underground with the first fortress being their Rome fueled by the surplus of other dwarven sites.

I just don't find what the current setup entails economically to be anything other then boring, I like stories with a darker tone both in the world itself and in the society's in that world.

By that logic only the dwarves ought to have metals at all.  Adamantine is only found deep in the earth so it would be concievable that only dwarves would know how to use it, but the materials for steel are no deeper down than anything else.   

I don't think so, dwarves would get metal development first because its right in their face (cavern walls), over their head (cavern roof) and under their feet (cavern floor) but everyone else would get their on their own just slightly later because its not everywhere they look.


The prevalance of something is no guarantee of it's functionality.  If there are 10 people in a room that are all infected with some disease and an 11th healthy person turns up then it does not imply that being sick is superior to being healthy, nor than sickness is more functional; even if the 11th person should then get infected.  The 10 people should all still become like the 11th person even though they are the majority. 

I have already explained why Capitalism became the prevalant system, because of the interdependance existing between the palaces that make the laws and the scattered peasants that supported the palaces.  Due to the way that human society universally developed they 'got there first' and they have socialised all the people to think along their own lines, along with possessing the means to violently suppress any localised challenge. 

"shrugs" It beat socialism and it doesn't really matter to me how or why just that it did.

I suppose to me its victory just makes it look superior, I'm sure if they had of develop at exactly the same time we would be in a different would but we don't because capitalism won the battle of ideology's.

I think that capitalism motivates hard work better then socialism, with a community based sharing system you only work as hard as necessary to "pay" for yourself, an example is that when I used to work at a factory their was a quota system and as long as you hit quota you where fine but the manager noticed that people worked to the quota never going over it so they tried a system where for every unit over the quota you did you got paid an extra $0.82 after they brought that in they stood a chance to make themselves more money they went up to between 50-90 over quota each day taking home an extra $200-$300 a week, money and personal wealth is a better motivator then "The Greater Good" of the company or community.

Which cannot realistically be done because at the core of the game is the idea of self-sufficient dwarf fortresses. 
 

I don't think it is the goal though, the dev page says

Quote
he long-term goal is to create a fantasy world simulator in which it is possible to take part in a rich history, occupying a variety of roles through the course of several games.

Again I think your stuck on the idea the DF is complete and that their adding "expansions" where as I see it as incomplete and every new feature expands the simulation, I feel that eventually you wont be able to run a self-sufficient fortress and will be at least partially dependent on imported goods just to keep running.

If you do not have a consensus then you do not have a Hive-Mind.  Then you start needing people in authority (nobles) to act as an Over-Mind instead to forcibly create a consensus.  We do not have a consensus (Hive-Mind) because the dwarves were not always living like dwarves presently do. 
 

I don't think they will continue to live as they presently do as the game develops.

The very existance of dwarf fortresses realistically puts an end with the very processes that led to Feudalism and Capitalism in real-life.  The dwarves are evolving from the collectivist tribal setup into an actual hive and the rest of the world initially modelled their societies after the dwarf fortresses that were being built rather than developing along historical models. 

Of course Toady One could create a different setup for humans with the processes happening, but the real issue is then why the dwarf fortress society would not cannibalise that society with it's starving peasants. 


Unless you make it so fortresses are not self sufficient hives but a palace or nobles keep dependent on the the community's around them.

Exactly what I was talking about.  The team were given the option of creating the whole game around the economy they wanted the dwarves to have, giving the initial setup money to spend.  They clearly realised, "that won't work for the initial setup" and decided "that is because things are not developed enough".  The illogic of the whole setup was pretty great because it involved the arbitery addition of a system when they had previously functioned quite happily according to an old system. 

If a particular economy cannot even build a fortress, then why would the dwarves ever have adopted it? 

but if fortresses becomes the Rome of dwarven society feeding off of the surrounding dwarvn sites it make sense right? then a new fortress is an attempt to expand the empire/kingdom and the starting seven are just the first colonists funded by the crown.

There are plenty of new tropes and scenarios that would logically arise given the setup at the moment, surely it is more interesting to do something different rather than mindlessly replicate the darker tropes of other fantasy games at any cost?  We already have one scenario already.

Refugee Camp Wars
 

more interesting to whom? I've already said I find the current system boring so I'll give some example of my personal preferences.

Warhamer 40k > Fallout > Deus Ex > Shadow Run > Firefly > Star Trek
Warhammer Fantasy > Call of Cthulhu > Vampire the Masquerade > Dungeons & Dragons

I love dark and sinister settings where their is little or no hope of a better tomorrow and you'd best just hope you can survive until tomorrow, so personally I'd rather the game have those dark fantasy elements.

So you are afraid of something different, is that it?  The whole idea of moving into uncharted waters with a whole new history, with all the possibilities that involves scares you. 
 

I find the idea of all civ values and social more developing during world gen with vast differences between two dwarven civ resulting in conflict between them to very interesting... What "scares" me is the idea that DF will have this (imho) boring perfect economy and social system when its "Complete", it just doesn't interest me in the slightest to have ant-people whom are all working together for the common good.

They did not exactly have an easy time.  Despite being pacifists and quite harmless people still felt threatened by them enough that they had to go all the way from Austria, into Russia and then finally into America.  All the while being killed and persecuted by the people of the 'other economies' around them. 

You seem to overestimate the extent to which the 'other economies', which as I have already explained got there first are willing to tolerate and support alternatives.  You also forget that since they 'got there first' all the people who might have available to build a different system come from the existing system and the 'raw material' for other ways of doing things are heavily indoctrinated/socialised with attitudes that rule out any alternative way of doing things.  Aka what you wrote just before.

I understand that its the competition between the existing system and "other" systems that resulted in the other systems failing, part of why communism failed is that it couldn't compete with the entirety of the rest of the world working against it.

When I think of things like this what goes though my mind is that it doesn't matter how you win just that you win, history after all is written by the victor.

Poverty can still exist at a site level if you introduce some kind of social breakdown that disrupts production, crop failures, volcanic eruptions, trade disruptions, raids by rival sites and so on.  Relative poverty can also exist where there are people within a site that are less powerful than others, if there was site level poverty this could easily become actual absolute poverty (your beloved starving peasants).   

but as you've said such a site would end up being cannibalized by the utopian society.

This whole discussion is beyond silly.  You do not leave home with an armed mercenery if you want to increase your life expectancy. 

Its silly how? how does having an armed mercenary decrease your life expectancy?

The adventurer by nature goes looking for danger.  If it is not something that is too afraid to fight him that kills you, it will be something new. 

Quote from: JesterHell696
Toady I remember you saying something about the player affecting adventure mode personality's, can you choose both personality facets and beliefs and does it work like attribute distributions with points that you spend to increase or lower your value or do you just select a value you want?

Edit:with the addition of bards and traveling musicians will there be followers who's motivation is not death and glory?


You can either randomize your personality and values according to your creature type and culture (just tapping 'r' until you get a paragraph/needs you like), or you can go in and set your values/personality facet by facet manually (in a gigantic slider list).  Your personality in the latter case is still restricted by creature type (so you can't make a very altruistic goblin), but you can set as many values outside of your culture as you want (instead of the standard 3 or so).  It isn't based on a point system, since one personality isn't supposed to be better than another (though there will always be min-maxy settings that you can use to make your character have fewer needs, etc.).

Yeah, you can have your performance troupe that just wants to perform, with no wanna-die checks at all.


Adventurer is just a term for player controlled characters because its "Adventure Mode", just look at the adventure mode arc "Merchant" his goal is profit and wealth not danger, also the most dangerous thing to any adventurer is the player themselves not the creature they run into, you don't try and fight a web spitter without cannon fodder and if you do its the player fault that the adventurer died.

40k is just a world that makes little internal sense at all; I used to play it though.   :P :P

It depend on how deep into the lore you get, but its possible to make some sense of it with enough lore book.

At the personality represents the creature's inherant nature and values+ethics represent it's socialised/learned nature.  At the moment creature behavior is determined by a mixture of personality and values.  I think that the creature's economic+legal development over time should be determined by a mixture of those things but values should be independant, meaning I do not welcome the idea that personality should initially determine values. 

Randomised starting values is coming up by the way. 

I understand that you don't welcome the idea and I don't think many would.

I know random starting values are coming up and I'm really exited for it, I think it'll be done by extending the weighted preference system that personalty facets have to civ values.

for example dwarves would have
[HARD_WORK:0:30:50] a minimum starting civ value of 0 the median being 30 and max being 50

A very small hole applied to a key artery results in death, you should know that DF Player. 

Your claim was is that human nature in the modern world mandates a particular form of economy+society.  Therefore if any instances at all that demonstrate that a successful human society can exist in the modern world according to a different form of economy+society logically kills your argument quite dead. 

Actually my grandfather survived a ruptured aorta thanks to "private" health insurance, capitalistic health care saved my grandfather :), so while it is a potentially lethal blow its does not guaranteed death.

The fact that a small insignificant society whom entire population is less then one capitalist town exists was an almost lethal blow but didn't kill because I feel that they use an inferior system and have achieved inferior results.

Dwarves are only slightly more greedy than humans but greed is the logical flaw that would lead to the development of the present system.  Dwarves have values of hard-work, craftsmenship and cooperation so what we see at the production level makes sense.  They should not be happy however to share everything equally but that logically makes sense when everybody collectively produced it, this is what in the dwarf society would cause change and FUN.   

Dwarven values of hard work and cooperation are civ values and not inherent to the dwarven creature like greed is, when you take random starting civ values, the change of civ values over time and though scholars and then combine it with fortresses being partially dependent of hillocks you get dwarves closer to what I feel is natural then the current ant people.

I want real change to happen over history.  I want to see rulers and movements actually implementing/abolishing elements of society and economy, whether good or bad in my opinion.  I am happy to see things I do not personally like depicted in the game, as long as these are not presented as some unalternable and eternal nature.  The starving peasants are the result of the malevolant or misguided policies of King X, they are not just there because starving peasants are part of the basic game code/unalterable economic order. 

I want change to happen over the course of history with the implementation and abolishment of social and economic standards and while I'm accepting of thing I don't like existing in game I would like to see some sort of basic economy that isn't like the current one exist at year 0, I don't want to have to troll though legends mode every time to ensure that the dwarves have developed an interesting economy that will be fun to play, other then that I don't really oppose such an economy simply existing anymore (you' have shown that it can exist) I just don't want to play with it as my economy.

It actually makes sense for the site to actually employ you to build a house for them within site boundries. 

I want to build a house for me not them, at most buying the land and materials for the house from them.
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"The long-term goal is to create a fantasy world simulator in which it is possible to take part in a rich history, occupying a variety of roles through the course of several games." Bay 12 DF development page

"My stance is that Dwarf Fortress is first and foremost a simulation and that balance is a secondary objective that is always secondary to it being a simulation while at the same time cannot be ignored completely." -Neonivek
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