Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: Random Minor Thoughts that Occurred During Play  (Read 1498 times)

Celebrim42

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Random Minor Thoughts that Occurred During Play
« on: August 27, 2016, 06:25:42 pm »

We should be able to set a Pasture to accept animals by type (species and gender), or to forbid same.   A pasture which forbids animals of a particular type, will cause animals on that pasture to automatically be moved to one where they are accepted (if one is available).   There should also be settable caps on the number of animals a pasture will take.  This will greatly simplify management of livestock. 

For crying out loud, unarmed and unarmored dwarves should prefer to flee from creatures larger than themselves.  I am sick and tired of having civilians chase giant grizzly bears across the map in order to punch them.  The fact that they are unarmored lets them overtake military units that are closer.   It's nuts that civilians are apparently unafraid of everything.  What's discipline for?

Boots/gloves should be made in matching pairs, because it doesn't seem reasonable that a glove requires as much leather as a leggings, a cloak, a dress, a backpack, or a suit of armor.

Butcher skill should effect the percentage of recoverable items you get from a corpse.  The higher level the butcher, the less is wasted.  I know this is somewhat planned, but the number of hides a corpse produces should be dependent on the size of the corpse, with a sheep sized animal perhaps producing two, a cow four, and so forth.  Small animals like say chickens should generally not produce hide at all. Obtaining the maximum number of hides would depend on butchering skill, with small animals rarely yielding hides unless butchering skill was high.  Some animals should yield 'fur' rather than hide, which is more valuable but can only be made into outerwear (coats, mittens, etc.). 

Crowns should be settable as a uniform component.

Pick axes should be settable as a uniform component.

Nobles should be allowed to be inducted into military units.  It doesn't make any sense for martial activities to not be considered proper noble activities, as martial castes are the basis of most aristocracies (religion being the other one, and nobles should engage in priestly duties when those become available).  It makes even less sense for dwarf nobles to avoid military duty than human ones.  I mean, even the British royalty still engages in military duty.  Rather than being uniformly 'lazy', nobles should be simply opinionated.  In general, nobles will only engage in military activity only if they are the commander of the unit or only work with items that they have a preference for.  So, a noble that likes pick axes should become a miner, nobles that like rings will work as craftdwarves but will prefer only to make rings.  Nobles will tend to ignore or delay taking a job that they aren't interested in, while pushing lesser dwarfs out of the way for a job that they are interested in - even if they have less skill.

Alabaster should be a more valuable material, akin at least to marble.  Historically, it was highly prized especially for small containers and detailed carving.

There should be a food trough furniture item for pastured animals, so that their grass intake can be supplemented.  It should be possible to harvest hay from grass squares.

Hunting is severely limited by its mechanics, into being a skill you don’t train, you just 'hire’ migrants.  I have no problem with depleting an animal from the local environment, but I thought that the local environment was always related to the larger world?  Otherwise, what’s that larger world for?  If I kill 30 white tail deer, I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t see a deer again for years, but with a species as fecund to the point of being a pest like a deer… the 30 I killed shouldn’t be practical extinction.  Species killed off in the local environment should regenerate after a time period related to how quickly they become mature, how many offspring they have, and so forth.   This could be tested once a year or seasonally. 
 
Mayor/Rulers need to be able to issue an order to compel non-citizens to leave, which is then carried out by the captain of the guard.

Clothiers should be able to produce gambesons, or ‘quilted’ armor, in leggings, helms, and coats.  This requires 5 plant cloths of the same sort (wool cannot be used).  Protection is similar to leather, but with slightly better protection from impact and slightly less from piercing/slashing.  Gambeson’s can also be worn under breastplates, replacing chain.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2016, 08:58:27 pm by Celebrim42 »
Logged

vjmdhzgr

  • Bay Watcher
  • Hehehe
    • View Profile
Re: Random Minor Thoughts that Occurred During Play
« Reply #1 on: August 27, 2016, 08:13:29 pm »

Boots and gloves are made in matching pairs? I really don't know how you couldn't have noticed that. Picks can be set as a uniform component they're just in the foreign weapons section because the dwarf entity isn't meant to use picks as weapons under normal circumstances. Nobles can be put into the military. Though I think certain nobles are supposed to refuse working of any type, that doesn't actually work, so you can do whatever you want with them.

Anyway the rest of that seems good. Though I can't tell what you mean by "issue an order to compel non-citizens to leave" Are you suggesting that they just do it on their own randomly, or that the player does so through the mayor/ruler? Because I'm not really for my non-citizens being expelled suddenly without any control over it.

I guess I also don't really understand your problem with hunting. You mention just hiring migrants, and I kind of agree with the problem there. That you have no meaningful control over hunting, but then you talk about something completely different, and the paragraph is kind of disorderly. Also I had thought that it took much more than 30 to wipe out a local population of an animal, but I suppose I've never messed with above ground animals. A glass forgotten beast that I sealed off once extincted every creature in its entire cavern layer. No animals ever showed up in there again. It was of course standing on piles of hundreds of corpses so it seemed like enough had been killed for a cavern population to me.
Logged
Its a feature. Impregnating booze is a planned tech tree for dwarves and this is a sneak peek at it.
Unless you're past reproductive age. Then you're pretty much an extension of your kids' genitalia

Celebrim42

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Random Minor Thoughts that Occurred During Play
« Reply #2 on: August 27, 2016, 08:44:56 pm »

Boots and gloves are made in matching pairs? I really don't know how you couldn't have noticed that.

Are they?  Then why do I get notices like, "Urist has just made a masterwork left ratskin glove."  And why do I always get equipment mismatch warnings when dwarves are trying to find gloves or footwear?

Quote
Nobles can be put into the military. Though I think certain nobles are supposed to refuse working of any type, that doesn't actually work, so you can do whatever you want with them.

I've tried assigning dwarves of noble rank to the military, and they aren't or don't seem to be available.  Minor "nobility" like the manager and so forth can be assigned, but Baronial rank or higher cannot. 

My understanding is that being able to assign nobles to work is considered a bit of a bug.  My point is that it is unreasonable to extend 'unwilling to work' to command of a military unit, since, that's what nobles in general 'do'.

Quote
Though I can't tell what you mean by "issue an order to compel non-citizens to leave" Are you suggesting that they just do it on their own randomly, or that the player does so through the mayor/ruler? Because I'm not really for my non-citizens being expelled suddenly without any control over it.

I mean that there ought to be an interface either with the mayor, the mayor's office, or the non-citizen where you can issue orders which the mayor will then conduct as a job by going to their office.

Quote
I guess I also don't really understand your problem with hunting.

I have a ton of minor problems with hunting, and I admit the paragraph is more of a jumble of stream of conscious thoughts than any sort of well crafted essay.  I'll try to break them down:

a) I have a problem with any skill where in practice it's not possible to level up a dwarf to high rank because the job is highly constrained by available resources, the skill is relatively inessential, and rarely necessary or even available.  Hunting falls in this category because game is very scarce and very little XP is earned for each kill.  Even a dwarf with 40 or more hunting kills is not going to obtain very high level through that.   So where do the high level dwarf migrant hunters come from? 
b) Hunting is probably the worst of the bunch because in addition to the skill only being trained irregularly based on a very scarce resource, the game mechanics are such that if you do try to train it, then it is a net negative since you then lose out on animal training, animal husbandry, and the more plentiful resources you can earn by breeding animals.   In theory hunting is pointless, doubly so because food is so relatively unimportant and relatively plentiful.
c) And on top of this, the game has the punishing 'extinction' mechanic where there is a per species cap on the number of such animals that ever can be hunted, and when this cap is met the animal never shows up again.

Logged

Fleeting Frames

  • Bay Watcher
  • Spooky cart at distance
    • View Profile
Re: Random Minor Thoughts that Occurred During Play
« Reply #3 on: August 29, 2016, 11:52:21 am »

Few things to note: Sized leather is already planned, though multiple pieces into one is questioned. If you want it now, there are mods that include this.

You can select crowns as part of uniform by making the uniform, say, "yellow headwear", ensuring they'll pick up a gold crown rather than midnight blue cap.

You can select Pickaxes as picks(foreign) in weapons.

Equipment mismatch is likely caused by how you store your items - if the gloves are stored inside a bin, then 1 dwarf picking it up makes it inaccessible for all dwarves.

Nobles can't be milita commanders, but they can be part of a squad.

If you extinct animals, then as workaround you can retire and unretire the fortress.

vjmdhzgr

  • Bay Watcher
  • Hehehe
    • View Profile
Re: Random Minor Thoughts that Occurred During Play
« Reply #4 on: August 29, 2016, 12:18:07 pm »

Boots and gloves are made in matching pairs? I really don't know how you couldn't have noticed that.

Are they?  Then why do I get notices like, "Urist has just made a masterwork left ratskin glove."  And why do I always get equipment mismatch warnings when dwarves are trying to find gloves or footwear?
I guess I might have misunderstood then. Are you suggesting the quality of both gloves be the same whenever they're produced? Because if so then I agree. It gets annoying having all those different quality gloves. I thought you meant that two should be produced at a time. Which they already are as it is. I'm pretty sure the equipment mismatch is irrelevant.
Logged
Its a feature. Impregnating booze is a planned tech tree for dwarves and this is a sneak peek at it.
Unless you're past reproductive age. Then you're pretty much an extension of your kids' genitalia

Celebrim42

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Random Minor Thoughts that Occurred During Play
« Reply #5 on: August 29, 2016, 08:54:33 pm »

Few things to note: Sized leather is already planned...

I thought it might be.  It seems utterly obvious.  As it is, there is no reason to not just raise turkeys.  Sized leather would make pastured animals much more attractive.

Quote
You can select crowns as part of uniform by making the uniform, say, "yellow headwear", ensuring they'll pick up a gold crown rather than midnight blue cap.

That seems like a janky work around.  What if I want them to wear bone crowns?  I'm not saying my desire to have The Queen's Own Royal Protectors wear crowns is rational.  I'm just saying that I want it and it doesn't seem hard to add 'crown' to the list as a specific headware category.

Quote
You can select Pickaxes as picks(foreign) in weapons.

Cool.  But, just as it would be great if the UI was consistent in what scrolled under what conditions, so it would be nice if the language describing something was consistent across all interfaces.

Quote
Nobles can't be milita commanders, but they can be part of a squad.

Which is backwards.  But as long as we are talking work arounds, I discovered that though you couldn't use the AI to establish a noble as a militia commander, Dwarf Therapist doesn't have that limitation and DF itself will accept it as a command if it is given to it.   So now my Queen leads her own squad, as well she should.

Quote
If you extinct animals, then as workaround you can retire and unretire the fortress.

That's ridiculous.  I shouldn't extinct animals at all unless I consciously go to every biome where they are found and exterminate them.  I might make them go away locally for a time, but I'm only playing on a 4x4 area covering like 600 acres.    There is a massive amount of world out there compared to the world you are hunting in.
Logged

Fleeting Frames

  • Bay Watcher
  • Spooky cart at distance
    • View Profile
Re: Random Minor Thoughts that Occurred During Play
« Reply #6 on: August 29, 2016, 11:59:44 pm »

Bone crowns could be a bit annoying. If you specify "white headwear", I'm not sure it couldn't pick bone helmet and then be unable to put it on, just earmarking it (get rid of all free-standing bone helmets first post facto/ensure bone helmet squad is is before crownwielders pre-facto - if either of those don't work, you'd have to segregate dwarves or use dfhack).

Including them...Well, it is not just crowns, really. Lot of busywork, and can't just replace military pick with stockpile system either, for that takes away more general options.

That said, given you can't produce any white gear other than from bone and any yellow gear other than from gold crafts, it's less of a workaround and more of the way to specify.

...

I've seen biomes with less than 16 embark tiles. Yes you can. Also, it is only 36 acres, not 600.

Deboche

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Random Minor Thoughts that Occurred During Play
« Reply #7 on: August 30, 2016, 06:25:36 am »

Nobles are not necessarily involved with the military or religion. Sure, fantasy in general is for the most part based on medieval England but in many parts of the world nobles didn't fight. We just have to ask ourselves if that's how dwarves organize their societies or if it should be procedural or based on religion or ethics or whatever.

You can't hunt animals to extinction. There will always be one type of animal outside and one per cave. So if 20 deer come into your terrain and you kill them all, some other animal will appear and linger until you kill them all or they decide to leave. So check your "u" screen. If there's a bird somewhere your hunters can't reach or some rabbit that climbed up a tree, it's keeping the next group of animals from coming in.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2016, 08:27:13 am by Deboche »
Logged

Celebrim42

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Random Minor Thoughts that Occurred During Play
« Reply #8 on: August 30, 2016, 11:32:33 pm »

Nobles are not necessarily involved with the military or religion.

Name one culture where the basis of nobility was neither religious nor military, nor derived from having religious or military ancestry.  Because I love to study cultures and I've studied a great many cultures, but that one you name would be the most unique and interesting one I'd ever studied - being as it were so wholly unlike all the other ones.

Quote
Sure, fantasy in general is for the most part based on medieval England...

What?  Did I say anything about making everything like Medieval England?   Heck, my own biweekly D&D game owes far more to a fantasy India in a lot of ways than to medieval England.  Or Ancient Egypt.  Or medieval Thailand.   Or medieval Tibet.  England is pretty far down the list.   Tonight's game owed more to the Mayans and the Mauri than medieval England.   

Quote
...but in many parts of the world nobles didn't fight.

Let's pick Ancient Egypt.  The two ruling classes where the Priests and the Warriors.  The Pharaoh was worshipped as a living God, and was expected to demonstrate his power and authority by directly commanding his troops in battle.  When a particular dynasty ended, the new Pharaoh was almost always one of the main generals and often also a powerful member of the priestly class.

What about India.  In India, the ruling class was the priestly Brahmin caste that oversaw all religious duties.  The next most important caste was the warrior class.  The middle class of society was made up of things like temple singers, temple musicians, weapon smiths, and horse breeders that served the two ruling castes. 

What about Tibet.  The ruling class was monastic priests. 

Japan.  The ruling class were the Samurai or knights. 

Ancient Greece.  The ruling class was the independent farmers serving underneath a King who was both a constitutional monarch and served as High Priest, and the independent farmers or manor owners were not coincidentally also a knightly caste of heavily armored warriors who station was owed to the fact that they could afford to arm themselves with the then state of the art weapons technology.  And incidentally, each manor owner also served as high priest over his household in charge of religious duties.   The word 'aristocracy' is Greek for the caste of persons expected to serve as front line troops.

China.  All those nobles in the Wu, the Jin, the Han, and so on and so forth battling for supremacy?  They might not all have been military, but they were all of the military caste and their power was owed to their ability to project military power. 

The universality of this can be seen by just how widespread and numerous the cultures were - from the Philippines to as you say Medieval England and everywhere in between - where the symbolic authority of the nobility was a sword.

You don't see a noble class whose primary duties aren't religious or combat until the rise of absolute monarchies and conscription in the West, and even then families involved were largely heirs of the knightly caste and were still expected - especially among the lower ranks of the nobility - to obtain commissions as officers and serve in the military (and to send younger sons into religious service).  Indeed, that practice couldn't be said to really fall by the wayside until WWI cut down the gentry across Europe, but even so you still see the Prince of Wales in the military way way past medieval Europe. 

Quote
We just have to ask ourselves if that's how dwarves organize their societies or if it should be procedural or based on religion or ethics or whatever.

I'm saying that an aristocratic class does not arise in a society unless in some fashion that aristocratic class is perceived by the society as providing protection for the rest of society, whether spiritual or physical or more usually both.  So dwarf nobility might be based on martial process, or religious ceremony, or magical prowess, but its going to be based on something.  Even if after 1000's of years pass, the nobility as it exists manages to become a leisure class that pays a subservient military caste, quite logically that's not going to happen in an Age where megabeasts are still running around.  But even when that happens, almost as soon as it happens, what tends to happen is the authority of the nobility is usurped.  If the aristocracy can no longer be looked to provide security, because Urist McFrontiersman with a rifle is every bit as good of a solider or better than Urist McArmoredKnight, then the aristocracy is stripped of its authority by Urist McFrontiersman or else Urist McFrontiersman kills off the old aristocracy and sets up a new order.  That's happened countless times across countless human cultures in countless periods.  At its very basic, that evolutionary fitness.  Those that can't fight the wars give way to those that can.

Quote
You can't hunt animals to extinction.

Technically, that would only be true if there are at least some animals in the game flagged 'uncountable'.  There are only a few 100 creatures in the game though, so if you kept your fortress going for a few centuries you'd extinct them all.  Indeed, I know enough about the game to know that the extinction of mega-beasts not merely locally but globally is built into the game and accounted for. 

But I really don't care that I can't hunt [all] 'animals' to extinction.  I see no reason why I should hunt any one animal to extinction locally if that animal is globally present and has a high birth rate. 
Logged

Deboche

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Random Minor Thoughts that Occurred During Play
« Reply #9 on: August 31, 2016, 03:40:53 am »

Name one culture where the basis of nobility was neither religious nor military, nor derived from having religious or military ancestry.  Because I love to study cultures and I've studied a great many cultures, but that one you name would be the most unique and interesting one I'd ever studied - being as it were so wholly unlike all the other ones.

What?  Did I say anything about making everything like Medieval England?

What about India.

Ancient Greece.

Technically, that would only be true if there are at least some animals in the game flagged 'uncountable'.  There are only a few 100 creatures in the game though, so if you kept your fortress going for a few centuries you'd extinct them all.  Indeed, I know enough about the game to know that the extinction of mega-beasts not merely locally but globally is built into the game and accounted for. 
Don't know. Can't be bothered to go look it up.

Fantasy in general, novels I mean, is mostly based on medieval England.

India's a recent thing, it used to be split up into lots of different territories. Same with Greece, each city-state had its own hierarchical structure.

Mega-beasts aren't animals.
Logged

Bumber

  • Bay Watcher
  • REMOVE KOBOLD
    • View Profile
Re: Random Minor Thoughts that Occurred During Play
« Reply #10 on: August 31, 2016, 01:46:49 pm »

You can't hunt animals to extinction. There will always be one type of animal outside and one per cave. So if 20 deer come into your terrain and you kill them all, some other animal will appear and linger until you kill them all or they decide to leave. So check your "u" screen. If there's a bird somewhere your hunters can't reach or some rabbit that climbed up a tree, it's keeping the next group of animals from coming in.
You can. Check a legends export for remaining pop counts. The only creatures you can't extinct from the world are vermin, Clowns, and bogeymen.

Any animal you kill on your map decreases the world total. I think it might regenerate slowly, but they're too stupid to stop throwing themselves at your fort.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2016, 01:52:31 pm by Bumber »
Logged
Reading his name would trigger it. Thinking of him would trigger it. No other circumstances would trigger it- it was strictly related to the concept of Bill Clinton entering the conscious mind.

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)?