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[Splint]

Okay gents, I have a question for the lot of you.

Considering the current way sieges work and all, with virtually no guarantee of fighting... Well, anything besides megabeasts and buggy animated dead maybe, would you prefer I continue using this version of DF and mod, or should I roll back, keeping the same premise but at the cost of features and play the old 34.11 version of the mod?

From what I can tell, humans should play virtually the same as they do now, but with some military caste options. Additionally, certain races should spawn correctly (I can't seem to get succubi to spawn no matter how many times I gen a world in the new version.)

I can retool the thread in that case, switch out images and the like, and we'll actually have some challenge to building our homes and supplying food to a degree, since we'll be limited to the old-style trees, and I can enable harder learning.

I say this not out of disinterest per se, but because I need something I can actually write about since for intents and purposes, all I have to work with is building the temple (as I don't want to establish a bunch of characters among the populace and shit trying to make something up,) which is extremely boring and unless someone gets hurt in a construction mishap, offers nothing for storytelling, as excessively large swathes of time will pass with literally nothing of note happening.

Thoughts?

[Fleeting Frames]

Atm I think, if you picked an embark where you won't get sieged, you picked a crappy embark/genned a crappy world if you wanted to be sieged. I've never played pre-42.06, but deciding your neighbours, their locations and their neighbours + sometimes their relations is part of embark prep.

However, the problem remains, if you embarked on an island.

With pre-set values, it's not that difficult to gen a world where your embark is the only thing goblins can target and only from a dark fortress - or to even ensure they had your fortress in range in worldgen to ensure a war/dead civ.

Though, for larger worlds the civ locations get stretched out, I think, so it becomes bit more difficult - another reason to not brother with them.

Admittedly, by my convo with IlFedaykin, fortress defence races tend to be able to build civ anywhere calm, so that's an additional complication if you want each and every race of the 18 others to be able to meet you on embark without being able to attack anyone else in worldgen.

Alternatively, if you don't mind cheating there's dfhack script to move sites in fort mode, though you probably still have to ensure you're the only valid target with setting up land like star in the ocean.

As for the humans remaining same, it's more than just a caste system - no taverns, libraries and temples cuts down the human growth potential in worldgen and things in fort mode as well (what's with the centerpiece tavern), no world activation alongside that probably stunts the pool of visitors you get, you'll have to deal with the old emotion system that made 5-year olds seem mature, it was before the jobs rewrite so there's those hauling problems and likely stockpile links needed for materials, it was before new plants so aboveground you'll have trees give 1 log and only like two dozen things to harvest, people would pass out right away from broken bones and be unable to multi-attack as far as combat goes....

Probably tons more. There's large differences between 43.05 and 34.11

PS: Yeah, I know you can write a story without any or almost any untimely death in populace, like in the early days of Breadbowl where baby drowning in a well was the worst thing in years, but not something you want to do

[Meph]

You can always be the first human to fight the HFS

[IlFedaykin]

I don't know how many years passed since you started but in my experience it's not that hard to be attacked... Preset worldgens like Gaia work pretty well to give a lot FUN even without sieges.
One of my early forts had too many races active and ambushes could easily reach the hundred of invaders. That said i would suggest to keep playing the new version and run a new worldgen with more races (or, if you want to keep it simple, set the other races as enemies and active them all year long)

[Splint]

EDIT: I don't care about the personality rewrites personally. It was already hard to upset my units before, but now it's nearly impossible unless they have to work out in the rain all day every day or see dead sapients all the time.

Don't much care for taverns or libraries either. I know they're needed as groundwork, but otherwise I find them... not all that appealing, really.

Combat received massive improvements, which is nice, but then the supply of things to hit with purpose-built implements of murder suddenly dried up no matter what I do. Demons are too erratic in composition to be fun for me, and most megabeasts and wildlife drop when they face my tiny handfuls of soldiers.

I basically field professional soldiers with no purpose and level smiths who make things I don't need now, and since my stories are meant to not be about the "characters" Since I don't want to dictate how dwarves or what have you act like that someone might end up wanting as thier avatar. Nor would I know how to do such a thing in Dwarf Fortress anyway due t fort mode's impersonal nature.

[Fleeting Frames]

How to do it...Research their circumstances, personalities, jobs. Imagine what a dwarf would be thinking, speaking of when meeting with others, why they do what they do. In Deathgame, I found DT helps with this a lot, but it's quite a bit of work - you're no longer reporting "another successful engagement, according to battle log x and y happened", but closer to writing a story, with character notes and events and plot and emergent protagonists
(that said, I'm bad at writing stories - I tend to make them sound wooden. Guess I need more practice, maybe). 

As for dictating how someone's avatar might act, while I've never understood the custom of dorfings, you can always follow the dwarf's personality ....or let them dictate it? Consult them in the PMs, request they post RPs, work together with them on the story posts through collaboration sites.

Or if their only post ever was "I would like x" few months ago and then disappearing, I don't think they're going to care to actually play a character - heck, even if they're actively posting, I don't see most of these dorfing requesters in most successions proceed to actually do anything with the character after having it granted, expect perhaps on their succession turn or if it dies or something tragic.



But that's not really the question you want answered, is it.
Tbh, you embarked in an area with two towers, elves at war (though looking at the terrain, they'll probably attack your home civ first, so that worldgen was quite possibly a mistake), and Putrid Plendecs skirmishing. Can do lot several times better in masterwork and vanilla both, granted, but...If you get absolutely no sieges of any kind with towers, dunno what to tell you. Unlike other sites, they don't even attack others in worldgen, so you should be getting at least some.

[Splint]

Blendecs ae always pretty badly mangled in either version, so I wasn't expecting a lick of contact from them; additionally, we actually had only a handful of tiny settlements starting out civ-wise, if we had more than one to begin with, with much of the rest subjugated by the elves. On the map our civ actually doesn't show up anymore to boot, and I expected what was left of our government to be snuffed out by the end of the first year (instead it seems the diplomat was the only one to bite it - possibly while trying to broker peace?)

With this in mind I found the heartland of our enemies and settled with more or less a straight shot from it, with the towers intended to make up for not being attacked by blendecs, which, as we sa, backfired because some of the animated dead-types of units may not be properly defined in the raws somewhere.

As far as "closer to writing a story" for that one needs something resembling a plot. Characters in Dwarf Fortress are obviously in no short supply, but a good story on the other hand is, without a plot to use them with.

I don't like dictating what most of the units in a fort do partly as a precaution of pre-defining people beyond maybe a name (such as the case was with Marco and Mia,) as oftentimes the ones I'd fiddle with are the ones people want to use due to thier role in the militia or specific jobs/relationships that make them important enough to write about or have my own avatars interact with.

My constant requests people get involved via writing thier own stuff/roleplaying falls on deaf ears (or eyes as the case may be ) usually, with people like IlFedaykin being the exception rather than the norm as I'd like by a fairly large margin, so the people in the fort aren't all stiff boards roaming from task to task.

That being said, as said, I'm gonna jump into the raws and make elves active year round to hopefully encourage some violence over the next year or two, and if nothing comes of it, then I'll have to start over,since I really don't have much to work with to tell a story beyond infighting, and considering the situation, that's something very unlikely to work in a sensible manner, especially since I can't actively have them fight thier own little civil war.

[IlFedaykin]

If the changes turn out to be pointless i could take some time to paint a world for you in order to make sure fun things happen... I learnt a lot of things painting the one for Shieldgates (mainly thanks to FleetingFrames I have to admit).
I'd regret losing the ongoing story, tho. I had some nice ideas in store for MGP.
Regarding the common practice of dorfing I think you should feel free to make characters do anything you like if the users don't ask you directly to interpret themselfs... I guess most people just like to see their name in a good story and be able to say "I was part of it"

[Fleeting Frames]

- I think conquered settlements send poor sieges, so there's might be that risk for continuing (not sure - I know people have reported 1000+ goblin sieges in 43.05 when a dark pit has been closer).

And yeah, I now recall the frog attack. Well at least that tower is fucked.

- Not sure what you mean by Marco and Mia.

- While infighting sure is possible with the taverns and libraries - heck, I've had dwarves put others in hospital even outside them - and you can perhaps have or instigate a loyalty cascade for fun -

I did mean story as alternative to conflict, so infighting, pet fight, trade disagreement or brawl breaking apart the fort as an example of character-driven story is not quite all the possibilities ^^;;*

Why would they (be forced to) change their skillset, how do they make new relationships, held competition who crafts better (i.e. when you have alternating messages on who has crafted a masterpiece), why they immigrate, what they hope...

For instance , DF has romance take something like two seasons between just two dwarves if not interrupted, while traditional rom-com series would make them main characters and stretch becoming "maybe they do like-like each other, even with the troubles" out over 12+ episodes easily with each having hours of screentime.

* Though editing grudge propensity, if there's something like that, would be helpful in invistigating this. Hm, could it kinda act like laser-guided old tantrum spirals, with less furniture damage? Never experienced them.

- But now, obviously, you want conflict! You want challenges to be overcome, and worth telling about! So yeah, you're not going to be a WAFF writer about Romeo and Juliet. Not a popular market here, that, I don't think anybody visits the bay12 for it (though fucduc's dark elven story did briefly touch on it, it was more angst/drama).

Anyway, I agree with IlFedaykin - if users don't wish to do anything with the character, feel free do whatever you wish. (Heck, I've read the personalities and do what I think appropriate by those, ignoring however they act on forum.)

[Splint]

Marco and Mia: They're NPCs nobody has lain claim to. Mia intentionally as Brace's right hand girl and at least implied to not really be a very vicious individual, or indeed very well suited to being a soldier or mercenary, but before the start of the story has shown if nothing else to have a good survival instinct by her presence in the founding group (thier Company having been wiped out in a battle.) Marco while uncharacterized, had to be given a name due to the amount of time that had passed (and I dislike the human language in DF. Most of it is ill-suited for use as first names in my opinion.)

Big Sieges: Precisely why I settled so close the the main elf population centers. But thier one-season active time means I have to "encourage" things via editing that.

By infighting I mean genuine political strife. There's technically two types of people in the settlement: Refugees who just want a safe-ish place to live, and Pilgrims following the Prophet. As they have very different motives for being here, there is a very reasonable assumption this could lead to internal problems, especially if the prophet is given a noble title, considering he, along with Brace (who could be seen as representing the refugee portion of the population,) are the de facto leaders.  The Prophet and his people would be prioritizing the temple and things that would better thier position and the position of thier patron gods, while the refugees would be prioritizing not being killed and eaten by elves, river monsters, and who knows what else (which the religious people would view at worst as minor obstacles or trials, rather than genuine threats to "the temple.")

This does give me an idea for the city watch being commandeered and used as a Temple Guard detail though. Amsir's Attuned or something, when we can form it.

The reason I can't force a conflict though, is that the situation makes it illogical at best and downright retarded at worst, since right now the Amsirites need the Refugees to help build shit and the Refugees need the safety numbers brings in the event of everyone needing to grab a weapon, with the looming threat of the leaf-eaters forcing cooperation.

EDIT: Looking for some input. Microcline for "water" floors in the temple, or try and find/buy some cobalt (be it metal or stone?)

[IlFedaykin]

merchant stalls sell all kind of metal ores (IIRC) and microcline should be in the stone one, too. Remember the existance of the brick splitting block if you want to start the temple right away.
About the shape of Amsir's temple i would suggest a central courtyard with a fountain/pond in the middle...
We should probably have dedicated chapels to the minor gods and a river shrine to Clam. I encourage the use of windows, too. Green class will do the job but also gems are suitable. I'd keep cristal glass for a gazebo(?) over the central pond.
About floors i usually go for geometric decorations since the space is usually too small to paint images... I guess a central stripe of cobalt for the river and green spots as trees on the sides would be nice for the entrance

[Fleeting Frames]

I see. I prefer to use the default names when possible (unless going for multiprofession-marking, i.e. like Bridget=Mason+Architect), for keeping closer to identity.

There's advantage to being sieged once a year: With different civs, you can make them last longer, without two different sieges meeting and fighting each other. A single site only holds like 10k sentients, tops. It depends on your situation, I think - but first, receiving one siege will do (though, I thought you didn't have 80 pop yet anyway).

Regarding temple floors, you can build bridges over water ponds and then d-b-h the bridges so your humans are doing a Jesus impression. You can make the bridge out of clear glass, perhaps?

[Splint]

Stalls: Doesn't suit the theme of survivors at present. I may start using them when the next caravan comes, and possibly allow one guild of your guys' choosing. They've survived long enough to warrant the attention of business interests and such.

The site pop cap is also uncapped, with thier capital holding nearly 12k inhabitants.

Additionally, we should have seen at least one small ambush party, as the progress triggers are all at the absolute lowest (20 pop, 500 monies in exports, 5000 in production/general wealth creation, all three of which we met a long while ago.)

Temple: The central chapel to Amsir is nearly finished, at least for the bottom floor worship space. I'll likely build a minor chapel apart from it for the rest of the pantheon (thought the clam may see a small shrine under the main temple.) It's built from obsidian due to its value as a non-ore stone and abundance (as it forms our upper layer stone.) We also have microcline in abundance, but we may have cobalt further down, which we could melt down for metallic cobalt for greater value and shininess. I'm going to try and buy up a bunch of cobalt junk next caravan to make a solid blue glistening statue of Amsir to put in the central pond on a column.

[IlFedaykin]

I guess in the next caravan we may meet a stone supplier from the distant mountain or something like that... He could use the river to float them to our little outpost.

As for the guilds the only ones that really make sense are smiths and carpenters (storywise considering the starting seven)

[Splint]

Alrighty gents, finally sitting down to work on the next update, as well as make preparations for a dwarf-themed one centered on building an actual city underground - a home with a meeting room, dining room, and however many attached bedrooms per family, minor chapels, a market district... And the militia will be a real militia, armed with makeshift weapons from the Terrible Weapons mod.

I've also made the change to have elves active year round to encourage at least one assault, but I guess I'll try to focus on building the temple for now (which I warn you will result in greatly reduced content in updates.) I'll also see about opening one guild, and two stalls when the next caravan comes, most likely the merchant's guild for one simple reason: BUsiness interests will finally have us on radar, and following this I'll use a coin flip app to decide if a new guild or store opens each summer.