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Author Topic: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress  (Read 8320 times)

Reynard

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Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« on: November 04, 2007, 10:08:00 pm »

First off, I want to say I love DF for its freeform nature. But sometimes, I feel directionless and daunted by the sheer variety of ways I can channel my dwarves. What do I want to optimize in my fortress?

So - goal-based DF. It's in the same spirit of challenge games, but the way I'm thinking of is more "connected" to the world. Rather than just imposing restrictions purely to make the game harder, each fort would have an assignment handed out from the king. Some would come with pre-selected loadouts, others could offer some more freedom in that area, and the success (or failure) of that challenge can have a world-effect.

I'm just tossing ideas out here.

1. Refugees. An army is marching to lay siege on a dwarven city - and you've been tasked with providing for the refugees. Build a fortress capable of housing, feeding, and defending 200 refugees.

2. Stealth. You've been tasked with creating a hidden outpost close to a goblin lair. Impact the outside site as minimally as possible - dig down right away, deconstruct the wagon ASAP. No building outside or even going outside.

3. Shrine. You've been tasked with designing a temple to some dwarven god. Aesthetics count - the king will be very disappointed if there's no domed ceilings carved with frescoes.

4. The Great Brewery. Disaster has struck the kingdom - a !!suspicious peasant!! made it into the greatest brewery of the empire, and as a result the whole thing burned down and exploded roughly simultaneously. No time for weeping - you've been chosen to create its successor. Construct a fort dedicated to the production of alcohol - of as many varieties as possible, not just wine, ale, beer and rum.

5. Diplomacy. Five courtiers of the king's court made some ill-advised remarks within earshot of the king, and as a result have been ordered to go and found an outpost. They've hired you and one other dwarf at exorbitant prices (they'd have to be) to make sure they survive. (The five nobles only have social skills and refuse to do any work that is beneath them. Make sure they survive for x years, after which it's safe for them to return to the courts.)

6. Wealth. Pretty simple - the kingdom's coffers need lining, so hop to! Found a fort and start accumulating wealth as fast as possible.

7. Artifact. There's rumors to the effect that a haunted locale was once home to a item of great importance. Groups have gone in before (and never returned, of course), but never one so dedicated as yours - you're staying until you have that artifact! (Found a fort in a haunted/terrifying location and survive until a dwarf successfully crafts an artifact via possession. Then get the hell out.)

8. Assassination. Your group of seven has been chosen to assault a goblin fortress - and you're not getting any backup. (Turn off immigration.) Slay the leader (the hardest-to-reach goblin) and escape within x years. (Caveat: No sapper-style undermining. Melee is where it's at.)

Obviously these are all very formative, but I think "flavored" challenge games like this, as part of a cohesive world and with a clear goal, could be a very fun project.

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PTTG??

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #1 on: November 04, 2007, 10:28:00 pm »

These look real fun! I am going to HAVE to try Diplomacy. Here's one or two I though could be fun:
- Gone to the Dogs: Replace the starting Anvil with an equal value in dogs.
- Human Town: add the Civ_controlable tag to the humans. You can dig, but can't have any overhanging elements you don't build.
-Biodome: all material, seeds, food, tools, and dwarves must be in the fortress within 1 year. Then, seal up and cave in the entrance. Any new immigrants, well, they might be in trouble. bonus points: build an artificial lake.
-Human Allaiance: Playing as dwarves. start a game centered on a human town. Your goal is to build a wall around the town in stone, using a mine under the town. you do not get to take anything from the town, though the human guards will probably help with any sieges. Bonus Points: after finishing the wall and sealing any cracks, dig down to the aquifer again from the outside and run pumps up the wall. Flood them out of your new town!
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Sukasa

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2007, 11:18:00 pm »

Heh, I almost make it to 'stealth' with most of my forts, except that I usually have a walled compound with which to encase the fort entrance and trade depot.

I propose a new Challenge: Dungeon.  The King has comissioned you and 6 of your friends to design, build, and stock a specialized [read: zelda-style] dungeon with which to house as much wealth as possible.

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Reign on your Parade

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #3 on: November 05, 2007, 02:06:00 am »

Sweet stuff here.

We recomend the following:

Underwater: As with biodome, except you need to somehow put the entire thing underwater.
One big tomb: The king has decided his current tomb isn't big enough. Build him a new one that takes up an entire maximum size map.
ZOMBIES!: Modify the raws to zombify everything. Survive.

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frostedfire

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #4 on: November 05, 2007, 02:16:00 am »

zombies eh?  thinking of a thriller, thriller night?  ;)
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it is pierced through entirely!
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jack johnson, raider has been shot and killed.

The above (including bbcode) neatly weighs in at 255 characters. Fallout meets DF

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #5 on: November 05, 2007, 02:19:00 am »

Theres simply never a bad narrative situation for zombies.
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Flamester

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #6 on: November 05, 2007, 02:21:00 am »

Id love to see 4 carried out.
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Reign on your Parade

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #7 on: November 05, 2007, 02:22:00 am »

The ultimate one: Carry out all of these at the same time.
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TakiJap

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #8 on: November 05, 2007, 05:36:00 am »

In my opinion goals are good only if they fill these two requirements.

1) Goals aren't forced to player.
2) Goals must answer to a real need in the world.

I hate to do quests or goals just for the sake of doing them. There must be a reason and consequense. It's just silly if in the exact moment when you begin a new game somebody burns down some brewery, which in the worst case never even existed before. Then you make a new one and you get a nice text saying goal achieved and then...That's all. It feels so useless.

Of course there are still the goals made up by player. Like I thought of making a Santas workshop. Everything must be build from wood and only exports must be toys and instruments, which have to be offered for free. No weapons at all.

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #9 on: November 05, 2007, 05:53:00 am »

I'd think surviving and caring for your dwarves should still be enough.

If surviving comes easy, either pick somewhere tougher or get creative. This version really isn't any less goal oriented than the last one, it's just no longer laid out left to right like a platform game level.

If you're dwarves are doing really well then start building marvel structures, like gladiator arenas (with pits encased in glass if it's going to feature flying creatures), or whatnot.

I dunno, were Nobles yelling outrageous demands and the "Too Deep" screen so satisfying that we can no longer find meaning in life without them?

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Red Jackard

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #10 on: November 05, 2007, 06:05:00 am »

quote:
3. Shrine. You've been tasked with designing a temple to some dwarven god. Aesthetics count - the king will be very disappointed if there's no domed ceilings carved with frescoes.

My fortresses are inevitably some version of this. Big and fancy, if they aren't abandoned.
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Hellzon

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #11 on: November 05, 2007, 07:48:00 am »

Random silliness:

Nethack - carve out a fort limited to slices of 21*80 tiles per z-level. Several slices per level are allowed to fit Sokoban, the Quest, Vlad and the Gnomish Mines in. Imitate the Nethack levels (removing stock Dungeon of Doom and Gehennom levels to fit the whole game in 15 z-levels). Yes, getting some use out of the average Gehennom level will be hard. So will getting water to the various lairs that have them.

Madboy castle/power plant colony. Build a fortress dedicated to outputting as much mechanical power as possible. Windy places, or places with rivers and endless chasms are easy, but make perpetual motion machines for the extra challenge.

Chunnel. Like Sappho's Wavebane, make a fort on an ocean tile between two landmasses and tie them together with a tunnel. (Or a bridge if you prefer.) Explore in adventure mode.

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Buggy

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #12 on: November 05, 2007, 06:22:00 pm »

Based on the inmates idea:

Hard Labor --  A squad of Dwarves is tasked to build a dungeon to house all the hard case prisioners from the rest of the kingdom.  The initial 7 dwarves are the foundation of the fortress guard and future military.  All immigrants are prisionsers except for the first one on the screen (he is the guard bringing them in) and any immigrants carrying weapons (hunters, woodcutters IIRC) who are obviously reinforcements for the guard.  Each prisioner gets a chair and a table, and there should be one bed per prisioner in the fort (but don't sweat it if there isn't, they can sleep on the floor for all we care)  Enough workshops should be built to keep them busy from when they arrive to when they die making crafts to haul back to the kingdom.  Stonecrafters mostly.  make 'em break stone....  some looms and a farmers workshop to make pig tail cloth.  Nobody goes outside except when water is needed in the fort (they should drink from a cistern or channel), and when hauling stuff to the trade depot.  Except for the soldiers, of course, who have a much nicer level all their own.

If there were a way to make booze only available to the soldiers and not the general populace, that would be great (but I can't think of anything that would be workable).  If it were stored in a stockpile only accessable to the soldiers, the game would probably generate spam messages of cancelled jobs, dwarves cancelling drink.  Burrows might be nice for that.  

No need to detail floors, or haul stone or refuse.  Or make clothes for them, or farm anything but pig tails and plump helmets.  No need for a broker.  Just dump stuff on the caravans, there will be a lot.  Start with lots of cages and keep the fortress guard maxxed   ;)


"I hear that caravan a commin'
a commin' round the bend.
I haven't had a Dwarven Rum since
I don't know when..."

[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Buggy ]

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Sukasa

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #13 on: November 05, 2007, 08:48:00 pm »

My current goal is to build an entire dwarven city.  Complete with massive power plant(s?), of course  :D

(So basically two goals in one)

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MindSnap

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Re: Goal-Based Dwarf Fortress
« Reply #14 on: November 05, 2007, 09:07:00 pm »

I was thinking about goal-oriented fortresses recently, and came up with some ideas. I was thinking that goals could be implemented through trade and migration. I think that the changes to implement these would consist of some extra diplomacy screens and frequency changes in traders and migrants, as well as “foreign” nobles.

A basic implementation would be resource providing forts, which are expected to begin filling quotas of a certain resource, such as booze, metal bars, armour/weapons or prepared food. The dwarven traders would become a caravan complete with wagons to haul it all back, and would pay premium prices for the specified resource but really low prices for everything else. Quotas would start on year 2 and increase every year, with how much depending on things like the number of dwarves, your success at meeting the previous quota, and the map size (which would actually limit the quotas on small maps). For resource maps, a large percentage of migrants would be of the applicable profession: eg, if the goal was to produce booze, a majority of the immigrants would be brewers and growers. Or, for a metal producing fort, they would be miners and furnace operators.
If you fell behind the quotas, nobles would arrive with hammerers and start mandating the quotas, hammering workers until you met them. If you essentially revolted, maybe your civ could invade you? I’m not sure what would happen if you won though...
If you are successful in meeting quotas, your civ would get bonuses, and your fort would be rewarded with special treats (like a little bit of adamantine? Or masterwork stuff, or even artifacts) in addition to getting caravans of loot in exchange for said resource.

Other types of fort could be "outpost" in which caravans bring lots of food and booze at cheap prices, but immigrants would arrive slowly with the caravans. This would be recommended for glaciers and deserts.  One other type could be fortress, in an area with lots of goblins and evil creatures, and goblin invasions starting on year two and coming at least annually after that (they would also take a long time to run out of goblins). Fortresses would get support in the form of immigrant military dwarves, cheap food, booze, armour and weapons. Once armies are in your fort could be a staging point for offensives on goblin forts. Heck, why does it have to be goblins? If your civilization was at war with the elves, they could siege you instead of goblins, and you could burn the forests down.

These options would be available on the embark screen to “accept a mission.” Perhaps you would get more starting points to represent the support of your civ in the endeavour.

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