Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 ... 64 65 [66] 67 68 ... 342

Author Topic: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page  (Read 1551575 times)

Josephus

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Immortal Historian
    • View Profile
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #975 on: August 25, 2010, 01:44:54 am »

Oooh, the goblins without demons are basically the Drow without Lloth.
Logged
Solar Rangers: Suggestion Game in SPAAAAACE
RPG Interest Check Thread
i had the elves bring me two tigermen, although i forgot to let them out of the cage and they died : ( i was sad : (

Acanthus117

  • Bay Watcher
  • Angry Writer
    • View Profile
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #976 on: August 25, 2010, 01:47:36 am »

Except they're awesome and they can be replaced by the slaves they raise.
Logged
Is apparently a Lizardman. ಠ_ಠ
YOU DOUBLE PENIS
"The pessimist is either always right or pleasantly surprised; he cherishes that which is good because he knows it cannot last."

Kamudo

  • Bay Watcher
  • [SO_FLY]
    • View Profile
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #977 on: August 25, 2010, 05:16:55 am »

I know we're getting new villages and such, but will there be any larger, non-farming villages? Like cities, and castle-towns or such?

Another thing that I thought of was temporary bridges in Adv. Mode. Such as wooden planks that can be harvested from trees/carpentry. It would be useful for spanning tiny gaps in old ruins or caves or something, such as a one tile hole is in front of you, you toss down a plank or two, and cross it. Along with a breaking percentage for the wood, or, it could be rigged to break for a certain amount of weight? I just love exploring crap, soo uh.. Yeah. >.>
Logged
Lisidadil - A story of one of my first forts.

The continual tale of survival in a harsh land of hate, Fun, betrayal, love, and maybe a random elf or two... If we're unlucky.

rex mortis

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #978 on: August 25, 2010, 08:25:40 am »

The drow are elves...

Clearly, goblins are way superior to drow.
Logged
Because death is peaceful and magma is lovely.

NW_Kohaku

  • Bay Watcher
  • [ETHIC:SCIENCE_FOR_FUN: REQUIRED]
    • View Profile
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #979 on: August 25, 2010, 11:00:29 am »

Quote from: NW_Kohaku
Will you code in the ability to create our own raw-defined building types for worldgen?  Using the Arena Mode and Custom Workshops as a model, we already have most of the pieces to create both custom buildings and define functions for them.

I'm not eager to get into this right now, since I'm not sure what the overall specs need to be and I don't want to tie myself to a raw format early.  One of the main things is that I'm not sure I'd be satisfied with static maps of buildings, rather than buildings that are a bit more adaptable.  For instance, I'm not sure what raws would look like for the existing temples, which adapt portions of their architecture to the spheres associated to their deities.  The raw format would inevitable restrict my ability to do things like that, unless it were really complicated.  At the same time, I can see how a modder would want to be able to deviate wildly from what is currently available.  It might be most simple to allow static building maps to be used by custom races, but since I won't be using that in vanilla it's difficult to prioritize.

What if raw-definable buildings were definable in a simpler way?  I see two major ways of handling this, the simple but crude and raw-folder-bloating way, and the elegant but complex way:

I already think the simplest way to do this is to simply let the raws define functions for each building we create, (so that we have multiple entries that fill the role of "peasant house") and generate probability weights the way that we already can do for castes, so that we can make random-looking buildings by just making 50 different buildings, and giving them varying weights to occur, so that, unweighted, each individual building would only occur 2% of the time.  You could largely copy-paste the same overall building shape, and just re-arrange the furniture if you saw fit to make something that would seem different to the player who walked into town.  Temples to different spheres, then, would just be a copy-paste of other temples with certain parts changed to fit whatever idiom that sphere had.  (For the "purpose" of the temple, it might be [PURPOSE:TEMPLE_OF_SPHERE_NAME] as opposed to just [PURPOSE:TEMPLE] (where each "purpose" is a string where the entity city-building list of commands can be instructed to build so many of each) so that different spheres would cause different sets of buildings to be called up, with some/most buildings just being of "ANY" sphere.)

This wouldn't really be very procedural, of course, but it would be functionally similar to a more comlex and possibly more buggy solution, at the cost of probably forcing a new raws subfolder just to deal with having to organize the potentially huge number of variations on basic themes to make the idea work properly.  (This may be a stopgap for a more complex solution, although I know you're not much for stopgaps.)

The alternative (although not really an "alternative", there's no reason not to do this in conjunction with the previous) would be to make raw-editable procedural parts.  This would mean that you define a base of building, and then, on certain parts, you designate a special zone that actually calls on a procedural function that will look for sub-building pieces.  Sub-pieces may call for further sub-pieces, so that you could define a noble's estate by having a grand hallway with additoinal pieces being rooms that are branches off the hallways.

For example, you could have a set of "ground floor" plans for a farmer's house, and a seperate set of "second story" plans for a farmer's house.  Not all ground floors would have a second story, but ones that did would make a call to add onto a certain anchor point (specifically, in this case, the stairs) upon potential sub-sections of the house.  The function that calls for the additional sub-section of the house could be a weighted list of potential building floorplans, rather than simply something defined to fill a particular function, so that you could know the exact dimensions of the building pieces you are calling in beforehand.

As a sanity check, this would probably require some kind of arbitrary limit on recursions (say, no building segment tree with more than 100 nodes), so that some player who wants to test the limits doesn't blow up the world by making a building that is infinitely recursive by, for example, making a tower (Tower of Babel?) where each floor calls upon making another version of itself on the floor above, or some set pattern of floors so that it could extend infinitely high into the sky... not that such a thing wouldn't be cool, but infinite recursions tend to be bad.

For the purposes of fulfilling the needs of a sphere-based temple, these areas, then, you could either do the same copy-pasting solution I talked about, above, where each temple has a slightly different floorplan, but the bulk of it is repeated each time.  Alternately, it might be possible to build it "tricky", and make a set of TEMPLE_OF_SPHERE_NAME, with only the changing parts that filled in, which calls a default temple set of pews or the like, possibly including the door to enter the temple proper.  (Making "buildings from the top down" may require some special sets of sanity checks be added to make sure that all buildings have at least one door to the outside, and that it can link to the "main throughway" at some point.)

Similarly, the building could have the same floor plan, but have areas that are designated "furniture zones", where the game is simply given a list of furniture that needs to be in the house, and the game will just mix-and-match ways of placing that furniture... although this would need to be somewhat complex if you wanted to make sure tables always had chairs next to them, (calling up mini-floor plans that only deploy furniture in some pre-set raw-defined arrangements for particular floor spaces) and outright randomized furniture placement may likely be best for "abandoned" houses or outright ruins, where the stuff is supposed to be randomly strewn about.
Logged
Personally, I like [DF] because after climbing the damned learning cliff, I'm too elitist to consider not liking it.
"And no Frankenstein-esque body part stitching?"
"Not yet"

Improved Farming
Class Warfare

Quatch

  • Bay Watcher
  • [CURIOUSBEAST_ GRADSTUDENT]
    • View Profile
    • Twitch? Sometimes..
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #980 on: August 25, 2010, 11:01:45 am »

Basically, do elves farm?  /color]

My take on this would be the pruning of the forest to allow enough light through for undergrowth. Make all the trees fruit or nut bearing (where pruning can increase harvest as well), and you might have something workable.
Logged
SAVE THE PHILOSOPHER!
>>KillerClowns: It's faster to write "!!science!!" than any of the synonyms: "mad science", "dwarven science", or "crimes against the laws of god and man".
>>Orius: I plan my forts with some degree of paranoia.  It's kept me somewhat safe.

NW_Kohaku

  • Bay Watcher
  • [ETHIC:SCIENCE_FOR_FUN: REQUIRED]
    • View Profile
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #981 on: August 25, 2010, 12:00:13 pm »

Quote from: NW_Kohaku
Basically, do elves farm?

Whatever they end up doing, there won't be fields of crops.  They've had a supernatural relationship with plants in the stories, and the "orchard" from one of Zach's stories had an unclear nature.  We haven't decided yet.  It'll come to a head when we start tracking site supplies most likely.

My take on this would be the pruning of the forest to allow enough light through for undergrowth. Make all the trees fruit or nut bearing (where pruning can increase harvest as well), and you might have something workable.

Actually, this was exactly where my mind went after reading Toady's comment.  (I just went off on custom-building stuff first...)

If we had, say, fig trees in the forest, which monkeys in rain forests often fight over to get a ready supply of food, then we could feed elves by simply making elves into monkeys! 

Having multi-tile trees is already a part of what will pretty much have to happen for elves if you are going to be building tree houses inside/on top of/around the trees for the elves to live in.  Giving elves some kind of ability to walk on small branches to get to fruit as a racial ability might make a lot of sense. 

It might also make for amusing ways to "seige" fortresses - crossing moats by planting quick-growing magic trees or beansprouts whose branches they can climb to get over a moat or wall, then drop more seeds over the other side to grow a "ladder" back down.  Having roots grow that can break through floors or stone walls below, and opening up pathways may be the elven "digging" method.  Attacking dwarves by aggressively growing trees at them sounds quite elfy.

Anyway, if you build your house in a fruit or nut-bearing tree capable of growing large enough, then food problems might be much lesser... although you have to fight off everyone else who wants some figs, which includes other monkeys.  There's a reason monkeys are territorial creatures, especially when fig trees are in the area.  If elves are supposed to be at peace with all nature, it may cause problems if they have to fight off animals who want in on their food supply.  There's also a problem of having enough fig trees to go around, especially since figs don't keep so well, although nut trees may help with that. 

Regardless, elves would probably have to spread out and decentralize their populations - if you just get your food from the forest directly, and wild animals aren't hostile, there's little reason to band together much, and you need to spread out so that your footprint on the enviornment is not as severe, and you don't strip the forest bare with concentrated population centers. 

This would functionally replicate the situation talked about in the blog a page or so ago - forest dwellers with plenty of fruit on hand all year have no reason to organize or advance their technology.  They use wood tools for everything, since that's what's on hand, and have absurd amounts of free time, since all they need to do is make sure their trees survive to the ages it takes to start fruiting.  Other than that, they probably relax all the time, and spend time with wooden puzzle boxes they share with one another...  This actually goes pretty far in explaining elven culture, now that I think about it.

Or hey, if we don't want to make every elven city a collection of fig trees or oaks with acorns, maybe elves can just eat leaves?  It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility, as some primates are capable of doing so.  It does, however, require adapted digestive tracts, and LOTS of leaves, as it takes almost as much chemical energy to eat a leaf as you get out of the leaf itself.  Even this, however, causes problems in Winter, where broadleaf forests in non-tropical areas will shed their leaves.  Without preservable foods or eating meat, elves are in a problem during the Winter...

Do elves hibernate in Winter?
Logged
Personally, I like [DF] because after climbing the damned learning cliff, I'm too elitist to consider not liking it.
"And no Frankenstein-esque body part stitching?"
"Not yet"

Improved Farming
Class Warfare

Mephansteras

  • Bay Watcher
  • Forger of Civilizations
    • View Profile
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #982 on: August 25, 2010, 12:19:31 pm »

On the subject of powerful beings:

Demons and Devils are probably safe to assume are evil powermongers. What about the other forgotten beasts that end up taking important positions in Human Civs? Are they necessarily an evil influence on the civ? Are we going to see benign Lizard monsters and the like? How do you see these creatures ultimately influencing how the human civs act?
Logged
Civilization Forge Mod v2.80: Adding in new races, equipment, animals, plants, metals, etc. Now with Alchemy and Libraries! Variety to spice up DF! (For DF 0.34.10)
Come play Mafia with us!
"Let us maintain our chill composure." - Toady One

Quatch

  • Bay Watcher
  • [CURIOUSBEAST_ GRADSTUDENT]
    • View Profile
    • Twitch? Sometimes..
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #983 on: August 25, 2010, 12:38:58 pm »

This would functionally replicate the situation talked about in the blog a page or so ago - forest dwellers with plenty of fruit on hand all year have no reason to organize or advance their technology.

That smacks of geographic determinism, the whole idea that jungle cultures failed because it was too hot to think. We've moved past that now. A correlation not causation issue.

The real problem with the tropics (off the top of my head) is really resource scarcity for more advanced technology. There isn't the available surface metals that there were farther north, which I think Jared diamond in guns germs and steel did cover.

Your notes about elvish modes of tree-attack indicate that you can see many avenues for the advancement of technology. Agro-tech to prune, splice, cross-breed, clone; otherwise increase yield, reduce spoilage (refrigeration, even passive evaporation based) can go hand-in-hand with militaristic applications.

If, as you posit, the fruit would cause territoriality (I think we're familiar with the elves possessiveness of the forest), the force behind military technology is certainly present.

On the subject of powerful beings:

Demons and Devils are probably safe to assume are evil powermongers. What about the other forgotten beasts that end up taking important positions in Human Civs? Are they necessarily an evil influence on the civ? Are we going to see benign Lizard monsters and the like? How do you see these creatures ultimately influencing how the human civs act?

How about Are there non-violent/evil ways for an entity to assume/use control? I could see anything with spheres eventually having desires that are best implemented at the nation level, so I'm sure we'll get there later.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2010, 12:58:27 pm by Quatch »
Logged
SAVE THE PHILOSOPHER!
>>KillerClowns: It's faster to write "!!science!!" than any of the synonyms: "mad science", "dwarven science", or "crimes against the laws of god and man".
>>Orius: I plan my forts with some degree of paranoia.  It's kept me somewhat safe.

Mel_Vixen

  • Bay Watcher
  • Hobby: accidently thread derailment
    • View Profile
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #984 on: August 25, 2010, 01:44:19 pm »

Dont forget that some beasts and things could work for a "higher purpose" wich is not theyr own well being for which they may take any kind of aktion they may seem fitting in some weird moralic way. "Good will" was often enough source of big trouble and suffering.

Oh and sometimes the Humans themself should start to worship a FB/demon/titan because some wonky religion tells them to do so or something.






Well the elves and the trees.
I can see a totally semi "industrialized" way of tree farming here that mimicks a Forrest to some extend like a permaculture. Said permaculture can by nuts roots etc. produce enough stockpile able stuff. Even if the tree tops alone dont produce enough food you still have multiple forrest layers that can net you some stuff. Like mushrooms on the ground etc. With actual tree growing ala Bonsai the elves could even introduce new layers and minibiomes by forming platforms on which leaves and wood rot to soil for more traditional farming or creating basins from roots etc. in which you could grow algae. Heck you find this stuff in natural forms in old Redwoods.

The long live of an elv makes that more likely since elves can and have to plan for very long distances timewise. Waiting for a tree to bear fruit in maybe 10 or 20 years would for them something to consider in theyr future plans. 
Logged
[sarcasm] You know what? I love grammar Nazis! They give me that warm and fuzzy feeling. I am so ashamed of my bad english and that my first language is German. [/sarcasm]

Proud to be a Furry.

Syff

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #985 on: August 25, 2010, 07:49:14 pm »

I always just figured that the Elves were more carnivorous than most fantasy cliches would lead us to believe.  Note their consumption of those they defeat in combat.
ThreeToe's stories have mentioned Elves' roles as keepers of the laws of the forest;  Obey or be eaten by elves.

Or maybe all the creatures of the forest pay them tribute.  The deer give them grasses and fruit, the wolves give them venison,...  The entirety of their territory acting as farmland in a sense, with all the forest's creatures acting as "citizens" in terms of productivity.
If they consider trees to have rights, then it might not be far off to just call them entity members, in terms of having deforestation equate to razing villages in their eyes.
Though at that point it becomes less of a civilization of Elves and more of a civilization of The Forest, of which Elves are simply the most notable of potentially many different species and social castes, led by powerful natural forces/spirits/deities that the Elves act as representatives of.

Something of this nature (har) would line up pretty well with some of ThreeToe's stories, actually.
(Though at that point, the original thought of paying the Elves tribute ceases to make sense, and they'd most likely just eat whatever is allotted to them or provided for them by said spirit's guiding hand of sustainable eco-diversity...)

With the entity pop rewrite, Humans (and presumably Dwarves) are getting massive increases in the size of their civilizations;  Given Elven lifespans, a lower population (of actual Elves) would make sense, though how they'd survive worldgen and other wars is always of some question when discussing their finer details.
Logged

Josephus

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Immortal Historian
    • View Profile
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #986 on: August 25, 2010, 09:02:42 pm »

If they consider trees to have rights, then it might not be far off to just call them entity members, in terms of having deforestation equate to razing villages in their eyes.
Though at that point it becomes less of a civilization of Elves and more of a civilization of The Forest, of which Elves are simply the most notable of potentially many different species and social castes, led by powerful natural forces/spirits/deities that the Elves act as representatives of.

Something of this nature (har) would line up pretty well with some of ThreeToe's stories, actually.
(Though at that point, the original thought of paying the Elves tribute ceases to make sense, and they'd most likely just eat whatever is allotted to them or provided for them by said spirit's guiding hand of sustainable eco-diversity...)

I like this one, although it increases the elves' cultural sophistication from aboriginal natives being pushed out of their native lands by encroaching colonists (Humans, Dwarves, Goblins) to being quasi-mystical beings in a larger gestalt entity (your proposed FOREST entity).

I've always been sympathetic to the elves in that respect, and this proposal will make it just fine for me to wipe them out. After all, the forest is the enemy of civilization.
Logged
Solar Rangers: Suggestion Game in SPAAAAACE
RPG Interest Check Thread
i had the elves bring me two tigermen, although i forgot to let them out of the cage and they died : ( i was sad : (

ZCM

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #987 on: August 25, 2010, 09:45:44 pm »

The guy Telkoth links to basically says 180 farmers fit in 3 square miles, while no more than 2 hunter gatherers can fit in a square mile...

In most places, maybe that's true, but there are certainly areas that have had permanent hunter-gatherer settlements with much higher population densities. Yupik (eskimo) and Coast Salish indians could support permanent villages of a couple hundred people with no farming.
Logged
Badger badgers badger badger badgers badgers badger.

NW_Kohaku

  • Bay Watcher
  • [ETHIC:SCIENCE_FOR_FUN: REQUIRED]
    • View Profile
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #988 on: August 25, 2010, 10:43:28 pm »

With the entity pop rewrite, Humans (and presumably Dwarves) are getting massive increases in the size of their civilizations;  Given Elven lifespans, a lower population (of actual Elves) would make sense, though how they'd survive worldgen and other wars is always of some question when discussing their finer details.

Bluntly, I think that they're going to have to be given equipment that isn't completely useless in a real fight. 

Some kind of nature-blessed or magical version of wooden weapons that dwarves can't use, or maybe just outright "magic" implimented via breath attacks could give them some kind of prayer in combat when they aren't relying on sheer numbers... and still losing horribly. (I remember a goblin civ near my old 40d fort that relied upon snatched children for its military... a snatched elf girl who was 12 years old essentially single-handedly (in the first one, she had two allies who died straight off) held off three whole seiges on her dark tower against at least a hundred humans or elves apiece, only to die the next year when a lucky human bowman got a shot to the head.  She was 13 years old, and had something like 50 kills. All this just because of the difference between an elf with iron or bronze weapons instead of wood... and that's in 40d, when wood wasn't nearly as useless as now!) 

Well the elves and the trees.
I can see a totally semi "industrialized" way of tree farming here that mimicks a Forrest to some extend like a permaculture. Said permaculture can by nuts roots etc. produce enough stockpile able stuff. Even if the tree tops alone dont produce enough food you still have multiple forrest layers that can net you some stuff. Like mushrooms on the ground etc. With actual tree growing ala Bonsai the elves could even introduce new layers and minibiomes by forming platforms on which leaves and wood rot to soil for more traditional farming or creating basins from roots etc. in which you could grow algae. Heck you find this stuff in natural forms in old Redwoods.

Oh, I actually meant to make comments about having plataeus in the trees for growing a little rope reed or other useful crops in pockets.  However, permaculture sounds wonderful, especially next to something like the stuff in this post about how elven homes could be built by shaping a tree around a pre-fabricated housing pod... frankly, even if they're dirty elven hippies and whatnot, things like engineered maintainance-free ecosystems and making houses by growing a tree in the shape you want just light up my nerd center with joy.
Logged
Personally, I like [DF] because after climbing the damned learning cliff, I'm too elitist to consider not liking it.
"And no Frankenstein-esque body part stitching?"
"Not yet"

Improved Farming
Class Warfare

Funk

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #989 on: August 26, 2010, 08:19:58 am »

With the entity pop rewrite, Humans (and presumably Dwarves) are getting massive increases in the size of their civilizations;  Given Elven lifespans, a lower population (of actual Elves) would make sense, though how they'd survive worldgen and other wars is always of some question when discussing their finer details.
i view elves as highy mobile and master jungle/woodland and all over Guerrilla warfare masters,think Predator but with an elf.

let them use there powers i.e.
1 exotic animals,just think how hard a dozen elves of giant eagles will be to fight.
2 time,the elves have forever to fight this war.

« Last Edit: August 26, 2010, 01:26:23 pm by Funk »
Logged
Agree, plus that's about the LAST thing *I* want to see from this kind of game - author spending valuable development time on useless graphics.

Unofficial slogan of Bay 12 Games.  

Death to the false emperor a warhammer40k SG
Pages: 1 ... 64 65 [66] 67 68 ... 342