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[NW_Kohaku]

This from the recent FotF:

Would you even consider changing the relationship that the player has with the dwarves right now (as unquestioned overlord and direct allower and denier of all things dwarves can and cannot do), so that dwarves can become more autonomous and individual, and possibly create a better simulation, while on the other hand, potentially dramatically upping the potential for Fun because dwarves are stupid and very likely to hurt themselves unless continually babysat, or perhaps more importantly, if it meant that the player had less direct control over his fortress, and had to rely more on coaxing the ants in his/her antfarm to do his/her bidding?

Our eventual goal is to have the player's role be the embodiment of positions of power within the fortress, performing actions in their official capacity, to the point that in an ideal world each command you give would be linked to some noble, official or commander.  I don't think coaxing is the way I'm thinking of it though, as with a game like Majesty which somebody brought up, because your orders would also carry the weight of being assumed to be for survival for the most part, not as bounties or a similar system.  Once your fortress is larger, you might have to work a little harder to keep people around, but your dwarves in the first year would be more like crew taking orders from the captain of a ship out to sea or something, where you'd have difficulty getting them to do what you want only if you've totally flopped and they are ready to defy the expedition leader.

So it seems like a tiered or gradual gradiation into more decentralized control is part of what Toady vaguely sees in the future.

[monk12]

This is why I love DF. It feels like every time I see something that DF could be, Toady has already seen it.

[NW_Kohaku]

It's a little vague, though.  I think he also seems to focus mostly on the starting seven, and not establsihed forts, where we really do need the extra complexity to keep the game interesting.

What the game needs, though, is a way to essentially start rubber-banding itself, like the way that seiges come in greater and greater strength as your fortress becomes wealthier and larger.  It would be best if we have the economy and greater dwarven autonomy not spring up as a simple boolean flag that gets tripped at some point, but as a gradual process.

[lanceleoghauni]

Dwarfputer that beats a turing test. Go!

[nbonaparte]

Dwarfputer that beats a turing test. Go!

Just wait a few years, dwarves will be sentient soon enough.

[AtomicPaperclip]

I really like the idea of dwarves choosing their own job based on availability.

[NW_Kohaku]

Oh, and while we're at it, we need dwarves that can own the means of production, and the products that they produce.  It's the only way to have an ACTUAL representation of the economy.

I just posted this in another thread:

The problem I see with most people talking about Supply and Demand is that they very often forget about that whole "Demand" part on the end, and only talk about "Supply".

Demand for products like, say, the only available food in the fort are what economists call "inelastic".  This means that you can adjust the prices however much you want to adjust the prices, and people will still buy it, because demand is very much driven by how much a person can do without a product and what products are "substitutable" with your product.  For the only available food, alternatives to the only available food are "starving" and "maybe finding a cave spider to eat alive".

Effectively, the sweet pod farmer in that scenario has a total monopoly on the food market, and can charge whatever he damn well wants to charge, because as long as people value not having to rely on finding bugs on the ground to survive more than they value money, they will continue to pay for food.

(Note: In real life, where you DON'T have government monopolies on all products, prices on things like food, where all products are completely interchangable are actually driven very low by the nature of being in "Perfect Competition", where all products are the same, so the only way to compete is on price.  Competition forces prices down, and forces innovation in terms of productivity and cost controls, as well as quality control, specifically because you will go out of business otherwise.  This is, however, one of the main problems of Communism, where there is no competition to the Government, as well as with Monopolies in general that may emerge from unregulated Free Market capitalism.

Hence, Beeskee's statements about food prices going down in response to an oversupply would be correct IF AND ONLY IF there were competitors in the marketplace trying to underbid one another to sell their product just to get it off the shelves, which in DF, there is not.)

This only gets shaken up when there is a substitute.  If someone starts selling muck roots for 5 dbs, it's an alternative to dwarven syrup roasts.  It's a pretty crappy alternative, and depending on whether or not there's enough muck roots to go around, the sweet pod salesman might just ignore it, and simply continue gouging all the people who can't get to the muck roots in time (at which point, the demand exceeds supply for muck roots, so THEIR prices will shoot up), but if there are enogh muck roots, then the sweet pod salesman simply needs to look at how demand reacts to the substitute.  Dwarven Syrup is sweet and tasty and muck roots are... muck roots. So it's really a question of how much more is someone willing to pay to eat sweet and tasty dwarven syrup than just a muck root.  This will change from consumer to consumer, and especially change depending on the economic conditions of the dwarf in question - people go for cheaper, lower-quality substitutes when they are in a recession.  So demand, and hence prices, for pork (which is the cheap substitute for beef) will go UP in a recession, while beef demand (and hence prices) will go down... but never to the point where pork and beef have the same price. This will result in muck roots and dwarven syrup drawing together in price until it reaches a stable state where you find a balance in how much more someone is willing to pay for delicious Dwarven Syrup than for Muck Roots.

[andrei901]

I feel like part of the issue with dwarven autonomy is that there are already games like that. They are generally produced by Maxis, and are known as "Sim City". You zone, set some taxes, and build a power plant, and then the little sims do what they want based on your guidelines. If you're really fancy, you'll put a few cities together to minimize pollution in residential areas, ect.

That's not why I play DF. That's why I play SC4.

Dwarf fortress is a roguelike game, which means that you aren't in control of hundreds of thousands of autonomous beings. Each individual dwarf (up to maybe the first 30) plays a role in your fortress, and in some cases, there is no replacement for their particular set of skills. If a system of dwarven autonomy is to be implemented, then it should be extremely minor. I would be fine with dwarves doing what they love deep down inside while they are standing around "On Break". Heck, once the economy starts, if my woodcutter decides he likes stone more, he can find himself a rock, and chisel himself something. If he gets good, I might have a new craftsdwarf. However, I would prefer to control exactly how many resources are allocated to dwarven flights of fancy.

Overall, I feel like this is a system that could be implemented to great effect, if the dwarven economy is made more readily accessible, and if its implemented as an easily controlled part of the game.

Edit: I have tried building a fortress, setting up some repeating tasks, and leaving it to see how long it lasts without human supervision. This would make it more plausible.

[NW_Kohaku]

Sim City, however, is actually fairly abstracted and simplified.  Although I never played the most recent versions of Sim City, I do remember that you have no real control over nor concern for what actual industry gets produced in your town.

Barring giving dwarves real capitalist tendencies where they actually start competing with the Government Owned Workshops and Government Products to turn a profit, we're still talking about a Command Economy, here.

Judging from what you say in the back half of your post, I think that what I would want and what you want are probably pretty close to one another. Generally, I want more autonomy specifically to be able to reduce unneccessary micromanagement... Although I also want it because it would help my larger goal of having dwarves that have more complex demands for products than the bare utilitarian minimum types of objects DF currently provides.

[Glech]

The way I see it, this is supposed to be a game, not an AI communication sim.
But I can see how dwarfish autonomy can be helpful, like if a dwarf sees other dwarfs carrying logs, that dwarf will help out if he is idling; though this game is so big, I think it's already been programed and I haven't found how to do it.

[Tokkius]

I'd enjoy having a "Dwarf works preferred" option that allows them to pick a schedule based on their skills and personality. Going to the extreme option of not allowing you to pick dwarven jobs would ruin the game for me.

[monk12]

The reason I've linked dwarven autonomy to the economy in the past is because if the economy implies capitalism, then a market economy doesn't really work unless the dwarves are building and doing some things for themselves. And really, when you look at it dwarves are already fairly autonomous. We don't grab a villager and say mine this rock and have them do it, we make jobs available for dwarves to do on behalf of the fortress, and those dwarves do the jobs in their own damn time. Small commercial autonomy only really matters once there are too many dwarves to easily employ all of them. Rather than having the huddled unwashed masses be unable to better themselves because the government is unable to find work for all of them, entrepreneurial dwarves can make and sell their own things to better themselves as they see fit.

As far as allocation of free resources, I could see the stocks list supporting that functionality, or possibly another screen. It would work like the kitchen screen, and you'd set what raw materials are allowed in the fortress and which of those materials would be available for civilian dwarves to buy for themselves. This keeps dwarves from using up all your flux making stone bracelets or the like.

Sorry if that whole paragraph isn't particularly coherent, as I'm fairly tired atm. DF does terrible things to my sleep schedule.

[MaximumZero]

This is a fascinating idea, and I hope Toady's wants for the game run at least mostly parallel with it. I approve.

[tps12]

Rather than having the huddled unwashed masses be unable to better themselves because the government is unable to find work for all of them, entrepreneurial dwarves can make and sell their own things to better themselves as they see fit.

Or they can just hang out and chill with their friends. Leave the entrepreneurialism to the humans.

[NW_Kohaku]

Rather than having the huddled unwashed masses be unable to better themselves because the government is unable to find work for all of them, entrepreneurial dwarves can make and sell their own things to better themselves as they see fit.

Or they can just hang out and chill with their friends. Leave the entrepreneurialism to the humans.

Sit around, doing nothing but getting high and talking about how high you're getting while you let the Humans build their miserable little towns and expand over the world?!  BAH! That's some fine Elf Talk!

Dwarves are stout creatures of INDUSTRY!

Now grow a beard, and get to work, man!