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Author Topic: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves  (Read 10299 times)

NW_Kohaku

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From the FoTF thread...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So then, I'll probably reformat this into a more relevant OP later if this gains traction, but for now it's just starting the thread.

Threads that have potentially related themes:

Dwarven Imperialism - about the upcoming changes with the new army arc, and potential ability to have direct command over worldmap armies and order the construction of roads and other worldmap featurs (potentially influencing the traffic in and out of your city)

Class Warfare - about revising the social structure of fortresses so that you have reason to be concerned with the quality of life for your dwarves, and introduce many more luxuries for your dwarves to use.

Thoughts On Technology - about introducing long-term changes to technologies, which may be heavily influenced by notions like individual visitors brining in new ideas from afar.

A Pleb For Civility - about differences between "country" and "city" citizens.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2010, 11:56:36 am by NW_Kohaku »
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #1 on: August 20, 2010, 12:02:05 am »

Reserved for potential future needs.
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Personally, I like [DF] because after climbing the damned learning cliff, I'm too elitist to consider not liking it.
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Flaede

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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2010, 12:02:37 am »

Like I said over on the FoTF thread, I want to see where this goes.

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existent

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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2010, 12:17:06 am »

possible traveler types:
Bard (like the "Was entertained by a foreign story recently" suggestion)
Adventurers (like the "pay high skill mercenaries and adventurers to help defend your fortress or train soldiers for a year or two" suggestion)
Migrant Passerby's (These guys are like migrants, except they just show up at your fort to chill en route to elsewhere)
Foreign Tourists (other races, that could impart some knowledge for a fee (IE, elves could teach better bow techniques, which improves the quality of all future bows made)
Saboteurs (like the thieves mentioned, with the added ability to destroy a workshop/pull levers/general sabotage by a rival group, etc)
Traders (could replace current caravans- several smaller traders rather than three big ones. Each could specialize in a certain ware- instead of only getting a reduced quantity of what current caravans bring now, these would bring, say, exclusively weapons, or food, etc)
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Flaede

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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2010, 12:18:29 am »

I wasn't thinking that they'd have specific Statuses and titles. I thought wanderers would act based on their temperaments and prior training. More fodder for the Personality File each critter has.
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Toady typically doesn't do things by half measures.  As evidenced by turning "make hauling work better" into "implement mine carts with physics".
There are many issues with this statement.
[/quote]

ZebioLizard2

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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2010, 12:34:52 am »

I think what existent was posting was like what some of them could do when they are here, like some of the musical inclined would entertain with music/dance, or those interested in dwarf culture might pay to buy trinkets and the like.

You could even have one of your badass adventurers visit from time to time.

I like this entire idea however.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2010, 12:53:54 am by ZebioLizard2 »
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Andeerz

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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #6 on: August 20, 2010, 12:40:47 am »

Hooray for the ideas, and perhaps just as importantly, the oh so awesome alliteration that is the title of the thread.  <3
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Quarterblue

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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #7 on: August 20, 2010, 01:45:53 am »

Sounds cool. Also, you could be able to assign a certain amount of booze and food to the inn. The quality of the inn and the created wealth would attract more travellers, while dangerous surroundings such as Forgotten Beasts, zombies and skeletal carp would reduce the amount of travellers, but increase the skill of the remaining ones. And at the inn screen you could have a list of all the adventurers present in the inn. You could ask them to tell stories, trade away your artifacts and food and booze for valuable gear, hire them to kill some FB or HFS, hire them to train your military or even imprison them and seize all their valuable equiment (but travellers would be less likely to come). You would need social skills to convince them to do stuff, maybe they would have moods just like merchants. And they could be fully integrated to your fortress if they are very pleased.

It would be some serious choice to make: on the one hand, when you open an inn, you get many helpful travellers - on the other hand, they will eat and drink all your supplies, they need to be given beds, they need to be taken care of if you don't want them to leave, and your fortress could very well starve to death and have tantrum spirals because everything good and edible is being used by the strangers.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2010, 01:49:17 am by Quarterblue »
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Acanthus117

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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #8 on: August 20, 2010, 01:56:13 am »

This could pave the way for advanced adventure mode interactions with towns!
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loose nut

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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #9 on: August 20, 2010, 02:22:50 am »

possible traveler types:
Bard (like the "Was entertained by a foreign story recently" suggestion)
Adventurers (like the "pay high skill mercenaries and adventurers to help defend your fortress or train soldiers for a year or two" suggestion)
Migrant Passerby's (These guys are like migrants, except they just show up at your fort to chill en route to elsewhere)
Foreign Tourists (other races, that could impart some knowledge for a fee (IE, elves could teach better bow techniques, which improves the quality of all future bows made)
Saboteurs (like the thieves mentioned, with the added ability to destroy a workshop/pull levers/general sabotage by a rival group, etc)
Traders (could replace current caravans- several smaller traders rather than three big ones. Each could specialize in a certain ware- instead of only getting a reduced quantity of what current caravans bring now, these would bring, say, exclusively weapons, or food, etc)

A few others:
Fugitives (causing tensions with a neighboring civ, if not given up to their authorities)
Refugees (just a drain, testing the ahaha compassion of the player - they may or may not move on after a couple of years)
Priests (who try to convert your dwarves)
Relatives (of your migrants; happy/ angry thought from seeing them)
Nobles (treat them well, piss them off, dump them in magma for foreign relations Fun; obviously they want gifts and nice guest quarters)
- also, the dwarven King should definitely visit before he moves in
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Urist McOverlord

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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #10 on: August 20, 2010, 02:32:41 am »

How about having "traders" type people function as a sort of revolving shop, for the economy? Your trade caravans would meet at a "market" area, and after you declare trade to be "open" (ensuring that the general fortress gets first dibs) the populace can go buy what they want. It'd add a good bit more depth, and get more interesting stuff floating around the fortress. Of course this only kicks in with the economy.

Also, I like the idea of having a bunch of different traders replace the current huge caravans. Maybe reduce micro by being able to tell the broker to buy X steel murdersticks of exceptional or higher quality, and make him smart enough to trade whatever goods you have pre-marked for trade up to a value that they'll accept, without going insanely over.

Also, how about allowing the player to post a "bounty" on the inn, so that you can send the random adventurers out to kill some forgotten beast troubling your caverns, or even out in the world. Greater bounties equal better-armed people out trying to meet them.

All-in-all, this sounds like a great way to intermix the fortress with the rest of the world, something that is severely lacking.
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Brandon816

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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #11 on: August 20, 2010, 02:38:43 am »

...
Foreign Tourists (other races, that could impart some knowledge for a fee (IE, elves could teach better bow techniques, which improves the quality of all future bows made)
...
I'm not sure you want to simply improve the quality of the objects themselves. Maybe they could actually impart that knowledge with available dwarves in a manner similar to military training.

You could pay them based on how much they teach (xp gained) and dwarves taught. The initial deal would cover the max amount of dwarves that can attend and for how long they will be taught. After the deal is made Dwarves could be selected from a list and be "activated" to go learn as soon as they finish their current job and aren't needing food, water/alcohol, or sleep.

The lesson would start either after the number of attending dwarves has reached the maximum set in the deal, a certain amount of time has passed from the deal being made, or the player has given the go ahead to start teaching the deal. In regards to the latter two possibilities, unused slots could or could not be refunded. Maybe it could be either, and this could depend on the the individual teacher's personality or whether or not an extra percentage fee was paid in order to refund unused slots.

In the case of refunds, you would go into a trade menu with the amount of value refunded and can rebuy whatever you had sold them for the lesson.

This mechanic could also be used for most of those roles, with each teaching what they know. The value of the goods given in exchange for the services could also depend on the role of the teacher, value increasing for stuff they want/need and decreasing for the stuff they don't want/need. An adventurer would want basic supplies like food, water/alcohol, rope, etc., a mercenary would want armor and weapons, a trader would want goods in the category they trade in, a bard would want instruments and high quality clothing, and a tourist would want crafts (souvenirs).
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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #12 on: August 20, 2010, 03:08:15 am »

This seems to be a very interesting idea, nice way how to interconnect the, now isolated, fortress with the rest of the world. One even might want to pursue a "hotel fortress", known for its great services.
This also brings a new job possibilities in hospitality area for dwarfs (both males and... females)

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minor details
1/ I would be careful about what all should be possible to do with travelers, or to be more precise, what all they would request. e.g. I would not like to add boose and food to Inn manually, assign bad manually for every incoming traveler etc...
But I assume noone really wants :)

2/ Also the idea of having lots of small traders instead of 1-3 per year today. While the idea itself is nice, I think that it would lead to less enjoyable gameplay - now I have to enter the trade screen and trade just few time per year, more or less being able to buy anything I want. But if would need to do that dozen(s) of time, searching for stuff I need, just because those small merchants dont carry enough stuff with them, I would get pretty annoyed...

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Areyar

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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #13 on: August 20, 2010, 03:47:57 am »

with regards to beds, I'd suggest using the same mechanism that hospitals use: zoning.
That way you could zone at two different locations and have beds designated for travellers not in the dininghall of the inn.
I'd expect ravelling to make much noise, drunk tourists certainly are loud.

For booze and food, I'd say a stockpile inside the zone would work (allow quality and type parameters), otherwise an innkeeper could determine the stocks required. (not dissimilar to bookkeeper, but also not in the nobles screen)

for trading...I'd prefer to let them act as temporary shops rather than small caravans, they could gather at a social gathering place, preferably a well or meetinghall and allow local dwarves to buy goods.
OTOH you might want to trade with them officially, then send your appraiser to a depot and traders should gather there. You'd need a way to select which trader to trade with though.

Having minted coins could be a prerequisite to attracting/buying from traders.
Other visitors might pay in foreign coins.
Paying with coinage should certainly be cheaper relatively to bartering.
(I'd love to coins to be more integrated with the economy, rather than just archeological curiosities)
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Re: The Stranger - Fortress Travellers, Taverns, and Traipsing Thieves
« Reply #14 on: August 20, 2010, 04:10:58 am »

Additionally, this whole mechanic would encourage to build a real army, instead of trap maze and locking yourself up for a year. I can see that people not getting in might be not so problematic, but trapped tourists would probably try to get out - or at least do some mess around :) So fortress guard would be more useful as well.
It really seems that this idea fits nicely into current DF, being interconnected with lot of stuff which is already in there, not just being isolated functionality
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