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[Uzu Bash]

A friendly human hunter was watching the dwarves pave an obsidian road and I thought, "Come on in! Marvel in the splendor of our city! We've got friendly, ecstatic folks who are highly proud of the place!"

Hm. Business opportunity. Why export prepared meals when we can keep them to serve locally? Come on in, we'd be happy to serve you. You just need a passport (25 silver, includes entry fee) for unlimited travel (to be renewed bi-annually.) You can enjoy legendary dining in our cavern-rim cafe, delighting in the polished gold and gemstone walls scintillating through the waterfalls (please observe standard evacuation procedures during invasions.)

I suppose if we lose enough tourists to 'accidents', their homeland may respond with embargos, compensation demands, or military force.

[Silverionmox]

To have tourists, you need people with disposable income. If the social situation resembles anything like the Middle Ages, that's the nobility and a few associated groups like top administrators, master craftsman and the higher clergy. (The word tourism is derived from the young nobility making their Grand Tour of Europe, as part of their education; even that started only to be normal in the 18th-19th century.)

The other groups that could be expected to travel are soldiers and other government personnel; traders; and pilgrims. Pilgrims are the closest to tourists in the Middle Ages: travelling a long way from home to visit an awesome place. They typically did that once in their life. They also didn't carry loads of spending money. Instead, they relied on their nation or religious association to find friends abroad ("Welcom, fellow Mecklenburger/lay brother in the Teutonic Order/scholar in Islamic law. Stay with us tonight and share the news of our brethren abroad.") Makes sense, with all the robbers.

[Andeerz]

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=64267.msg1500178#msg1500178 <-this thread rocks.  It's got a lot of good ideas pertaining to the OP and what Silverionmox said. 

[Rowanas]

However, when one thinks of a 1400 site of interest, a lot of people tend to get ideas about bustling villages around a fort, with shrines and taverns. Whether it's anachronistic or not, it's well within the 1400s feel of DF.

[Andeerz]

And that's not necessarily anachronistic at all! 

[Rowanas]

Indeed. It adds lots to the game, isn't anachronistic or go against the feel of the game and wouldn't be too hard to code. No reason not to go for it.

[ZebioLizard2]

To bad it needs an economy fix, which is indeed hard to code. 

Although making your dwarven fortress awesome enough to become a pilgrimage site in itself would be kinda awesome.

[King_of_the_weasels]

Pilgrimages, wouldn't start until gods actually doing something was put into the game.  Such as a god causing an volcano to rise from the ground and take a goblin tower down into it's abyss, or something more feesible like, a god petrifying an evil warlord into a stone statue, or what have you.  Basically anything for someone to visit.  Honestly we don't know what powers gods would have so it's hard to figure out things that dwarves would actually build around or would happen in game.  So really this had nothing to do with tourism and more about pilgrimages.  So 50% related.

[ZebioLizard2]

I don't think it really needs something as high as that in order to induce a pilgrimage. The first legendary adamantium weapon or armor might grant famous armor smiths in search of it. Warriors around the land would bask in its glow, dwarven smiths come to admire its quality and strength. Or a dwarven kingdom, that had managed to pierce into Fun itself and live.

[King_of_the_weasels]

I was talking more like religious pilgrimages.

[Waparius]

One thing to remember with pilgrimages is that you can always have stops along the way. If you tie it in with the things being discussed over in the resources/caravans thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=69644.0), you could put a fort on the way to a holy site and deal with pilgrims passing through it. Maybe even find historical sites and build your fort there, rather than wait for something big to happen instead.

I can imagine a town growing around the place where Urist McProphet chiseled The Tablets Of Law while he was off in the wilderness, for instance.

I think I'll go post this in the Caravan thread too.

[King_of_the_weasels]

Your fortress could be built around a tunnel you dug through the mountain that makes the trip easier on pilgrims, but it has a toll.  But that would take a lot of pathfinding and preference programming and what not, I assume.

[DG]

Pilgrimages, wouldn't start until gods actually doing something was put into the game.  Such as a god causing an volcano to rise from the ground and take a goblin tower down into it's abyss, or something more feesible like, a god petrifying an evil warlord into a stone statue, or what have you.  Basically anything for someone to visit.  Honestly we don't know what powers gods would have so it's hard to figure out things that dwarves would actually build around or would happen in game.  So really this had nothing to do with tourism and more about pilgrimages.  So 50% related.

I don't think you need anything quite as flashy as you suggest from the gods to encourage pilgrimage. Take our world for example.

[Rowanas]

DG, well said. I thought about posting that, but I never got round to it.

[King_of_the_weasels]

I wonder if dorfs would visit single masterfully crafted stone blocks then hang upside down to kiss them.  Seems dwarvenly.