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[dennislp3]

Thats why spears and axes were also very common and useful implements of war...both cheap and more effective against armor than most weapons. Swords were not actually all that useful in most situations (not counting 2 handers) with the exception of small variants meant for stabbing or cutting exposed parts like the back of the knee and the like.

That said a good spear could make quick work of someone charging but in close quarters they are not all that good. Axes are good overall for the heavy head that can create massive momentum coupled with the relatively small contact area to actually cut through armor with.

[schismatise]

Just copy/pasting my feedback from another thread so it's all in the one place for you...

<sub>Introduction sounds very good, my kind of mod. Elves playable, hmmm, something i've thought about but it seemed unrealistic and imbalanced. Can spawn more wood at altar... so much for staying true to the vanilla spirit? The more dangerous wildlife stuff sounds good, as long as those extra syndromes aren't too strong. Equipment overhaul sounds like you've changed too much. I'm not sure a 2h > 1h/s > ranged > 2h balance system was necessary. Economy changes start good, but there's alot of things i don't like. Yes, it's currently too easy to have plenty of surplus of everything, and trading is generally pointless after the first couple of times, so changes in that area sound good, but i feel like you might have gone overboard. Mouldy stones?! Not very vanilla. Smelting changes are strange. Removal of adamantine is fine, but i don't like the sound of all the new reactions, or the changes to steel making. Altar? Again, not very vanilla. Steamlined item types - i like dwarf fortress for it's huge array of different types of things, most of which are functionally identical - it feels more realistic. Bug fixes sound good, especially the clothing, and FPS tweaks, but some not so good - i don't like the removal of miasma or trampling.

Basically, "A mod designed to increase FPS and difficulty of DF while staying as true to the spirit of vanilla DF as possible" sounds like exactly the kind of mod i want, but the detailed description doesn't. Bear in mind of course that this is just my personal opinion</sub>

To summarise: i think you changed too much for me. But it's your mod - if you like the changes, there's probably a good chance other people will too. However, i would change the introduction text slightly, it's mildly misleading

Also bear in mind that i haven't actually played the mod, just read the descriptions, so feel free to ignore me

[rephikul]

Basically, "A mod designed to increase FPS and difficulty of DF while staying as true to the spirit of vanilla DF as possible" sounds like exactly the kind of mod i want, but the detailed description doesn't. Bear in mind of course that this is just my personal opinion

To summarise: i think you changed too much for me. But it's your mod - if you like the changes, there's probably a good chance other people will too. However, i would change the introduction text slightly, it's mildly misleading

It's impossible to mix the goals of "FPS" and "difficulty" and "vanilla" without some compromise. If you add or change or remove anything visible it's not vanilla anymore and people have very different idea on what constitute as "vanilla". Some, like necrorebel, suggest that I still need to remove about 90% of remaning stuff and it'd still be "vanilla" ;p That's why they are "as possible" and also the reason for the focus on the removal and adjustment of things instead of adding new things. Because people cannot see and notice what's never there to begin with and when something they know was changed, they'd notice quickly and take appropriate action. But if you know a more appropriate wording, feel free to suggest.

That said, i think You need to appreciate that i simply might not like the concept of "spawning wood" in dwarf fortress

To defend myself and my foolish idea, elves forts arent quite like dorf forts. They dont have picks or axes or smithing so they rely heavily on embarking points and trading to get some logs for... pretty much everything, starting from a roof. As such they are quite wood-starved. On the other hand, they also have an unique body size, which mean all that goblinites are totally useless beyond the first few mauls or pikes. And that's how that 5 inorganic items -> 1 wooden log idea came to be, to recycle things.

[schismatise]

But if you know a more appropriate wording, feel free to suggest.

Don't mind me, i was just poking fun the current wording is fine. Edit: You certainly have given the game a unique flavour, though. Maybe even just something like: "A mod designed to increase FPS & difficulty of DF and generally enhance gameplay while [...]" could work.

To defend myself and my foolish idea, elves forts arent quite like dorf forts. They dont have picks or axes or smithing so they rely heavily on embarking points and trading to get some logs for... pretty much everything, starting from a roof. As such they are quite wood-starved. On the other hand, they also have an unique body size, which mean all that goblinites are totally useless beyond the first few mauls or pikes. And that's how that 5 inorganic items -> 1 wooden log idea came to be, to recycle things.

I understand completely. Would it be possible to mod a plant that you can grow to produce wood? Other than that though, there probably isn't a perfect solution, other than just letting elves cut down trees or something.. I've often found it wierd that elves come decked in wooden armour and weapons yet claim to have never cut down a tree. How do they get the wood then?!

[bombzero]

Thats why spears and axes were also very common and useful implements of war...both cheap and more effective against armor than most weapons. Swords were not actually all that useful in most situations (not counting 2 handers) with the exception of small variants meant for stabbing or cutting exposed parts like the back of the knee and the like.

That said a good spear could make quick work of someone charging but in close quarters they are not all that good. Axes are good overall for the heavy head that can create massive momentum coupled with the relatively small contact area to actually cut through armor with.

note i didn't mean cutting through in ONE hit witha sword, that would indeed take a two-hander.

did you know that if you were left handed you were pretty much assigned as a spearman or pikeman? the reason being that staircases in castles curved to the right so right handed soldiers had trouble swinging at the defenders. moral of the story: don't get drafted in medieval times if you are left-handed, you get to go first.

[darkflagrance]

Having just played your mod, I would like to offer some thoughts: It is much harder to get an effective military up and running in your mod than it is in vanilla. Each military captain requires mandates, making the strategy of pairing off teachers and students to train each other economically expensive. The low untrainable mining skill makes it extremely difficult to mine minerals for turning into armor, as well as slow to dig underground to escape the hordes of roving berserker elephants and door-crushing abaddons. In all my installations of the mod I was unable to figure out exactly how to make alcohol and relied instead on murky pools for water. I could have probably processed steel with the aid of magma and cheap leather bags, but I did not. Also, at first glance, the cost in resources of the danger room blew me away  . I hope that it's worth the cost!

The difficulty of creating an effective military being such, I would recommend you take these factors into account whether you decide to rebalance various other components of your mod or not.

I would also like to add that I suspect there is a bug in the cost of serrated discs; my smith began gathering a massive number of iron bars and still had not yet enough materials to make one before he ran out of them.

[rephikul]

I was unable to figure out exactly how to make alcohol and relied instead on murky pools for water.

Urgh, alcohol. I hate my current implementation of it. It's very convoluted: You need to embark with / buy from caravan moldy stones which actually come in bags. They are automatically extracted for yeasts (1 bag of moldy stones -> 5 pouches of yeast) by a miller at the kitchen. You need one pouch of yeast in addition to the normal stuff to brew booze.

Also, at first glance, the cost in resources of the danger room blew me away  . I hope that it's worth the cost!

From my personal experience, it's well worth it. Admittedly, the cost is very high since it was made before I made items using multiple bars so maybe I'd take that disk out, it carry the heaviest chunk. More then once I have actually wished it was cheaper myself since building it will sky rocket fortress value, inviting earlier sieges. Once complete however, it's very useful since a copper bar can be made into 25 training gears, which's the equivalent of 25*30 = 750 exp, enough to turn a greenhorn into a novice, negating the happiness cost while training without any skills and allow them to more rapidly do more interesting stuff such as sparring. I'd say it's equivalent to a few waterfalls, justifying the cost.

I would also like to add that I suspect there is a bug in the cost of serrated discs; my smith began gathering a massive number of iron bars and still had not yet enough materials to make one before he ran out of them.

16 bars last I checked. Serrated discs have an item value of 126. With the cost of 16 bars its value per bar is 7.8, somewhere between socks and maces. In comparison, battle axe has the value per bar of 17 (it costs 2) and spear of 18, costing 1. I'm actually planning to INCREASE the bar cost of all equipments to balance them against quality modifiers, so it's cheaper to trade raw bars for low QL gears then actually making them.

[rephikul]

Download at the depot



.23 changes
+ Fixed auto smelter appearance
+ Fixed yeast generation for all graphic sets
+ Fixed mining kit production to properly read material (it's used to brave the kitchen sink)
+ Further restrict planting months. Quarry bush is spring only and cave wheat / pig tail are summer only.
+ Yeast extraction now yield moldy blocks instead of moldy bars so they can be properly stockpiled.
+ White Tigermen are now kinda like barbarians. Very Offensive and no defense whatsoever.

More boring bugfix release. I have finished reviewing above ground mundance creatures. Underground creatures and fanciful creatures remaining. Hopefully by next week we'd have the revision ready. If you are bored, try out my challenges.

[Di]

Hey, it's me here. I've been sticking to previous version of this due to a particularly interesting fort, it had obtained quite vast graveyard before I've bugged it into permanent siege with runesmith (nuked darkwings and furies that were waiting at the edges)
Here's my impression: those brewing stones are overkill.
You see, the fortress was running 6 or 8 years, it had tons of bronze but it all was required to equip military, it had quite a bunch of wood but not enough to just waste it for crafts, after experiencing a stone shortage I've limited amount of stone goods as well. So, all exports I could provide were bone crafts and occasional corkscrew. The imports required, though, were far more numerous. The reason for adding yeast was to make trading important for survival but all those economic downgrades had done that already, making that yeast simply annoying as you can't even buy booze from caravan.
Also, you seem to have taken out the yarn cloth, but moods still can request it. (.23 version)

[rephikul]

Here's my impression: those brewing stones are overkill.

Let me get a better understanding of the situation, you locked yourself into permanent sieges right and the caravans never come while the enemies still do right? I suggest modding the stone reaction at the altar from using gold to steel since you get steel from sieger's corpses and they are of equal value. If all else fail, consider making a mist generator.

So, all exports I could provide were bone crafts and occasional corkscrew.

Um, how about goblinite? If you have survived until year 8 then you definitely would have gotten at least high master smith immigrants in all fields to reforge them into highly valuable stuff. Striking magma (I guess you already have) allow you to cast obsidians if you need stones. Due to a bug, magma creatures wont ever bother you unless you happen to stumble right next to them.

Also, you seem to have taken out the yarn cloth, but moods still can request it. (.23 version)

Wha, I'd do something about this. If you have a screenshot of his demand I'd appreciate.

When I'm at it, I'd say something about the animal revision I'm working on:
1) Make zones less bland by removing redundants (i.e. Lots of 1 clustered fishs) and by filling in new creatures (i.e. peguins for glaciers)
2) Make the distinction between major biomes more clear. If you embark on a savage biome, savage creatures will be much more likely to show up and if it's an evil biome, seeing normal creatures would be a very rare event. Similarly, creatures that live in cavern level 1 and 2 will be more likely to show up on cavern level 1 then 2 and if you play with only 1 cavern level it'd be cavern level 2.8 for the most part.
2.5) Optionally: Make all underground creatures non-undeadable to prevent miasma spam. Seriously, I really hate that miasma stuff.
3) Tweak some creatures abit to make them more interesting or replace them with prehistoric creatures. Hopefully prologue will publish some that I can steal so I dont have to make all of those dinos.

Right now I'm (still) working on cataloging animals (at work) but deadline for a new release is still today so I gotta work hard at it

Spoiler: screenie (click to show/hide)

[darkflagrance]

Hey, it's me here. I've been sticking to previous version of this due to a particularly interesting fort, it had obtained quite vast graveyard before I've bugged it into permanent siege with runesmith (nuked darkwings and furies that were waiting at the edges)

The siege tag is EXTREMELY fragile in my experience. Back in 40d with Relentless Assault I had to memory hack after every siege simply because the game kept thinking a treant or goblin was invisible. Better to nuke sieges by giving the relevant creature AQUATIC 

[rephikul]

Better to nuke sieges by giving the relevant creature AQUATIC 

Can they drown and die offscreen then glitch up the unit list or they'd enter the map and die without any issues whatsoever?

On an another side note I missed the deadline cause playing this game is a blast (no pun intended). You know a game is serious business when you can hear faint screams as you shoot down plot-irrelevant high rises in the first stage.

[darkflagrance]

It'd probably work like old men dying of old age or hydras dying of world gen wounds the moment they set foot on the map and took stock of their body's condition before rushing your fort.

However, this fix is specifically intended to be retrospective remedy to sieges - if the invaders have already arrived and they are messing up your plans worse than you bargained for, AQUATIC is still a quick and immediate solution to the problem.

[Di]

How did you disable dukes? I'm peering the raws and can't find differences from default ones.
I've decided that I like mandates for their weirdness and color purple.
And since we're on it, while I find hilarious that unhappy beaten dwarves can cry on somebody responsible for it, maybe diplomat_meeting responsibility should be transferted to someone else?

[rephikul]

How did you disable dukes? I'm peering the raws and can't find differences from default ones.
Nope, no changes whatsoever. A fluke maybe?
I've decided that I like mandates for their weirdness and color purple.
HA, you are finally getting used to it
And since we're on it, while I find hilarious that unhappy beaten dwarves can cry on somebody responsible for it, maybe diplomat_meeting responsibility should be transferted to someone else?
Since you asked about dukes, then you probably already have a count. He has RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS. Does it work?

I havent kept for so long as to get a count. Would you mind sharing yours so I can get some stuff clarified?

EDIT: As usual, I'd hang back and watch for a while to wait for the new version to stabilize. Everyone are encouraged to port the mod or play the new version and tell me if there are any issues / new concepts to weaponize.