User talk:The Architect

Personal Talk

Asking for an email is the best way to facilitate personal communication, otherwise use the Bay12 forum's Personal Messaging, and send to The Architect.

Succession League

Depending on how popular this becomes, inclusion in the bloodline namespace may be inappropriate. I'm willing to create a new namespace for this endeavor if it pans out. --Briess 10:32, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the tentative support. Considering that this wiki does not function as a forum, I'm not sure of the appropriate mode for response, but I hope you see this. Support so far has been quick, with 9 joining in two days, but I expect the growth to pan out around 20 and move slowly until the point that it becomes a topic of discussion and moves to be well known, when it should become a major part of the DF community. If you have the time please drop by in a few days when the interface is smoothed over and give me your opinion; learning the wiki coding is making things a little sluggish. Also, some of the functions will of course take place outside the wiki in order to reduce the amount of info clogging up space here. --The Architect 10:40, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem. Of course, wiki syntax is a bit of a hassle - I can't claim I have any real understanding of it myself either. Another option is to host this on a separate webapp (that I would create for this express purpose) if it becomes large enough (say, 50 participants or so); assuming, of course, you want to take it in that direction. --Briess 11:11, 8 October 2009 (UTC) [edit to add]: Don't worry about space or things clogging up, the server this wiki is hosted on is more than capable of the load, and has plenty of spare resources. --Briess 11:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems you made a reply while I was editing. typed more as follows: By the way, wouldn't keeping it separate now or placing it under a category with Bloodline (but not under Bloodline, seeing as those games are only one facet) such as "Multiplayer" or "Succession" prevent hassle later on? Within a few days this is likely to generate multiple extra pages as we begin games and will continue to do so as long as it exists.

A separate application would be great; I don't have the knowhow but some of the functions (such as ratings) would benefit from an automated program to turn the raw data to tables, and asking a large number of players to learn the wiki interface in order to arrange games with each other nearly defeats the purpose of this group for the casual player. I don't want to force you to keep moving the pages I'm making (only a couple more), so if you intend to stick it under Bloodline for now then maybe you can give me a link that will teach me to do it myself? (I get the redirect, but not creating a page under the Category)

And again I'm too slow to get in before your edit, telling me not to worry about space. Either way, creating this page under Bloodline and then a dozen redirect or reredirect edits could be a avoided --The Architect

All good, to create a page under a bloodline section, type the page name like http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Bloodline:Something into your address bar and use the links provided on the blank page holder to create it. Hopefully that made sense. A separate category may be appropriate, but for now we'll leave it in bloodline and see how it pans out. Ps. Where do I sign up? :V --Briess 11:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I was creating that page when you edited this. I will link it to the main page in a few seconds, and redirect/move the two, final main pages under Bloodline. --The Architect 11:35, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

That works for me. --Briess 11:36, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Personal

Thanks for cleaning up after me, including the formatting on the joining page. --The Architect

Cheers. Any time. I threw together a template for this too. Let me know if you like it or not. --Briess 19:59, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

League Talk

If you would like to start a game, posting here is a very effectiive way to get attention and help.

I'm prepared to run a Succession game! I've never ran a Succession game before (or actually played one!), but I've read a few and I'm not stupid (and I have access to a good FTP server for game file swapping!). How should I go about it and any advice? -- Melek 19:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Coding Help

Offer or request help with the Wiki interface here.

• I plan to place templates in the various Discussion pages so that players can easily add games themselves (done), among other things.

cages & releasing

 For unknown reason(s), releasing a creature from a built cage (the only kind 
you can intentionally release them from) requires an accessible empty, unbuilt cage...

I think you're wrong, and I know a dealbreaker like this should have been posted for discussion before editing it into the article. See Talk:Cage#releasing_creatures. --Albedo 01:35, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

You are right, the discussion should have been my first step. I was pretty hasty, seeing how utterly incomplete the Cage page was, and failed to follow proper procedure. It's possible that I am misinterpreting the cause of the error, but I had no mods on at the time (including default init.txt), and the situation was exactly as I described it: "Zulban Ashmonkibuk, Engineer cancels Release Large Creature: need empty cage (x46)", which I used the o-menu to ignore until a new cage was completed. Before that, "Ilrod Kolol, Armorer cancels Release Large Creature: need empty cage (x60)", when transferring animals. This specifically happened with animals that had been tamed while in cages and untamed animals, and not animals purchased tame. This could lead back to the root of the newly-tamed and untamed animal trading bug. It seems real, designated "pets", aka purchased creatures, along with embarkation animals and bred animals, are handled separately at some point from creatures caught by cage traps, causing these bugs. I made a serious mistake in not noting that on the discussion page.

Confirmation for all of the bugs/caveats added there can be found in a file I have, if you would like it. It was one of my earlier forts, and when I discovered that the Cage page lacked many important bits of information (such as the labor for moving untamed animals by job assignment!) I felt the need to update it. The other major bug, where multiple animals being assigned to a cage at one time are all designated for release immediately, and only designated to be moved to the cage one at a time, does in fact result in exactly the results posted: the creatures are released, and become free, but remain in the stock menu, assign to cage/restraint menu, and u/Creatures menu as long as they live. Forgive me for not using the button modifier for u on this talk page, but I haven't memorized it yet. The resulting errors for performing actions with them are as follows: "Dwarf cancels Large Creature Caging: Interrupted by Cave Swallowman." (Civilian chasing freed creature and attempting to cage it) "Dwarf Cancels Small Creature Caging: Nothing to cage." (Escaped Vermin)

As far as my failure to follow protocol, all I can do is offer an apology and not repeat the mistake. I'm sorry. --The Architect 01:58, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Survival Game

I'm well on my way into the game, could you add me to the game page? I've documented my progress here: http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/User:Squirrelloid/BL_Survival_Challenge

Also, I'd love to know why you think artifact value doesn't involve skill...

--Squirrelloid 08:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Yea, I'll add you with the next update. Got a bit on my plate at the moment, and it takes roughly 2 hours depending on how big the update is because of the wiki format. The thing isn't that artifact value can't be influenced by skillful forbidding/dumping, stockpile placement, and so forth, but that the number and type of artifact is largely random. If we are awarding someone for their ability to build an economy, then ignoring artifacts allows a more careful measurement of a player's skill in that regard.

Due to the game being an alpha and the economics of some of the newer elements being highly unbalanced, the economic competition may be removed or altered for the next game. For instance: food and adamantine economies are on a whole other level from any other kind, and no one can hope to compete with them. --The Architect 00:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, you can encourage particular classes of artifacts by biasing your mood pool. Dwarves without moodable skills can be given one with a single job, so there's no excuse for your non-mood skill dwarves to not dabble in something valuable like armor forging. And many mood skills also increase the odds of that particular dwarf having a mood at all. Sure, it requires making sacrifices (Assigning lots of miners increases the odds of generating poor artifacts since their mood is nothing to speak of), but the payout is in a much higher frequency of valuable moods, and if you play your cards right, valuable artifacts. (I've had fortresses where 70% of the dwarves who could still get a mood would generate a metal-working mood of some sort - this is a totally plausible way to plan on building your economy). --Squirrelloid 07:11, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

That's interesting. I have no such thing as a hauler in my fortresses, in fact. Most non-legendary dwarfs do some form of hauling eventually, based on their industry. But in any case: the wiki states that giving your dwarfs mood-able skills just puts them into the pool for selection when a mood comes along, and that the number of moods is not affected by skills. So yes, you could weight your pool by having peasants all gain a useful-artifact school (weaponsmithing, etc). That makes sense. But the current consensus seems to be that the number of moods is affected by wealth, created objects and revealed subterranean squares. If you have an alternate theory it should be shared. In any case, moods are too much of a random factor to be counted in an economic contest. As much as possible, limiting random factors makes for better competition. I'm sure influencing artifacts isn't the only thing you know how to do. --The Architect 02:00, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Number of moods is effected by subterranean tiles revealed and items created (raw wealth has no effect most of the time, see later), but the numbers are low enough that 2 miners working continuously is more than sufficient to never 'miss' a mood. Similarly, its only 200 items/artifact - a number that is trivial to hit. Now, exactly when you get a mood is poisson distributed, which means there's going to be some variance in how many you get in n years, but its probably K+-1, which means the number of artifacts is less variable than the quality of the mood based on *which* skills are used for moods (something you can bias) and the value of the ingredients used (something you can bias). The other variable is you need some minimum number of dwarves (20 iirc) before you *can* get a mood, which means rapid wealth acquisition year 1 can increase the number of moods you get (by ~1) by getting enough immigrants in the fall to start the mood count-down a season or so early. Basically, most of the variables involved with moods are biasable by a clever player.

Not that I *need* to count my artifacts, but, well, it'd be a shame to eject millions of dwarfbucks of value because its tied up in artifacts =)

--Squirrelloid 02:12, 23 October 2009 (UTC)