40d:Core components

This is a list of the current unfinished core components being developed for the game.

1. CARAVANS: Use resource tracking and the adventurer travel infrastructure to set up groups of traders that go between sites. Make sure to respect the current flow of the dwarf game, though caravans will no longer be 'generated' when needed. Related to entity knowledge transfer if we are there by this time. The trading done by caravans would interface with the resource tracking system and thus be immediately available to adventurers. This includes items traded away by your dwarf fortress, although it's possible they could be abstracted a bit if they are too numerous.

2. ENEMY PETS: Can give the leaders creatures depending on their personal likes, race, the entity definition and the local available wilderness populations. These pets can have names and profiles like regular creatures. Can co-opt some of the behavior from dwarven pet owners.

3. MAGIC: There are no specific decisions nailed down yet, although we've thought about it a lot. It's probably best to go for a very general system here, as in the first Armok attempt. Then the world generator and entities can decide what they want to use from what's available. Early efforts might be to make dwarven artifacts more interesting and to increase the power and variability of enemy leaders, rather than focusing on traditional spell-casting adventurers.

4. TUTORIALS: Set up small tutorial files that you can load up. These would have text instructions and little activities for you to do so you can learn how to play more easily.

5. SOUND: Make all music/sounds optional, in groups. More songs (possibly seasonal), incidental music (like spotting the first kobold in a cave, etc.), various combat type sounds and ambient sounds, pleasing interface clicks.

6. ADVISORS: Either some kind of abstract advisors, or the actual dwarves that are living there. They can look over the state of the fortress and come up with some suggestions to help you survive and advance up the noble chain.

7. ADVENTURER PARTIES: Create up to, say, 6 characters at once. These are controlled as with the dwarven raiding parties. If the scenarios are in, it can generate historical connections that explain why they are together. Could give your group a name, like the dwarf squads, and non-players could be admitted, as in the standard adventure mode 'join' option.

8. OVERLAND ARMIES ATTACKS: The invasions by various creatures should no longer generate soldiers, but should use overland armies instead. There should be some AI limits in place to stop early dwarven outposts from being overwhelmed (at least as a default).

9. BARONY: Once you get a baron, you'll be able to send out armies. Since your population will be reasonably small, these are more like patrols. They could attack smaller nearby threats, such as a kobold cave, or let you know about incoming invasions.

10. COUNTY: When you get a count, you'll get a large group of migrants that start a community outside your fortress on the world map. You can interact with these group in many ways

11. DUCHY: An extension of the county, receiving a duke would increase your population, outside infrastructure and interaction with the world.

12. KINGDOM: If you manage to get the king, you should obtain control of the corresponding dwarven civilization. This includes the movement of all dwarven armies on the map, to the extent that you can send orders to them.

13. SERVING THE KING: Once you have an outside village (or even before), you could receive orders from the king to serve up some of your population as troops. If the soldier is one of your familiar fortress units, you could control them in any future army fights later in that game, or you might control an entire squad if more of your soldiers were drafted.

14. DWARF RAIDS: If you send one of your patrols to attack a site, and it is small enough, you should be able to control the units individually, as in adventure mode. If your group is large, then you could either control one squad as a party, and have the others on AI, or you could let the whole thing run real-time as in dwarf mode.

15. BURROWS: You should be able to associate buildings and dwarves to areas called burrows. A dwarf would only work on jobs at its burrow, and could not haul between burrows unless specifically designated to do so. Miners, outside workers, engravers and so on would be exempt while doing those jobs. Burrows could have general goals for the amount of objects, such as bins, that they need to have, and you could order transfers between burrows with the manager. Manager work orders could specify burrows. Once your fortress is large, having such a system to reduce the amount of hauling is very important. Coupled with some of the other ideas, large fortresses should become easier to manage.

16. PRODUCTION TRACKING AND HISTORY TRIGGERS: The objects at a site need to be tracked in an abstract form so that the world can use them without loading up the site files. Any changes could be applied to the site file retroactively when it is loaded (the same is true of damage from wars and so on). Stores should restock their inventories. The objects need to be separated based on the entity that owns them, since several entities can potentially operate at one site. Past production can also be stored (especially from your own dwarf fortresses and these facts can be referenced in the legends and art work. However, your own fortress facts could be hidden, forcing you to find the information with adventurers. When you enter a fortress, each hidden historical event and fact could be associated to one or more triggers, such as the produced objects, diaries, etc. It can also track facts about artisans in a similar fashion. Other facts like the number of executions, population break-down, amount of mining and so on could all be referenced.

17. MONSTERS: Dragon attacks need to be more righteous. Their flying needs to be more of a benefit. Snatching and dropping people should be possible. Would also be good to get the wizards and undead armies from the old fixed-plot stuff back into the mix. There was a time when the dead dwarves and pets would suddenly rise in your fortress, due to a plot event. That might have to wait for magic.

18. TOWN, ITEMS: Basic items around the town, including differentiations between the homes of various people. Keys. Clothes, outfits, uniforms and symbols.

19. TOWN, IMPORTANT LOCATIONS: Make the important people stay in relevant locations. Make the keep in the capital more interesting. Interesting adornments. Add a bit more culture to the mead hall where the mayor and drunks stay.

20. CIVILIZATIONS AT WAR: Civilizations (for example, goblins or expansionist humans) should be able to declare war on each other and raise armies. They can send messengers to outlying towns or gather soldiers as they march from town to town toward their destinations.

21. ARMY BATTLES: Hostile armies that meet each other should be able to fight and take losses. Armies should be able to attack towns, take captive historical figures, and switch towns to new allegiances over time. Does not include protracted sieges, tactics or strategy -- just the basics. An adventurer at the site of an army battle can observe it.

22. CLEANING HISTORY: Unimportant dead historical figures should be abstracted away to save space.

23. TILESET SUPPORT: Allow graphical tiles to be used for all game objects.

24. SIZEABLE GAME WINDOW: Allow the resizing of the game windows, and possibly the support of variable width fonts to allow more text to be displayed.

25. INTERFACE OVERHAUL: A coherent interface, additional options and mouse support.