Dwarf Fortress Development

(last updated: January 29, 2020)

Overview

The long-term goal is to create a fantasy world simulator in which it is possible to take part in a rich history, occupying a variety of roles through the course of several games. Dwarf Fortress has been in development on-and-off since 2002 and consistently since 2006. The game is designed by Tarn and Zach Adams. Fan suggestions are welcome. The suggestion forum can be found here.

It has also proven too time-consuming to maintain all of the notes in a presentable form, so we're sticking with incomplete lists for the foreseeable future. This page doesn't represent everything we'd like to do. It just has some of the things we're thinking about doing sooner rather than later. We'll be adding to it as specific roadmaps are drawn up and we are closer to using them. There is a discussion thread on the forum.

Color Key

Upcoming Development

Our next major goal is to add creation myth and magic system generation. There are some things to do first, though! We need to finish the graphical/usability update for the Steam/itch release. After that, we're going to finish some delayed features from the first villain release along with doing work on some army/siege features and other matters (listed below.) The hope is that all of this will sustain us through a necessary map rewrite, a key part of the initial myth/magic release which will unavoidably take a long time, no matter how the rest can be portioned between releases.

Once we're ready, we'll do myth and magic additions until we reach a satisfactory point (some options below, we won't get to everything). After the magic releases, we'll do a lot of foundational work culminating in starting scenarios for your fortresses. These changes touch upon law, property, status, diplomacy and so on, which will position us for economic work and thief role development, though we haven't committed to a direction beyond the three sections below. We'll be fixing bugs and making smaller changes between major releases.

Pre-Magic Improvement Candidates

• Dwarf army improvements
• New missions
• Pillaging vs. raids
• Razing sites
• Demanding tribute
• Seizing position-holders as prisoners (see below)
• Assassinations of position-holders
• Taking over sites and administrators
• Getting an off-site holding can jump a fort to barony status
• Emphasize holdings on the map
• Attracting hill dwarves to become a baron peacefully
• Basic hill dwarf / administered site interactions
• Request migrants, send fort dwarves out to hills
• Shows all your off-site armies, send a squad or messenger to activate them
• Defensive off-site armies, ability to stall and report on incoming sieges
• Army-army battles, offensive orders for off-site armies (see Army Improvements below)
• Portions of Improved Sieges (below) are on the table
• Also: prisoners from attacking soldiers surrendering/yielding
• Prisoner trades, executions, release
• Adventure overview improvements
• Prioritize important information
• Show personal relationships, latest people met, global reputations
• Show site relations and entity positions, map holdings
• Improved character creation
• Mounts and pets
• Equipment selection
• Adventurer party support
• Adventurer military improvements
• Gaining civ-level entity positions (e.g. baron) by reputation or intrigue
• Basic command of large armies on travel-scale map
• Giving local combat orders to companions (see Your Followers below)
• Tactical party controls
• Medical improvements
• Better quest handling
• Better reputation and proximity checks
• Can ask about specific opportunities
• Changing how reputation titles work
• Ability to ask after artifacts
• Villainous plots
• Work existing mechanics into conspiracy chains
• Bandit groups raid and pillage the hill dwarves and extort from the fortress
• Steal/demand artifacts
• Thieves stealing items
• Assassination of position-holding dwarves and meddling adventurers
• Prisoner interrogations (both modes)
• Receiving tips and rumors (both modes)
• Sending out dwarven agents/investigators
• Improve fort/adv rumor displays to highlight known plot elements
• Hideouts and strongholds
• Better alerts and identity checks
• Includes bandit forts, return of castles, better necromancer towers

Creation Myths and Magic Systems

• Creation myth generation
• Parameters
• Magic settings: From none to ubiquitous
• Non-magical worlds will still have (possibly multiple) creation myths
• Randomness settings: From Earth-like world to standard fantasy to completely random
• Hostility settings: No death or violence to regular settings to bleak and horrifying
• Detailed chronology of creation
• Creative actions taken by gods and ancient races, cosmic eggs and primordial chaos, resulting in humans, dwarves, the land, and every other in-game object
• Generated explanations for death, the afterlife and the origins of magic fully integrated into the myth
• Magical landforms generalizing and/or replacing good-evil regions and the underworld
• Can be closely tied in to new magic systems
• Shape/materials related to the creation myth
• Deities, angels, demons, forces and spirits further integrated into the world
• New generated race categories: primordial giants/titans, fairies
• Mythic artifacts and expanded artifact framework
• New sources: divine, natural, ancient races
• Connections to the world (magical regions, etc.)
• Intelligent and semi-intelligent artifacts
• Automatons and magical prostheses
• Update world generation screen to display myth information
• Editors for fixed worlds
• Maps, sites, entities, historical figures, artifacts, myths, etc.
• Recorded history
• Bridge myth and recorded history by converting myth output to world generation start map
• Wider variety of magical historical figures with new actions and powers, respecting myth
• New wizards beyond necromancers: by race, by skill, by object, by corruption, by deal with another power
• Wizards that wander
• Wizards that live in isolation
• Wizards that form groups (councils, covens, etc.), must have rationale (group magic, mutual protection, research, etc.)
• Wizards that involve themselves with civilization
• Further involvement of deity-level beings and their servants in mortal affairs
• Basic divine law as a precursor to law framework
• Manifestation and even integration with civilizations in high-magic settings
• Conflicts between deities or the confused/imperfect agents of a single deity
• Magical powers given to civilized creatures and other races in myths must be respected
• Respect any magical weather, landforms, reagents, materials etc. from myths
• One-way portals bringing creatures or material into the world (two-way will have to wait)
• High-magic worlds can have many minor magical objects, usable in play
• Allow permanent changes to occur to myth-level landforms, magic, gods, etc. during regular world gen
• Bringing back lost deities/titans
• Removing or reawakening magic in the world
• Closing/opening new one-way portals
• In-play world changes and new activities
• Broad expansion of interaction system to support generated magic
• New effect types
• Interactions can require costs (reagents, rituals, blood, energy, etc.)
• New situational and other restrictions on interaction use
• Integration with the generated myth's deities, forces and planes
• Magical objects beyond artifacts, such as wands, potions, ointments, runestones, etc.
• Exposure effects (corruption, etc.)
• Various learning methods from innate powers to difficult research
• Generated skills and attributes to support diverse magic systems
• Ongoing supernatural involvement with sites
• Site afflicted with curse
• Might be lifted through player action
• Nested conspiracies and disasters might require an investigation or difficult decision
• Seeking guidance from the wise
• Artifact can cause or cure curses/effects by existence or position or ritual etc.
• Site living in harmony with nature spirits, fairies, ancestral ghosts, angels, etc.
• The player or others might disrupt this situation
• Elves more strongly linked to fairies/nature spirits, related conflicts and quests
• Bogeyman, night trolls and others generalized, respecting myths
• Various ways to get supernatural companions as an adventurer
• Magical beings infiltrating and corrupting society, beyond vampires
• Countering this with inquisitions etc.
• Stored artifacts with powers can come into use (incl. heirlooms, holy relics, etc.)
• Incorporate new mythic artifacts into existing artifact quest framework
• Continue to respect any magical weather, landforms, reagents, materials etc. from myths
• Wizards
• Base, generalizing necromancer towers (if applicable)
• Site with appropriate chambers (laboratory, library, ritual, summoning, etc.)
• Apprentices and servants
• Conflict or cooperation with locals
• Research
• Develop powers which can change the world
• Discover nested structure of the inner secrets of magic and the universe
• Glimpses of the unknown, mysteries which can slowly become more clear
• Player or NPC activities as right hand or apprentice
• Benefits: magical augmentation, equipment, special companions
• Quests and tasks and duties
• Defeat opposition
• Steal artifacts/books
• Collect dangerous reagents for rituals
• Treat with rivals
• Guard master during long rituals or out-of-body periods
• Sacrificed as vessel for demons
• Smooth over problems from out-of-control summonings
• Remove an artifact from an area so a wizard can act there
• Move object from one stronghold to another
• Help/hinder bloodlines (especially if bloodline magic is present)
• Magic in the fortress
• Artifact powers that matter for the fort
• Generalize artifact moods, respecting myths
• Various magic types available in fort mode in high-magic worlds
• Invasions by magical beings beyond necromancers, creating new challenges
• Diplomacy with magical beings
• Expanded elf/nature spirit diplomacy
• Long-term magical residents and other sorts of integration
• Send a dwarf off as a wizard's apprentice
• Magical research incorporated into library system
• Fortresses meaningfully built around magical landforms
• Impact of simple divine law and other deity/religion interaction

Fortress Starting Scenarios

• Framework
• Expand framework of law, custom, rights, property and status as needed to provide a variety of scenarios
• Foundation of laws, both natural and supernatural
• Explicit standing of different citizens vs. civilization authorities
• Possible expansion of religious and family concepts to provide sufficient scenarios
• Starting scenarios
• Various possiblities that guide or govern fortress activity: frontier settlement, religious site, prison colony, mining company, military citadel, roadside inn, secondary/future palace of the monarch
• Drastic changes to migrants based on starting scenario
• Caravans/diplomatic relationships based on starting scenario
• Reclaim mechanics should be folded into this
• Generalize starting scenario relationships to every site foundation
• Hill/deep dwarves
• Ability to bring extra dwarves appropriate to the starting scenario
• Further formalize populations surrounding your fortress, in appropriate environments both above and below ground
• Relationship with surrounding dwarves
• Ability to trade/demand food in depot or similar place with surrounding dwarves

Development Lists

Below are the things we'll be working on after the ordered list has been handled. The idea for the much-neglected adventure mode is to focus on facilitating some specific roles that should be fun by themselves but especially when taken together. The named roles are for planning purposes only, not for use in the game explicitly. Dwarf mode will see a round of fan-suggested improvements as well as interaction with the upcoming adventure mode villains, raiders, etc. The lists below are unordered.

Adventurer Role: Hero

• Your followers
  • List of followers and ability to look at their information
  • Being able to take along aggrieved people for a time if you are seeking justice for them
  • Reputation with entity (see below) allowing for easier followers
  • Being able to issue orders to attack targets
    • It should depend, but orders to kill civilians, especially people they know, should result in various negative reactions, possibly including hostility and violence -- your behavior should cause these reactions as well
  • Being able to issue orders to distract and lead off targets
  • Being able to issue orders to stay at a site for general purposes (defense, caring for livestock, etc.)
    • Depending on loyalty, they should not follow unreasonable orders for long (like guarding a random wilderness location)
  • Expansion of personality system to support more value-judgment-based properties such as bravery vs. cowardice/apathy/recklessness
  • Better morale failures
  • Having your own entity name for your group if you have a high enough profile (or before that, but nobody will care)
• Capturing people alive and interrogations
  • Non-lethal fights, AI understanding the difference and the possible escalation to actual combat
  • Ability to disarm opponents
  • Ability to hold somebody and immobilize them
  • Ability to attempt to knock somebody out without killing them
  • Surrendering in the face of impossible odds, death or death threat coupled with inability to escape or win
  • Being able to ask people for the specific location of another person or place
  • Allowing people to lie
  • Ability to offer quick deaths to mortally wounded people to get them to talk
  • Being able to force a prisoner to guide you somewhere
  • Other interrogation stuff
  • Making sure tracking works to the point that you could follow a released prisoner or other group back to a hideout
• Breaking into fortified locations
  • Having locations alerted, being able to yell for help
  • Disguises and impersonation through use of entity uniforms
  • Closed doors and passwords
  • Sneaking mechanics
    • Making hiding impossible in wide open areas (at least in adv mode)
    • Vision arcs for patrolling guards
  • Gagging people and tying them up
  • Allowing constructions to burn, use of kindling/hay/etc. where reasonable
  • Responding properly to personal fire issues (all modes)
  • Fleeing burning buildings
  • Fighting fire (all modes)
  • Designation to set item or tile on fire in dwarf mode
• Reputation
  • Reputation with entity populations, site governments, families and individuals
    • Increases with heroic acts but can rise out of stranger status just by going to markets etc.
  • Townspeople fractured among various overlapping allegiances to lords/villains/etc.
  • People offering free goods to heroes
  • Being called out by others if you are famous or a stranger in town
  • Revenge from villains/relatives/superiors of people you have killed or troubled (likely through tracking you down, see Thief role)
• Combat flow
  • Aimed attacks
  • Random "opportunities" that increase/decrease the efficacy of all aimed/specific moves as combat progresses
  • Reaction moments and controllable counter-strikes/movement chances
  • Notion of stance/guard, with varying bonuses/penalties
  • Ability to jump up on and ride opponents if they are large enough (can happen to you too of course)
  • Not being able to hit a giant in the head, hitting a dragon in the head as a reaction when it attempts to bite
  • Notion of overall wrestling position (who is on top of or controlling whom, etc.)
• Combat styles
  • Combat styles involving weapons or natural attacks with associated stances and moves
  • Ability to learn moves, etc. from others with whom you have a high enough reputation
  • Certain moves may only be available as specific counters, while others might just be regular attacks
  • Ability to create new moves/styles when highly skilled
• Better megabeasts
  • Variety and randomization within constraints (e.g. various dragons)
  • Reproduction
  • Share any intelligent/diplomacy behavior that other hist figs have when appropriate

Adventurer Role: Thief

• Valuables and mansions
  • Towns with large entity populations should have sections/quarters with varying residence quality etc.
  • Mansions/villas out of the way as well
  • Many high quality dwarf mode style items in these places
  • Guards, servants and watch animals/pets associated to the owner wandering the premises
  • Inns associated to roads and entity pop sprawl where you can stay and get information about the surroundings
  • Overhearing conversations as you move about town
• Selling stolen property
  • Unscrupulous people in markets and others willing to take stolen goods
• Sneaking and disguise portions of the Hero role above are required
• Bounties and being hunted
  • No automatic recognition that you have stolen an item
  • People should notice when items are missing and raise an alert
  • Strangers found around town when crime is suspected should be stopped and searched
  • Your identity/appearance should be remembered for a time if you are seen in an area
  • If your identity/appearance is associated to an alert over a crime, somebody responsible in the entity should put a bounty on you if appropriate for the entity
  • You should leave tracking information and it should keep track of the last many people you have talked to
  • Entity warriors and other adventurers should follow your tracking information
  • Villains/raiders/etc. from the Hero role should also receive bounties that you can fulfill
• Justice
  • Surrender to those seeking you
    • You have to follow orders to remain in surrendered state (generally to go to a location or drop your weapon)
    • When you make a command that follows an order, there should be an option to skip ahead to stages of the journey (such as to a dungeon or halfway through the journey back if you want to attempt to escape from your captor)
    • If you leave the surrendered state, you should be attacked until you surrender again, though force should not necessarily be lethal immediately
  • Punishment
    • Initial beatings
    • Cutting off some small body part
    • Branding (requires wounds to support art image from crafts)
    • Stocks, buried to neck, tied to post
    • Caned, whipped, hammered
    • Executions
    • Imprisonment (until there are ways to escape, might as well retire the character, at which point rescue might be possible by a subsequent character)
• Concealing your identity
  • Being able to assume a different name
  • Changing your clothes should affect the appearance tracking
  • Covering your face/hair with hoods, masks, etc. should affect appearance tracking
  • Skills for changing voice and mannerisms convincingly
    • If you screw up, you can be regarded as a suspicious stranger, which is worse than being a regular stranger

Adventurer Role: Treasure Hunter

• Adventure sites
  • Non-town sites need to created and used for various purposes in world generation (prisons, tombs, temples, mines, castles, etc.)
  • These places should often fall into disuse (or not be active entity pop locations, as with a tomb)
  • Old abandoned structures can be partially buried in available soil layers
  • Sites should contain any appropriate items to their (possibly former) purpose
  • World gen should utilize defunct sites and get them new inhabitants
    • Underground monsters
    • Villains/bandits/etc. hideouts
    • Outdoor creatures
    • Megabeasts
    • Night creatures (see below)
    • Regular entity sprawl/migrants near surface
  • Existing town-style sites should be updated as possible (dwarf fortresses, etc.)
• Movement
  • Improved swimming (holding breath, currents, etc.)
  • Ability to climb in adv mode
  • Ability to jump in adv mode
• Lighting
  • Proper environmental lighting
  • Construction and use of torches
  • Candles/lamps/lanterns
• Traps
  • Whatever comes out of mechanics (below) should occur in the sites you explore to the extent that the traps can be detected and surpassed
• Writing
  • Phrase storage and grammar updates
  • Have books around that can contain maps/locations/names/traps/purpose/artifacts of older sites
    • Sometimes you might just have a name and know an artifact is there, and then be able to cross-reference that in the next source you find until you feel you are prepared
  • Some sites might contain additional tomes/tablets/inscriptions that lead to more information

Adventurer Role: Slayer of Night Creatures

• Night creatures and the undead
  • Replace skeletons and zombies with generalized generated types of creature corruption/undeath etc.
  • Causes -- existing from the beginning, death circumstances, being cursed, focusing on specific historical figures at first
  • Goals, if any, as individuals, even if it is murdering or mutilating wayfarers in the woods
  • Weaknesses, restrictions on movement, other limitations
  • Nicknames for them that are used by the villagers
• Torment the living
  • Night creatures must act out their goals during play
    • Villagers should react using the same systems as with villains or player thieves, so that you can overhear conversations or use bounty-type systems
  • Some victims can end up drained as subvillains or slaves in the same way a bandit leader has subordinates
  • Stranger/thief tracking systems could be used to generate some paranoia surrounding night creatures with a human/etc. appearance or that utilize human/etc. slaves
  • Diseases/plagues could be included as indirect torments, as well as famine once site resources can be assailed
• Hunting them down
  • Sometimes they are trackable through methods above, sometimes there are special signs
  • Killing them might ultimately require burying or burning a body, etc.
  • Religious or other groups might be able to tell you how to defeat or protect yourself from a night creature and support you with supplies if you can provide reports of its activity/victims etc.
• Curses and exposure
  • Can be cursed by night creatures when you put them down
  • The slaves of night creatures could have extreme effects from proximity that also affect you if you make a business of hunting them

Adventurer Role: Explorer

• Mapping and obstacles
  • It should be possible to optionally hide sections of the map during world generation
  • Store region names by entity, not all places would have names, ability to give names to the regions/rivers/peaks etc. that you discover
  • Should not be able to cross every river square from travel map unless there's a bridge
  • Fording rivers
  • Ferries
  • Ports and boats (even if they are just used to teleport to other ports at first)
• Lands and beastiary
  • More overland map features and local variations
  • Scrap good/evil lands for lands with more variety
  • Randomized critters in other categories (vermin, roaming creatures, soil critters, plants, etc.), naming them
  • Being able to look at a list of all known creatures you've seen and where
• First contact
  • If you are exotic enough, leader might be interested in speaking to you even if you are a stranger
  • Might be able to exchange gifts between civ leaders and accept and give gifts yourself
• Animal people and other protectors
  • Being tracked and hunted if you kill creatures in places you shouldn't
• Scouting and rewards
  • Tracking information about new locations and being able to share it with civ leaders

Adventurer Role: Trader

• Site resources
  • Track resources in quantity instead of just by type
  • Should depend on trade/tribute relationships as well as available professions and sprawl sites
  • Villager/farmer schedules/activities
  • Work with 3D mineral veins, mine maps and other industrial sites
• World economy
  • Supply/demand based on current available entity resources etc.
  • Expand on trade/tribute relationships formed in world generation
  • Realize trade/tribute relationships with actual caravans moving on the map
  • Ability to get some supply/demand information about nearby locations from travelers and others
  • Ability to get that information yourself and trade it to merchants, especially as explorer
  • Replace dwarf mode generated caravans with actual caravans
  • Improved dwarf mode trade agreements incorporating all the world gen/supply/demand/merchant info etc.
  • Fairs
• Ability to lead a trade caravan
  • Ability to load stuff onto pack mules
  • Ability to hire bodyguards
  • Wagon/wagon teams (might do some teleportation travel with them to avoid annoyances for now)
  • Being able to trade from wagons, large markets might have people to move objects more quickly
• Mansions for sale
  • Renting/buying cottages and other properties
  • Might have to get information about struggling nobles
• Court
  • Attaining a certain level of wealth and property should help with access to powerful people, though we have yet to decide what if anything this will grant you in the short term

Basic Adventure Mode Skills

• Some survival skills
  • Ability to butcher corpses with an appropriate tool
  • Ability to make clothing and some other objects from hides
  • Ability to obtain a sharp (or at least non-smooth) edge on a rock
  • Extend adv mode starvation/dehydration times to appropriate number of days
• Wood use
  • Ground debris/sticks/underbrush
  • Ability to chop down tree using appropriate tool
  • Ability to make simple wooden weapons and ammunition
  • Ability to use logs to make constructions
  • Site recognition for saving adventurer-made sites
  • Ability to name site
• Digging and stone constructions
  • Ability to dig out soil tiles
  • Buried boulders in some soils
  • Ability to pull up surface boulders
  • Ability to make rough stone constructions
• Hunting/tracking animals
  • Everybody leaving trails of information that can be tracked with the appropriate skill
  • Trails generated for offscreen animals
  • Ability for animals to flee into offloaded areas and have some information maintained briefly
  • Ability to track blood from wounded partially offloaded animals
  • Ability to find bodies of wounded partially offloaded animals, which could also be slowed by wounds
  • Ability to search for trail information from travel mode
  • Having it point out animals you happen upon and perhaps some auto-sneak settings for those events
  • Make sneak status clear to player
  • Better overall wilderness population tracking and regeneration
• Entity populations
  • Track larger entity populations during world generation
  • Update site storage to account for a variety of sprawl
• Growing crops
  • Ability to till tile (faster with tool)
  • Ability to plant seeds
  • Ability to pass time quickly (unlike current sleep command)
  • Ability to harvest plants
  • Ability to make a quern from a boulder
  • Ability to grind grindable plants (designating any proper container for products)
  • Ability to cook and appropriate tools for this
• Raising livestock
  • Farms associated to entity population sprawl
  • Ability to buy a livestock animal and lead it around
  • Keep track of your animals as with hunted animals so they are not easily and permanently lost
  • Ability to build fences (more than one fence tile per tree used, as opposed to wall)
  • Ability to perform decisive attacks on unsuspecting or heavily injured opponent (a cow being slaughtered, for instance)
  • Tracking livestock breeding/pregnancy information
  • Grazing and drinking for livestock
  • Eggs, chickens and associated objects
• Markets
  • Small markets associated to entity population villages
  • Markets need to replenish goods and manage ownership changes

Hauling Improvements

• Being able to haul multiple objects
• Having multiple dwarves involved with item hauling for a job
• Wheelbarrows
• Minecarts
  • Wooden, stone-carved and metal tracks
  • Can be filled like stockpiles and moved between destinations
• Work animals to tow carts and haul objects

Improved Mechanics

• Better traps
  • Stone traps should require the stone be placed above the tile that is targeted
  • Stones should be able to roll (perhaps if they are started from or land on a ramp tile)
  • Weapon traps should be multi-tile and require a spring or other potential energy source -- automatic resetting should require some explicit establishment of a feasible mechanism
• Large pipe sections -- walk on them or crawl inside them, allow passage for fluids
• Moving fortress sections (lifts, crushing traps, etc.)
• Waterproof axles through some mechanism
• Rock grinders? Fans? We'll do some other machines around this time -- whichever feasible ones are the most entertaining for dwarves and treasure hunters

Farming Improvements

• Soil moisture tracking and ability to moisten soil (buckets or other irrigation)
• Soil nutrient requirements for plants and nutrient tracking to the extent the farming interface can provide decent feedback for you, fertilizers can reflect this
• Harvestable flowers and fruit growing on plants, ability to plant trees
• Weeds
• More pests

Fortress Subgroups

• Skilled dwarves should form guilds
• Dwarves with similar religious views should formally associate at times
• Guilds and sects should be able to make demands for meeting halls, temples, specific furniture or the resources and time to prepare their own furniture, statues of specific gods throughout the fortress, etc.
• Dwarves that have grudges or personal altercations should be able to drag their groups into it
• Removal of guild dwarves from their professions should result in trouble between the guild and the currently appointed manager/leader
• Various benefits to having a well developed guild or sect are under consideration

Military

• Army improvements
  • Make armies/beasts that attack fortress come from actual groups moving on world map
  • Ability to fight other armies with your dwarven armies
    • Larger armies should spread over multiple mid-level map squares
    • Ability to create fortifications/lines/etc. instead of spreading haphazardly
    • There are complications to be worked out if you can zoom in to battles and control them at the local level, concerning what happens to your fortress
    • If you can zoom in, situations like being surrounded need to be respected and have the desired results regardless of what area is zoomed in on
  • Allow villains to attempt to demand tribute from you
• Improved sieges
  • Eliminate remaining edge-of-map exploits
  • More highly trained attacking soldiers when appropriate
  • Many trap exploits are handled above by requiring more to produce a trap, things like cage traps should make more sense vs. large creatures etc. (respect strength/ability vs. material, large cages might be separate object)
  • Coming up with a plan to overcome pathing obstacles to reach fortress innards
    • Ability to dig (optionally, default on)
    • Ability to build bridges/ramps
    • Ability to use grappling hooks/ladders/climb
  • Learning from mistakes if first attempted assault plan fails badly
    • For instance, if many siegers are killed, caged, etc. in a given hallway, they shouldn't generally go that way again, even if that means building/climbing/digging
  • Siege engine improvements depend on state of boats, lifts/moving fortress sections, since these should all use the same framework

Inns, taverns, temples and libraries

• In the Fortress
• Lay out the basic rooms/furniture in several associated zones
• Fortress guests include merchants, diplomats, adventurers, mercenaries, bandits, travelers, etc.
• Your dwarves can also visit
• Extra interactions with certain guests, including the ability to hire them
• Musical instrument use, dancing, storytelling, etc.
• Dwarves perform related jobs, serving and otherwise entertaining guests
• Set prices/activities
• Recipes/drink quality
• Games
• Dwarves can gamble with outsiders
• Ability to play games directly if a dwarf is involved
• Rooms rentable to outsiders
• Fortress's reputation as inn/tavern tracked
• Tie-ins with fortress justice if things go badly
• Detailed art forms (poetry, music, dancing)
• Randomly generated musical instruments
• Innovation system for discoveries
• Books and scrolls
• Temple locations with prayer activities
• Adventure mode
• Update town taverns to the new layout
• Inns in some towns and on roads, with rooms available for the player
• Food and drink service for the player and others
• New fort activities like songs and dancing in adv mode taverns
• Games to play and player gambling

Improvements to Artifacts

• World generation preliminaries
• Worldgen fortress artifacts
• Worldgen named weapons/armor for heroes
• Worldgen holy relics
• Various claims and ownership types for artifacts (heirloom, entity symbol, etc.)
• Conflict over competing artifact claims
• Conflict can be resolved/ties deepened with artifact gifts
• Worldgen invaders loot artifacts
• Worldgen thieves directed toward new artifacts
• Some worldgen megabeasts seize new artifacts
• Background changes
• Site maps vs. artifacts
• All sites should understand how artifacts can be stored
• Based on entity, balance desire to display with guards/traps/etc.
• Handle kobold site maps
• Some buildings/items used to display artifacts (all modes)
• Knowledge/rumors for artifact locations/possessors
• Artifact quests and agents
• Quest to retrieve, steal or otherwise obtain artifact for somebody
• Quests can be taken by player adventurer or other characters
• Support for the journey
• Ability to present artifact (quest or not)
• Recognition of where artifact is placed by player and others
• Artifacts as rewards for quests
• Fortress artifact interactions
• Player's fort mode artifacts can be the target of artifact quests
• Invaders can demand artifacts and leave with them
• Ability to send a squad off the map to fetch a stolen artifact
• Handle the squad's tale upon return or rumors if the squad is delayed or doesn't survive