ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Two of my favorite games.

But I wanted to point out some things.

First, I'm really disappointed right now in DF development, and really excited about T4. I understand that DF is a dramatically more complicated game, especially in its ambitions. An entire land region, flora, fauna, food, drink, crafts, metalworking, growing, fighting, beasts, weather, underground, water flow, dwarf jobs and roles and interactions, contant pathing and priority issues, body parts structure, material strengths and weights, temperatures and melting, clothing for each body part, personal attitudes and relationships, diseases, ghosts, nobles and laws and justice, civilizations, all coming together. Truly extraordinary. But the level of bugginess, and the extreme slowness of progress to adding even simple corrections, and the somewhat small scale of current improvements (adding honey?), along with the fact that almost every interesting addition to the overall structure (like caravans and armies) seems indefinitely far off, makes it hard to keep playing after you've done the basic stuff.

T4 is moving very, very quickly. You can see significant changes, bug fixes, added content, and so forth every couple of weeks. I think some of this is due to it being open source, and the help of yufra, grey, edge, sus, greycat, and others. But it's still my impression that Dark God does the lion's lion's share. I don't think anyone's ever really tried what T4 does with a roguelike--adding such excellent graphics, party dynamics, and engine-game modularity. Even with the currently much greater depth of DF, I think T4 is on its way to being a really unique game.

Second, I was wondering if there is any value to thinking about potential overlap between DF and T4. DF right now has fortress and adventure mode, and they're a little awkwardly integrated, but interesting counterparts. Is there anything T4 can do to get some sort of civilizational or social structure? I'm not suggesting that this be a primary focus of T4--just that it can be a side interest for people who want to use it.

I think the most promising thing to add is the army arc. With the new T4 party mechanics (and future improvements), it should be possible to have a number of armies on the world map, just like happens now in the East, but with some player control, and with greater strategic importance. Each army unit could take up a square, and consist of sub-units, which are just soldiers, archers, etc. The player can move the units around to protect areas, and the @ is itself a unit, with perhaps some attached allies. When units collide, the result can be either determined silently, or the player can zoom to the battlefield (just like in ambushes now), and have some control over the battle.

This could make the entire Eastern good-guy fight with the orcs very interesting, more than just wandering forces. It could give a real geography to the map, as areas near the orc HQs would be more protected by orc armies, and one needs to control good-guy armies to penetrate. A deeper connection with DF-type mechanics could also involve the guarding of movements between good-guy cities, and the capturing and development of places for resources, etc. I am not sure what sourt of DF-type mechanics can be developed past this. I like the idea of fortresses. I do wish there could be a more 3D element in a roguelike, rather than just sparsely located stairs, but it takes something like DF's somewhat awkward views of single z-slices to get this, and I'm not sure how a roguelike could do that.

Just curious if anyone else has thought of any overlaps between T4 and DF.

Interesting ideas. What you are suggesting would add a lot of depth to the main campaign. If anyone knows how to code it ofc ^_^.

I think part of TOME's charm, and part of how quickly DarkGod can update it, is because of its simplicity. It's quite the opposite of DF in many ways, eschewing needless complexity in favour of a more enjoyable gameplay experience.

Not to say what you suggest can't be done, perhaps as a module or campaign, I just personally think it's inappropriate for the game, and could distract time from the more important stuff. Perhaps you should try learning a little Lua and experimenting a bit yourself? Coding can be fun and rewarding, and isn't as daunting a challenge as it appears.

Instead of assimilating DF features I'd prefer more complex faction system, but TOME already on that way with magic-antimagic opposition. What I'd like to see is advancement in rank in corresponding faction, with some rank benefits(followers?), and some power jockeying - betrayal of faction, removing rivals on your side(for "bad"), or uncovering conspiracies (for "good")

now that I think of it, tome has more in common with battle of wesnoth, as I like to think of both as turn based strategy.

If this sort of thing interest you enough, make a mod for it. If the mod works well enough, people will play it and enjoy it (go you!) and if it's simple and straightforward enough, ideas from it might eventually be added back into TOME.

I think I've figured out the relevant part of what I like about DF. It was partly because of Marvalis' pointing out that T4 would work well as an engine for something like Wesnoth, and realizing that that wouldn't satisfy me. (The discussion of these issues, and not necessarily jumping into coding, was what I was thinking about...which is why sometimes the "why don't you just code it up?" replies aren't always that helpful.)

I like the particular part of DF which gives infinite replay value: the completely randomly generated world and civilizations. I know this has been pointed out before, but I am just reinventing it, as now I see why it would be so neat in T4. Now that we have left behind Tolkien, I think making a new world map each time, and adding civs, would be spectacular. I love reading legends in DF: seeing how civs grew and fell, and the heroes of each, etc.

How about this:

1. Make a new random West topographical world subject to constraints.
1a. Bree must be central, and three first dungeons must each be within ten world steps.
1b. Edge of world must be water or otherwise impassable.
2. Initialize with 4 to 10 civilizations. Make four the preset civs: iron throne, halflings, wood elves, shaloren high elves, or whatever. Make their bases at least a little way apart, but don't insist on much.
2a. Add other semi-civs which have bases, like snow giants, undead-type civ which is led by the master, etc. (Or, let a civ which dies come back as undead, led by master.)
2b. Run these civilizations forward for a while, to see interactions. If an important civ is in danger of dying out, push it back into its home base, and make it temporarily invincible or invisible (Gondolin style) so it doesn't disappear.
2c. "Running forward" includes making outposts, roads, etc. It also includes megabeasts which can roam about, find caves or abandoned castles to live in, etc.
3. Within the respective spheres of influence of these civs, plant their ruins or other T4 important dungeons (the ruined halfling complex, elven catacombs, etc).
4. Put other T4 important dungeons randomly about. This includes any semi-civs which died out, like snow giants and Daikara, as well as finding or making a sandy area for the sand tunnels. Make sure all areas are available to the player, even if invisible.
5. Print out a single page of information, listing civilizations, their three major figures (who might now be uniques), whether the civ died, who it is at war with, where it is now located (so the player can find it easier). This page is available always to the player, like the quest screen.
6. Tell the player to go!

The end result would be functionally similar to the current map of the west. (The east could stay the same, or be similarly generated.) But it would also include extra civilizations which have been randomly generated. Eg the Farruqars, who are tall humanoids with ice spell capacities, and live in area X. This gives some extra dungeons, one or two per civ, and the chance to kill whatever uniques lead that civ. There could also be artifacts running through this history. If a civ like the iron throne or equivalent is winning during history, its armor and weapons could be bumped up by 10%; and if a civ is weak it could be made weaker. Everything would be within reasonable parameters, but you might find some games harder or easier because of the way history played out.

The overarching spellblaze issue could still run through this. Or, the main purpose could be generated from the history of the civs--there could be an especially evil civ, etc, led by a powerful beasty which needs destroying.

If the generator was powerful enough, this would be a rich new world each time to play through. It would avoid ADOM's limited replayability issues (it substitutes multiple ways of winning for world variation). It would avoid DF's adventure mode's very very unfinished status.

I'll think about this some more...