Allowed Area and Cannibilism suggestions

[dwmitch]

I bought the game about a week ago and a few days in decided to try a "Jamestown experiment" (colony nearly failed with communal food production, thrived when all families maintained their own farms). Previously everything had been communal. Communal farm, communal barracks, communal kitchen, etc. I made a house for each colonist consisting of a kitchen, a bedroom, and a fenced in roofless 4 x 4 farm plot. If there was someone incapable of growing and/or cooking (as in couldn't be assigned, not 0 skill) they'd end up with a housemate to take care of that. Then to keep everyone from raiding each others' farms and food stocks I made an allowable area for each household that consisted of the entire map except for other colonists' houses (unrestricting the doctor as necessity dictated). I did have to keep the freezer/butcher shed communal, otherwise the hunters would be the only ones who ate between harvests.

It worked great. I actually had an easier time keeping everyone fed under this model than I did with one large field and a communal kitchen/food stockpile. I ran into problems, however, when my colony grew beyond what I could zone. The restricted colonists essentially became a bunch of Ned Flanders in a world of Homer Simpsons. Even though the new colonists (that I couldn't restrict to their own houses) grew and cooked their own food the others still ended up starving because the newcomers would keep raiding the stockpiles. I eventually had to unrestrict everyone and go back to a communal model.

I feel that increasing the cap on allowable areas would make everything a lot easier. Not only in assigning private property, which is what I'd like to use it for, but for numerous other things like personal workspaces, keeping colonists who constantly fight apart, etc. without worrying about not being able to assign a panic room for nonviolent colonists during raids.

Also, the current implementation of cannibalism doesn't make much sense, the mood debuff in particular. Once everyone heals up I decide who I'm going to recruit and if there are no fatalities, lost limbs, and they didn't set fire to the crops I release the ones I don't want. If a colonist dies, either directly or as a result of infection, someone loses a limb, or they burned my crops I tend to be very brutal, executing everyone involved in the raid. I don't like sending colonists to the edges of the map just to bury them (or give up real estate to bury them closer), they're not worthy of being buried among the sarcophagi reserved for the colony, so cannibalism seems to be the logical solution.

However, everyone seems to know when they've eaten human meat. I don't know if there's a line of sight mechanic, but someone who has never knowingly tasted human meat shouldn't know that they've eaten human meat unless they butchered and cooked it, witnessed the butchering, or at least saw the cook dragging the corpse into the freezer/butcher shed. Paul shouldn't come out of a deep mine for a meal and immediately know that he engaged in cannibalism since he wasn't around to see the deed. I guess it could be explained as the cook saying "by the way, that burger you're eating was that ugly naked guy with the molotovs. Tomorrow we'll be having the old woman that killed Kevin and cut out your eye," but who would do that other than a psychopath? Most people would just let everyone not already in the know assume that the unfamiliar meat was something that's rarely hunted (at least in my games) such as cougars or grizzlies.

So my second suggestion is to make the raw/cooked cannibalism debuffs dependent on proximity and/or witnesses.

[Aarkreinsil]

It's just like with the guards in Skyrim/Oblivion. They share a hive mind that immediately tells them if someone on the map commits an atrocity. Not just with cannibalism but also if someone's organ has been harvested etc.
Not only that, but the guy who butchered the corpses or sold someone into slavery actually gets a relationship hit with everyone else in the colony.
They're all basically like this here:

[AllenWL]

So all our colonists are jedi-in-training?

Though, having individual houses for each colonist seems like a interesting idea. How many zones can you make anyways? I tend to play with under 10 people, and I'd like to try this out.

Also, for your problem you could have split up one household and absorbed them into other households(possibly by pairing up couples), then used the leftover zone to make a large 'communal home' and put all the other recruits in there.

[dwmitch]

Though, having individual houses for each colonist seems like a interesting idea. How many zones can you make anyways? I tend to play with under 10 people, and I'd like to try this out.

Also, for your problem you could have split up one household and absorbed them into other households(possibly by pairing up couples), then used the leftover zone to make a large 'communal home' and put all the other recruits in there.

I think you can have 5 or 6 allowable areas. I think the limit's the same on animal areas, though I only make one that covers the whole map and punch holes in it to prevent my pet from raiding the stockpile and, with quite a bit of micromanagement when herds/packs migrate, when I start off with a warg to keep it away from the exploding critters so I've never tested the limit on it.

I highly recommend private property if you can work out how to keep the last 4 or 5 from starving out your first 5 or 6. As long as everyone keeps to their own stockpile it's much easier to keep everyone fed. Even if you create a communal farm big enough to have a 4 x 4 section for each colonist it's still easier when it's privatized.

I think I may try your idea of larger households since I, too, tend to play with small colonies (not by choice, however, as I can usually only capture the first raid and the rest either die in battle or from infection before they can be converted). In the past people only lived together if they were lovers or higher, if they were family (siblings or parent/child), or if someone couldn't grow or cook. After I lose my current game (reverted to my Dwarf Fortress ways so it's a mountain base, which tends to force a commune type setup) I might start a new one where the first three get a house together with a 12 x 4 farm, the next three get a house together, etc.

[cultist]

I don't like sending colonists to the edges of the map just to bury them (or give up real estate to bury them closer), they're not worthy of being buried among the sarcophagi reserved for the colony, so cannibalism seems to be the logical solution.

Er... you know you can research a crematorium for burning corpses right?

[dwmitch]

Er... you know you can research a crematorium for burning corpses right?

I know, but I rarely have the electricity to run it. I'm a rather thick shelled turtle, meaning if I can't plant in a spot and it's not going to be part of a building I put a turret there. Since my colonists often have to leave the village proper I avoid a walled town setup so they can have direct paths and to compensate the place is filled with turrets on all sides. I don't like shutting them off to redirect the power because I'm worried that I'll forget to enable them again when I have a raid. Power plants on all geysers and an array of 12 fueled generators give me enough power to run an electric stove, a smelter, a high tech workbench, and the gear necessary for hydroponics if I don't have a year round growing season with the rest going to turrets. Quite often I have to build additional fueled generators to handle adding new turrets.