Not necessarily. Oil wouldn't be used for any internal combustion engines or anything like that but is still useful was, in fact, used even dating back to ancient Babylon, according to available records history of petroleum. So it could be used for several purposes in this game and still be period appropriate. Possible uses for oil could be for fuel for lighting your dungeon (make this more efficient then torches), setting traps for intruders (eg soaking a tunnel in pitch and a guard shoots a fire arrow into it setting it on fire along with any trespassers caught within), or as a torchure technique used to terrorize enemies or scare a creature into serving you (ie boiling in oil). Historically, boiling oil was also used as an anti-siege weapon as well, vats of it would be poured down on attackers trying to storm the walls, with possibly a lit torch or other ignition source following it to add to the damage to the attackers.Rasmus wrote:@bit: Oil may be a little to futuristic for this game
I like this idea. I'd also add in that victories in battle would make serving you more attractive making getting and retaining creatures would be, while losses would make it tougher.Ameena wrote:Maybe you could place down some kind of "Attractor" item...ilke something that sends out a signal saying "Hey, monsters! Jobs available here!", and then monsters will show up by their own means (eg teleporting in, walking along some kind of entry corridor/digging their own, etc) but will only stick around if they feel like it. And you have to make them feel like it by providing adequate payment in the form of the things you've suggested - food (whether homegrown or corpses of enemies/your own creatures), gold, combat, some kind of workroom, etc. Obviously different creatures would have different preferences, but if whatever that particular species wants isn't there (or is there but not in sufficient quantities), they'll bugger off again and be less likely to turn up in future.
I think this could be a good way of getting certain specialized types of creatures, you attracts a spawner creature in the same way as mentioned above and keep it satisfied long enough for it to become immobilized by it's own weight and it will eventually start laying eggs/giving birth but will only do so if it's kept satisfied with whatever food type/entertainments it needs and it it gets unhappy or hungry it stops producing. Leave it hungry for too long and it will either die or get light enough to wander off (possibly to a rival) and either way you lose it.I had a vague sort of idea for a creature - something that probably needs to eat a lot and generally be kept safe, and the longer you keep this creature, the bigger and more bloated it gets, probably needing a whole room to itself while imps come in to stuff its face with food (maybe it snatches the odd imp here and there as well). Eventually, the creature is "ready" and starts spewing forth baby creatures...well, I say "baby"...they're like little goblins, or insects, or vicious imps (hey, maybe your worker imps spawn in the same way, and it's the imp spawner you must keep safe if you don't want to lose because no imps means no dungeon expansion and therefore no gold or other creatures in order for you to take over the world? ), or something else and basically serve as fighting creatures with no other goal except to charge in there and hack/bite/claw/stab things until they die or run out of things to kill. But the big blob creature has to be fed a lot and since it can't move once it gets too big, it'll basically starve to death if it can't get enough food. But you could feed it anything including corpses. So it'd be a pretty resource-heavy project, but provide you with a secondary source of disposable troops with which you could take over the area or something.
Now look, see, you've set me off now and I'm probably gonna keep thinking of stuff, lol .
I also like the idea of digging out bones. Those could be used as components for dark magic, attracting certain types of creatures, or for making undead (ie skelletons) when you have enough of them and some sort of facility for making them. Finding a graveyard/crypt could also be a sort of special resource whereby you can re-animate those interred there as undead (skelletons/zombies) and it may have valuables stored there as a source of gold or rare artifacts that grant you or one of your creatures some special power.
Rebellions: I'd also include the possibility of a rebellion from your own creatures if you don't keep them happy enough, suffer too many defeats or in some other way let them get too unhappy, or let yourself look weak enough that they think they can take you, that could be another way of losing the game. We are dealing with selfish, evil creatures here after all and loyalty and honor isn't one of aren't exactly their strong suits.