Hello again!
The first step on the villain release this time around was to build up justice information around the artifact heist from last time. This includes several sorts of witness reports: dwarves can notice when artifacts are missing from position or when they have been moved, and they also keep track of who has been admiring artifacts in case that ends up being of use (the thieves can hesitate before snatching the item when witnesses are around, and this leads to extra admiration, so it works out.) Your sheriff or guard captain can detain and interrogate anybody regarding the crime. That is, anybody you tell them to interrogate, as sifting through witness reports and deciding on a course of action is your job.
The second part of this most recent fortnight of work took place while I was on call for jury duty, so I didn't try to start any major push where I might be called to the court house the next day. This was a good time to do some of the pre-release testing that needs to be done. The main subject was the variously-improved undead invasions that can now happen in fort mode. We've done a lot of work with undead lieutenants and experimental creature and so forth, but hadn't tested invasions, which'll be a key method of interacting with them. It was good to see the failed experiments still manage a showing, with some procedurally-generated scaly horned maggots bringing up the rear behind the typical zombies. For some reason the two lieutenants (pale ghouls in this case) were obsessed with casting pain spells on my poor horse, but they also managed to make short work of all my test civilians.
To finish dwarf mode for the villains release, the main bits we need to complete are the wider investigations and some interactions with them (for instance, villains taking revenge.) Combined with the other additions already completed, this should be good enough to move on from Classic-only releases and get to the Steam work!
Reminder: we're working on villains and investigations to finish off the material we were working on for the last DF Classic release before we transition fully over to work on Steam (the artists are already way ahead of me.) Since we completed villains in history generation, we're now focusing on adding these elements to the play modes.
- Tarn