Maintenance

[Airandius]

Scrap my idea. I like this idea better:

yea, this can only really be a cosmetic thing. but could be a visual cue to what your creatures might think of the dungeon. fortified walls don't play a role in creatures happyness does it? maybe it could be for this game and without fortified walls can increase the chance to show this visual effect. the rubble will fade over time. but it shows that the rocks are crumbling and it's really unpleasent and your creatures feel unsafe. this will only effect them in your base (your tiles)

Rubble

Rubble could fall from time to time in open spaces. This rubble would then stay on that tile.
As Dizzi said it's purely cosmetic and simply shows the state of your dungeon. (Rubble is made out of small rocks of various sizes.)

Making fortified walls will severely decrease the amount of rubble that falls.

Rubble can also be used as an actual prop in the game. If placed by a mapmaker it will be persistent.
Think about campaigns or multiplayer maps that contain abandoned dungeons and or rooms. Once the tile or room has been taken over by an imp it will start to disappear over time.

When imps have nothing to do they could also clean the rubble that has fallen. Keeping the dungeon tidy and nice.

[Dizzi]

it can be simple cosmetic stuff that effects creatures mood. i would be fine with that. atm, mood is nothing i worry about while playing. usualy can be solved pretty easly since it's usualy demands. unless it's a creature they hate, need to move them away (get them busy) or build a casino or somthing.

i dont think it needs to be more frequent in larger rooms as it being larger makes it more frequent as there are more open tile spaces.

more reason to fortify walls thats good

i assume it's cleaned by imps, right?

would claiming the tile make it clean? does it effect capture time?

[Airandius]

You are right about the room size. Would be annoying to script anyway. *removes it*

Yes it's cleaned by imps. Giving them stuff to do after your dungeon is made, all the gold is mined and all walls are fortified etc.

I think that claiming a tile should have no effect on the rubble. Mainly because I'm imagining of old abonded dungeons with partially destroyed rooms and rubble everywhere. I think that would look really neat. It should take some time to fix that old dungeon thus claiming a tile does not remove the rubble.
As for capture time, perhaps if a single tile has a high amount of rubble. Otherwise it should not be any different.

[Metal Gear Rex]

I think this is a really pointless if not annoying feature.

Pointless
You said the amount that falls is always a "light" amount, right? In a dungeon that has 200 tiles of land, what are the odds of it falling in the same spot twice? Three times? Very little, and since a small amount doesn't really do anything, it really is pointless. How often does it occur anyways? Your information is vague on its frequency. All I know is that unfortified walls make it happen twice as fast. 2X but what does X equal? I don't expect you to be able to give an exact time but there aren't even words to desribe if it is often or not so often.

If not so often, then this feature is really pointless because over the time I'm playing a single map, what are the odds this will occur twice and in the same tile?

Annoying
So my Imps must clean it up, huh? I think they have too much for them already as it is to have to pick up dirt every 3 minutes. Even if it doesn't make a pile that can annoy my other creatures very often, my Imps must take time to go and clean it up when they already have to do more important things like mine gold and such. Even if only a single Imp is needed, more Imps might head to the same spot to clean it up (DK2 AI Situation, hopefully WftO's AI is better than that)

This isn't a task like dragging unconscious/dead creatures to the Prison/Graveyard. That only happens after a Battle and you only have to worry about it for a little while. But the problem here is that this is constant throughout the game. This will be particularly annoying early game where you are too busy mining out new rooms to reinforce walls, and you have a small space to begin with. It'll be even more annoying when you're in a hurry for whatever reason (Enemy Keeper to fight, Hero Invasion map, etc).

How much priority does this job have? Too little priority and the rubble will pile up to the point where your creatures are getting annoyed because my Imps are too busy doing other tasks. Too much priority and my Imps have to stop more often to carry out this task. It'll slow my dungeon down drastically, to a very noticable level.

If this rubble falls too often, that's also another problem compared to it being pointless if it falls too infrequently. The reason it's a problem is because my creatures will be becoming annoyed very fast, and not only that, but taking damage when it falls on them. It may not sound like an often thing, but when you have it falling fairly often and 20+ creatures + Imps roaming the dungeons at all times, it's gonna happen.

The more often it occurs, the more times my Imps will be taking time to clean up some rubble from the ceiling. It will add up, and again, slow down the dungeon's progress a great deal. It sounds annoying either way its done.

Overall:
I think there are too many problems with this. There are problems of it being pointless or annoying with too little or too often an accurance. There is no "right value", because the dungeon won't always have the same amount of tiles in it. Unless the situation is perfect, this will end up being either a useless function that occasionally slows you down a bit, or become a very annoying problem you have to deal with all the time.

Some situations are worse than others, like situations where you cannot afford having too many Imps due to Mana problems. This will also be another something Map Makers are forced to take into consideration. A map like Dixaroc from Deeper Dungeons will be most annoying. Oh, and did I forget to mention how this will effect AIed Keepers?

Bad idea is bad.

[Airandius]

Details is something I wont bother because then people would complain about balance. Besides I know 0 about the game, I don't even know what rooms or monsters there are and what other mechanics are in the game. It's impossible to give better details that would be balanced. This has to be done in the game self.

It's main use will be seen in the campaign and multiplayer. There could be rooms or dungeons that could have been abandoned. These rooms will show rubble on the floor. You can take that room but if you want to use it you'll have to clean it.
At the same time when using the spell you can piss of the enemy creatures or make certain rooms unusable for some time. The enemy keeper needs to clean up the mess, giving you some more time for x or y.

Yes it falls naturally in dungeons as well. It all depends on the size and how the game works. The mapmaker might choose how often it falls, giving some maps another difficulty to deal with.
I simply can't give details like that without knowing how the game will work.

As far as I'm concerned it does not fall on one tile but a group of tiles. It could fall on 1, 2 or even 10 blocks at the same time. Depending on the size of a room and or if it's fortified properly.
Simply having categories would work.
Light quakes would have one or two tiles. These would be frequent in a map. (Because you want numbers let's say it picks a place every second.)
Medium quakes would have between two and five tiles. These would be less frequent as they drop more rubble. (Picks two areas every 10 seconds.)
Heavy quakes would have between five and ten tiles. These would be even less frequent. (Picks three areas every 20 seconds.)

[Aval]

Dungeon Keeper is already a little heavy the micromanagement for an RTS in my humble opinion. Adding more menial tasks for little reason that distract you from the actual strategy doesn't strike me as a good idea.

[Dizzi]

yea, this can only really be a cosmetic thing. but could be a visual cue to what your creatures might think of the dungeon. fortified walls don't play a role in creatures happyness does it? maybe it could be for this game and without fortified walls can increase the chance to show this visual effect. the rubble will fade over time. but it shows that the rocks are crumbling and it's really unpleasent and your creatures feel unsafe. this will only effect them in your base (your tiles)

[Airandius]

You sir are a genius. I like that idea much better.

[Aval]

Yeah okay, so long as it gets repaired indirectly, like if you fully fortify a room the magic cleans up the insides - or if it's a visual cue to the player of his creature's wellbeing (which is actually a really cool idea) then it clears itself as the keeper improves conditions in other ways. If it absolutely must be sorted directly, then the player should be able to pick it up like piles of gold and throw it away into lava or water or some out of the way place where it has no effect, and it must be really really low on the imps' priority list.

[Metal Gear Rex]

Doesn't reinforcing the walls already neccessary because you need to increase room efficiancy? Since everyone is gonna reinforce walls pretty quick, I don't see the usefulness of this idea (or rather how this idea is actually going to effect the game much)