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[Argantyr]

This is more of a vague idea than anything else so hear me out on this, Considering all the ground being covered with minor factions such as village leaders, banditry, and so forth I was toying with the idea that elements typically used by entity files were actually incorporated with the races themselves. Things like the ability to form groups (Everything from troops of baboons to nomadic tribes and more) was contained within the race/creature entry. As we know, some creatures have skill and personality ranges attached to them so could there not be some sort of way for the system to take any intelligence ranges and build up pre-gen entity groups that would spawn and sequentially exist to eventually form full-fledged entities of their own when a sufficiently strong leader establishes some meaningful hold on the land (such as holding a major village/city).

Furthermore, could entity ethics be instead based on ruling leader/elite preference based on their own likes/dislikes which would mean that potentially every dwarf, human, elf, goblin entity could form adversely enough that it would create war between two factions of the same race. Of course, in forming laws/edicts that contradict what a majority of peasants think might cause more problem when they form some form of rebellion faction and honestly everything I'm suggesting right now might even be planned rendering some of these sentiments null and void. As the game is now, however, I simply think there is just so much more potential for chaos and I love how the future looks for this game.

[GoblinCookie]

This is kind of dubious historical theory we are applying here.

What you seem to be saying is that entities values are first created ex-nihilo by great men and then these great men then create entities based upon these created values. 

[AceSV]

Well it makes sense for a historical leader to make laws based on their own values and then for the civilization to follow the rules set forth by the original leader.  Confucius, Mohammed, Odin, etc are considered the ideal rulers from their respective cultures.  More recent figures like George Washington or Ieyasu Tokugawa created nations based on their own ideals. 

However, as a game, I'm not completely comfortable giving the keys to the entity car over to the computer's RNG.  I would miss having the ability to jump into the raws and fine tune a civilization to be exactly what I want. 

[GoblinCookie]

Well it makes sense for a historical leader to make laws based on their own values and then for the civilization to follow the rules set forth by the original leader.  Confucius, Mohammed, Odin, etc are considered the ideal rulers from their respective cultures.  More recent figures like George Washington or Ieyasu Tokugawa created nations based on their own ideals. 

However, as a game, I'm not completely comfortable giving the keys to the entity car over to the computer's RNG.  I would miss having the ability to jump into the raws and fine tune a civilization to be exactly what I want.

Yes it does make sense for them to have an influence.  It does not make sense however for them to be able to conjure up entities/nations based upon nothing else but their own personal views on things.  George Washington and Ieyasu Tojugawa may have an influence on the development of America and Japan but neither of them were able to simply invent nations, the nations instead can equally be said to have invented them (hence Odin in your post, who is not exactly a historical person).  Mechanically however, trying to figure out how to realistically have ethics/values change over time based upon the agency of individuals is pretty hard to figure out and inherantly politically charged.

Thing is that individual rulers cannot simply dictate their values to the people, most of the time they are either rulers because they happen to share the existing values of the people somewhat or they have to conceal their divergant views in order to become/remain rulers.  At the same time it is clear that change cannot simply come from 'the people' because the majority of people invariably agree with the majority view on a topic there is no reason why the majority view would ever change.  The main problem with the present setup is that while particular individuals have fixed divergence from the ethics of their civilization on a few points, there is no representation of the difference between fixed and malleable views which is essential if this is to work.

An individual has a number of fixed views, which may or may not correspond to the present civilization consensus and on all other views he automatically agrees with his civilization.  We take all historical characters fixed views and we periodically adjust the values of the whole civilization towards the average of all historical characters with fixed views on a given subject.  We also weight all position holders with [LAW_MAKING] token by making them count as the total number of historical characters that belong to their government, irrespective of whether they agree with them.  Rulers of more populous sites have more influence and civ-level rulers have more influence than site level rulers.

The question is how to manage rebellions (higher level positions being removed by subordinates) and purges (subordinates being removed by ordinates for ideological reasons) in this system.  The way I would do that is to have the value adjustment happen gradually over a random period of uncertainty to it's new value.  During this period we test all the holders of [LAW_MAKING] positions against the present value, those who have fixed opinions on a subject that is being adjusted opposed to the present 'way things are going' are at risk of being overthrown.  For a rebellion to happen there must be a historical character belonging to their government that agrees with the new values more than they do, for a rebellion to fail there must be a historical character belonging to their government that also disagrees with the 'way things are going'.  The more rebels there are vs loyalists the greater the chance of the rebellions succeeding, if the rebellion suceeds then one of the rebel historical characters siezes the office and all existing positions appointed by that office are voided.  If the rebellion fails then the historical characters in question get punished (or not) according to their societies ethics on treason. 

Purges are simpler.  If the holder of an appointed office holds a fixed value that disagrees with the appointing office holders values, fixed or otherwise then they can get dismissed from office and replaced with someone that agrees with the appointers values, if one if available.  This can happen at any time, unlike with rebellions which can only happen if values are presently shifting, but when things are fixed then a purge cannot happen unless the ruler has a fixed value opposed to that of the holder of the appointed office. 

[AceSV]

I guess to me, that's all irrelevant.  The Random Number Gods create historical figures, thus if historical figures create or influence civs, the RNGs create or influence civs.  The player is not involved in politics, so even if the RNGs leave a trail of bread crumbs explaining how a civilization has diverted from the raws, it's still going to feel completely random to the player. 

It could be more relevant if the civs are allowed to change over history.  A game with short history could have civs that are identical to the raws, while a long history game would have more deviation and more splinter civs that could even be at war over ideological differences. 



Actually, I'm not completely opposed to having civs with randomized features, like extra human civs or animal people civs, but I think it would be madness to have to ask yourself, does my civ consider chopping trees to be murder? every time you start a new world, or if civs can change within a fortress' lifespan, you might have to ask yourself that question in the middle of playing. 

[GoblinCookie]

I guess to me, that's all irrelevant.  The Random Number Gods create historical figures, thus if historical figures create or influence civs, the RNGs create or influence civs.  The player is not involved in politics, so even if the RNGs leave a trail of bread crumbs explaining how a civilization has diverted from the raws, it's still going to feel completely random to the player. 

The RNG decides all the other historical events.

Actually, I'm not completely opposed to having civs with randomized features, like extra human civs or animal people civs, but I think it would be madness to have to ask yourself, does my civ consider chopping trees to be murder? every time you start a new world, or if civs can change within a fortress' lifespan, you might have to ask yourself that question in the middle of playing.

That would not be hard given we could just look at one of our dwarves personality bios to find out what our civs values are.  As for changes within a fortress lifespan, changes happen over decades so only players who have the patience to play for decades would be affected.

It could be more relevant if the civs are allowed to change over history.  A game with short history could have civs that are identical to the raws, while a long history game would have more deviation and more splinter civs that could even be at war over ideological differences.

That is my idea, all the civs of a given entity start off with the exact same values.  Over time the values shift in an essentially random direction, but according to a process that is worked out historically.  The longer the history then the more difference there would likely be between the individual civs and the entity file. 

[vjmdhzgr]

Actually, I'm not completely opposed to having civs with randomized features, like extra human civs or animal people civs, but I think it would be madness to have to ask yourself, does my civ consider chopping trees to be murder? every time you start a new world, or if civs can change within a fortress' lifespan, you might have to ask yourself that question in the middle of playing.

I believe Toady has already added randomization to human and goblin values in the next version, though I'm not sure as to what extent. Also note I said values not ethics, those are two distinct things. Though I guess I don't remember exactly, he might have added randomization to ethics, but I don't think he did.

Actually, I'm not completely opposed to having civs with randomized features, like extra human civs or animal people civs, but I think it would be madness to have to ask yourself, does my civ consider chopping trees to be murder? every time you start a new world, or if civs can change within a fortress' lifespan, you might have to ask yourself that question in the middle of playing.

That would not be hard given we could just look at one of our dwarves personality bios to find out what our civs values are.  As for changes within a fortress lifespan, changes happen over decades so only players who have the patience to play for decades would be affected.

It could be more relevant if the civs are allowed to change over history.  A game with short history could have civs that are identical to the raws, while a long history game would have more deviation and more splinter civs that could even be at war over ideological differences.

That is my idea, all the civs of a given entity start off with the exact same values.  Over time the values shift in an essentially random direction, but according to a process that is worked out historically.  The longer the history then the more difference there would likely be between the individual civs and the entity file. 

The ethics of a civilization aren't actually displayed within a dwarf's profile, just their values, so you wouldn't be able to check. However Toady has said that once randomization and change like this get added he wants dwarves to have little randomization and cultural change due to that being a kind of dwarven thing a lot of the time, and to make it so the majority of the time players won't need to worry about their ethics being different.

I think that second idea, or something like it is planned eventually as well, though obviously for the distant future, and maybe not exactly as you'd want it. Actually, I think that's actually kind of in the next update already, though probably not fully.

Just to clarify: if a philosophical outlook becomes popular can it change civilization or individual values now? Or do they just become familiar with a value position in order to write a reply? Can a goblin civilization be won over to the value of art or ...craftsgoblinship?

(I'm not entirely sure how the quote system works this was from Alfrodo)

Yeah, they actually change.  If you can get goblins to build a library, you could change them with books, but they start out being fairly against that sort of thing.  Changing individuals after world gen doesn't spread to the entire civ and if I remember they won't build a library after w.g. is over.  So we still need a few pieces to get all the way to your scenario, I think, with movements that act on groups through speaking etc.

(Toady One in his most recent reply to the future of the fortress thread)

[GoblinCookie]

I believe Toady has already added randomization to human and goblin values in the next version, though I'm not sure as to what extent. Also note I said values not ethics, those are two distinct things. Though I guess I don't remember exactly, he might have added randomization to ethics, but I don't think he did.

I think it was only humans that get random values in the next version. 

The ethics of a civilization aren't actually displayed within a dwarf's profile, just their values, so you wouldn't be able to check. However Toady has said that once randomization and change like this get added he wants dwarves to have little randomization and cultural change due to that being a kind of dwarven thing a lot of the time, and to make it so the majority of the time players won't need to worry about their ethics being different.

I think that second idea, or something like it is planned eventually as well, though obviously for the distant future, and maybe not exactly as you'd want it. Actually, I think that's actually kind of in the next update already, though probably not fully.

Yes, however ethics are not so fundermentally different from values that they cannot be displayed, indeed the next update would benefit from it. 

Yeah, they actually change.  If you can get goblins to build a library, you could change them with books, but they start out being fairly against that sort of thing.  Changing individuals after world gen doesn't spread to the entire civ and if I remember they won't build a library after w.g. is over.  So we still need a few pieces to get all the way to your scenario, I think, with movements that act on groups through speaking etc.

I think that it is the other way around.  Books can only influence specific characters but the ethics of the whole civilization remain fixed, that means that new characters generated by the game during world-gen or play will mostly have the starting ethics.  There is no way for the civilizations values as a whole to change, so new people will always have the civ+random deviations that they have at the moments as far as values are concerned.

I don't think that literacy should be the only way that values can change.  I think that civ values should actually be decided by the civs [LAW_MAKING] positions according to their own personal beliefs and that things should happen slowly, with the posibility of that individual being deposed from office.  Literacy should work by influencing individuals towards a particular personal position at odds with the present civ orthodoxy or alternatively work to enforce that orthodoxy, depending upon the proclavities of the author.  Those individuals would then effect change, either because they already are able to do so or because they can influence a person who does effect change or deliberately replace them. 

Doing things otherwise leads to a situation where goblins do not build libraries, meaning they cannot change even to build libraries in the first place.

[vjmdhzgr]

Yeah, they actually change.  If you can get goblins to build a library, you could change them with books, but they start out being fairly against that sort of thing.  Changing individuals after world gen doesn't spread to the entire civ and if I remember they won't build a library after w.g. is over.  So we still need a few pieces to get all the way to your scenario, I think, with movements that act on groups through speaking etc.

I think that it is the other way around.  Books can only influence specific characters but the ethics of the whole civilization remain fixed, that means that new characters generated by the game during world-gen or play will mostly have the starting ethics.  There is no way for the civilizations values as a whole to change, so new people will always have the civ+random deviations that they have at the moments as far as values are concerned.

He only said that after world generation changes won't apply to the entire civ. Anyway, there probably should be more ways for values to change than just with books.

[GoblinCookie]

He only said that after world generation changes won't apply to the entire civ. Anyway, there probably should be more ways for values to change than just with books.

I know, I was however 'reading through the lines'.  I know that Toady One can fairly easily make actual characters be influenced by books but that changing the actual civ values would be a lot harder to pull off.  I know however that the civ values are set to be randomised in humans (not goblins) by the next release, but I shall probably mod all the values set at 0 to be variable or will make all values variable but set at the default amount on average depending upon how it works.

[Heretic]

Good idea... ptw. Now it's a problem than drawen qeen is gooblin, but she don't do anythink to make her kingdom more goblin-maked.

[MDFification]

This is kind of dubious historical theory we are applying here.

What you seem to be saying is that entities values are first created ex-nihilo by great men and then these great men then create entities based upon these created values.

Great man history makes for a much more compelling fantasy world, and DF is fundamentally an Epic Tale Generator. Would you really go into legends mode so you can find how a combination of socioeconomic pressures interacting with the environment shaped an entity ethics?

[Bumber]

Wouldn't a leader's ethics have to be somewhat closely in line with those of the civilization-to-be? If the rest of the group all have differing views, the leader would be ousted or the group would just disband. So, then, leaders should form civilizations by gathering those with similar enough ethics that they can be persuaded to the cause.

[AceSV]

If you're a fan of Dynasty Warriors, you know China was at one time divided into 3 Kingdoms, each with different ideals.  Cao Cao's darwinian meritocracy, Liu Bei's egalitarian utopia and the Sun family's militaristic dynasty (admittedly, that's a bit of an exaggeration, propagated by fantastical sources, like Romance of the Three Kingdoms).  The leaders attracted retainers to their cause that agreed with their ideas or liked them as people.  The heirs to these kingdoms mostly tried to live up to the ideals of their founder.  The bulk of the citizens at that time had little choice in the matter, few of them could afford to leave whatever kingdom they happened to live in.