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Author Topic: 'Passive' ways to make goblins better, or rather survive longer?  (Read 1751 times)

pisskop

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I've been toying with the idea since I first started modding.  How to make them survive better without compromising their ethics or baby_snatching.

Allies are of limited use, and the one I am using right now actually gets pretty pissed at the goblins if I set them to shun eating sentients.  They assure the demise of goblins despite sharing other things, like baby_snatching (being allies).

Adding castes that are 'combat models' is quite invasive.  An early experiment was to mod in an 'orc' caste where every so often a larger, meaner goblin would be born.  That helped quite a bit, actually.

Modding in weapons and armor for them might help.  I want to add a falx, or scythe like weapon.  Ideas for armor are there too.

Increasing the fecundity helps some, but thats kind of a hack after a point.

I have all major civs set to 'slow learner'.  I dont know if removing it from the goblins only would give them a tangible edge . . .

How can I make them not so prone to their own demise?  Id rather have a 'lawful evil' entity than a Peter Pan's Captain Hook kind of concept.  Good in theory, an excellent character, but possessing the survival instincts of a rock.

--

I suppose you could also change their creature raws to include special tags, or increase attributes, but Im not sure how to feel about that.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2014, 06:42:14 pm by pisskop »
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samanato

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Re: 'Passive' ways to make goblins better, or rather survive longer?
« Reply #1 on: July 01, 2014, 09:22:52 pm »

Upgrading their material choices of weapons and armour definitely helps.  All you have to do is add the appropriate smelting reactions to their entity raws to let them get a metal of choice (steel-armoured goblins anyone?), so it's not as invasive as adding castes.

Both of those options definitely give them better survival chances in worldgen though. In the mod I'm perpetually working on, I've tried elves with "metal" weapons among other things, and the change definitely increased their numbers by quite a bit.
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Spehss _

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Re: 'Passive' ways to make goblins better, or rather survive longer?
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2014, 10:01:09 pm »

Survive longer as in survive worldgen or be tougher in fort sieges or what?

You could give goblins natural skills, like make them have a natural level of fighting or dodging or something.
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Blastbeard

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Re: 'Passive' ways to make goblins better, or rather survive longer?
« Reply #3 on: July 01, 2014, 10:47:18 pm »

If you want to improve their odds during world gen, The best bet for ensuring goblin survival is quantity over quality. Just increase the number of civilizations. Odds are with more goblin civilizations, one will get that one demon/megabeast/vampire overlord that leads them to dominance, or that one of them will be far enough from the elves and/or the human civilization with that one demon/megabeast/vampire overlord that leads them to dominance. Giving civilizations outdoor fortification sites seems to help too. There's a bonus for this in that it gives you someplace to go if you want to kill goblins in adventure mode. Leaders of civilizations using sites that cannot be visited almost always appear at npc forts, with the exception of dwarves for some reason..
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GavJ

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Re: 'Passive' ways to make goblins better, or rather survive longer?
« Reply #4 on: July 01, 2014, 11:15:55 pm »

1) Steel armor.
2) There's a tag for natural skill levels. You can give them innate higher armor user or combat skills. Which don't make sense as being actually innate of course, but since the only goblins you actually see (assuming this is dwarf fortress mode) are invaders, you can just consider it to be basic training, not actually innateness.
3) Tougher tissues. Goblin skin being as strong as copper or whatever. Or less vascular tissues ([VASCULAR:3] etc. Lower numbers in their tissues means they bleed less profusely from injuries). Or smaller organs compared to muscles.
4) Flying goblins would be a lot scarier than big orc versions. Less dramatically, innately swimming goblins.
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Meph

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Re: 'Passive' ways to make goblins better, or rather survive longer?
« Reply #5 on: July 02, 2014, 07:46:01 am »

flying goblins would be broken, they would never move away from the map edge, because flying siegers dont work.
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Wannabehero

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Re: 'Passive' ways to make goblins better, or rather survive longer?
« Reply #6 on: July 02, 2014, 11:32:43 am »

If you want to improve their odds during world gen, The best bet for ensuring goblin survival is quantity over quality. Just increase the number of civilizations...

Increasing litter size and decreasing age to adulthood also seems to help with numbers.  You don't specifically need more goblin civs (though that could be fun), just help them swell their numbers faster to max civ population.

Helps with Kobolds and Dragons too.
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dashadowlord

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Re: 'Passive' ways to make goblins better, or rather survive longer?
« Reply #7 on: July 04, 2014, 12:50:12 am »

speaking about goblins could you change the biome_support so that goblins civs can grow in savage biomes? if you can how?
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GavJ

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Re: 'Passive' ways to make goblins better, or rather survive longer?
« Reply #8 on: July 04, 2014, 12:56:43 am »

speaking about goblins could you change the biome_support so that goblins civs can grow in savage biomes? if you can how?
Alignment isn't a biome, it's a layer in addition to biome. Unlike plants, entities don't seem to have a separate special tag for alignment, so you probably cannot do this.

However, it does look like you can allow them to have access to evil animals and plants, etc. with tags like [USE_EVIL_ANIMALS]
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