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[fehtuh]

Apologies in advance for the wall of text below.

So I've been playing A LOT of the All Races Playable mod lately and that along with the new ability to send parties into the world has got me thinking about the mechanics and cultures of the races and where I'd like to see them go:

Dwarves: We all love them and generally they're the most complete and thought out of the races. One thing I would like to see is some slight variance in the Civs. No where near what humans have but I think the chance of having a civ of isolationist dwarves who consider steel and adamantine their secrets and war with and dwarf civ who teases these with non-dwarves would be really cool.

Elves - I know a lot of people would like them to have some form of metal work/wood equivalent but I don't think I love the unique alien savagery of these elves and think seeing them clad in bronze and iron would diminish this. To me they have more in common with G.R.R. Martin's children of the forest than fantasy elves. Things I'd currently change are: 1 give them a woodcutter equivalent, a 'treespeaker' or something - as it stands the worst place to embark as an elf is in a forest, these guys would rather than chop down trees, be able to make them uproots and move to a different location, enabling them to shape the forests as they wish. 2 make them more racist - the elves in df world seem more other-worldly and alien and I think making them isolationist would add to that feel. Elves should allow animal people to live with them but never humans, dwarves or goblins. They should also never occupy these sites, but sack them and make the populaces refugees like a forgotten beast.

Humans - humans should be that element of unpredictability that makes each world unique. They should also be the race most likely to war with itself. Slavery needs to be expanded upon so some civs have a slave dominated economy(a la Sparta) while others find it so vile they will declare wars to liberate slaves. The thing I'd like the most at this time would be for a brief description of each civs ethics/values in legends mode.

Goblins - the artifact raid feature i think gives us a glimpse off the mechanics for sending child snatchers and ambushes as a goblin chief. I do love how goblin civs tend to collapse when their demon lord has been slain, this makes the struggling ones more interesting. I'd also like to see wars between goblin civs come about from demonlords of rival spheres. I don't think goblins are currently [EVIL] enough. While children they snatch being brought up as there own is fine I think they should decimate the populations of sites that they conquer. Maybe when they conquer a site the survivors get thrown into fighting pits, whoever survives ten fights gets to live as a goblin citizen, the majority do not.  Oh also you currently have way too many trolls, eat them!

I'm curious to see how everyone else sees the races developing when they've been fleshed out more. What points do you disagree with and which ones do you think won't be workable in practice?

[Halnoth]

If I understand what Toady has said in the past correctly, then his goal is procedurally generated races instead of the fantasy tropes we have now.

Aside from that I would prefer to see more evil races or at least warrior races. Goblins don't provide enough challenge in my opinion.

Additionally, it would be nice to get some roving monsters, like bug bears or some such, to provide some more surprises on the surface. Some sort of population or wealth trigger to make sure they don't show up on day 1 would probably be necessary.

I think the caverns and the underground in general are very undeveloped. I would breach the caverns more often if I could get a siege or two from an underground civ. When I breach a cavern I think of something like the underdark in the Realms, but in reality caverns only consist of mushroom trees, and on occasion an interesting monster.

[The101Randomizer]

What about the Kobolds?  They need to be developed as a race too.  Also long term procedurally generated races is more for what animal races are as a placeholder now.

[Stormfeather]

I think what I'd like is the possibility of more races on an equal footing with dwarfs/humans/elves. Not all of them are going to survive, or possibly even be found to start with, but you'd have a chance to have say orcs or maybe non-bestial ogres or halflings/some equivalent, maybe the possibility for some of the beast folk to become more sapient and develop actual civilizations... more people you could have the chance to trade with (even if it's just, say, roaming peddlers or something), war with, ally with... etc etc.

Of course that'd be tricky considering the structure now, where elves come to visit in Spring, humans in Summer, dwarfs in Fall, all at around the same time. But it'd be something neat for in the far future.

[dragdeler]

Of course that'd be tricky considering the structure now, where elves come to visit in Spring, humans in Summer, dwarfs in Fall, all at around the same time. But it'd be something neat for in the far future.

Well armies allready move freely, so maybe not as difficult as you think, tough we'd need an economy to make their movements plausible.

[fehtuh]

I left out Kobolds partly because I've not actually visited their new sites since the release and also because....I don't really know how you could expand on them. They're very primitive with an economy built on theft which doesn't lend itself to fortress mode really. From the perspective on not playing as them I think it would be cool if you could create arrangements with them where you exchange military aid for them trading stolen goods and artifacts from other sites.

[fehtuh]

If I understand what Toady has said in the past correctly, then his goal is procedurally generated races instead of the fantasy tropes we have now.

Aside from that I would prefer to see more evil races or at least warrior races. Goblins don't provide enough challenge in my opinion.

Additionally, it would be nice to get some roving monsters, like bug bears or some such, to provide some more surprises on the surface. Some sort of population or wealth trigger to make sure they don't show up on day 1 would probably be necessary.

I think the caverns and the underground in general are very undeveloped. I would breach the caverns more often if I could get a siege or two from an underground civ. When I breach a cavern I think of something like the underdark in the Realms, but in reality caverns only consist of mushroom trees, and on occasion an interesting monster.

I think hostile humans and dwarves could provide the greater challenge, having a fledgling fort targeted for slave raids or breaching a cavern and being attacked by a group of cave adapted dwarven cavern raiders etc. At the moment it's too easy to set up a murder pit for invading armies. I'd love to see the spying angle expanded on, spies will pull your levers during a siege and open the gate, inform the attackers of trap locations rendering them useless etc. You could counter this by closing your fort off to visitors but I'd like caravans from non-home civs should only come when visitors have been and told them about all the lovely stuff you have to trade so the player is forced to balance between trade and security.

I think generally forgotten beasts, titans and megabeasts need to be less numerous but far more of an existential threat to sites and civs. I'd like to see a world gen where the age of myth is largely hamlets and hillocks because large settlements draw forgotten beast attention and are destroyed. As they gradually die the worldgen progresses into new ages, Civs expand and the population explodes and they then war with each other as the beasts become less and less of a threat.

[KittyTac]

There will be an option to include the standard races in some slider, but I'll just crank all the sliders to max (Amount of magic, Bloodiness, Weirdness), and the standard sliders too. You know the ones. That'll be one hell of a world.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Yeah, honestly I'd probably stop playing if the current standard fantasy races stopped even being an option. While I'm sure the randomly-generated civs will be a lot of fun and will add a great deal more diversity to the game, the classics are still classics for a reason.

[Halnoth]

Yeah, honestly I'd probably stop playing if the current standard fantasy races stopped even being an option. While I'm sure the randomly-generated civs will be a lot of fun and will add a great deal more diversity to the game, the classics are still classics for a reason.

I agree. Though 5-6 completely random civs would be a nice addition to standard world gens. I think it would make each world more intriguing. Many fantasy authors keep the normal tropes but add a couple unique races to spice it up a bit.

If that's the way world gen ends up, then I personally would prefer if Toady added something to ensure that at least 1/2 of the random civs were hostile.

[KittyTac]

If that's the way world gen ends up, then I personally would prefer if Toady added something to ensure that at least 1/2 of the random civs were hostile.

They would be hostile depending on their ethics. No point in that.

[Maul_Junior]

How I'd like to see the races pan out: Dwarf Fortress is a Kerbal Space Program prequel.