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[Manivald]

I know it is possible to embark as humans by changing the raws, but is it also possible with other races, like kobolds and goblins?
If it is, will it change the ethics, like being able to bucher and consume sentient beings? and how will it change the gameplay alltogether?

[BlackFlyme]

Any entity can be made playable if it is given the tag [CIV_CONTROLLABLE].

You can change it so you can play as humans, elves, goblins, kobolds, or even your own custom entity.

The ethics will match the entity, so a civilization that thinks it is okay to butcher sapients will be able to. I believe it only really affects butchering and how crimes are handled though.

Gameplay can change drastically, since some races are unable to use certain tools or make certain metals. Some races can't even tan leather or dig.

What weapons and armour you can use will also be affected. Trade caravans will be affected as well, since goblins and kobolds cannot send merchants.

They will also not have many nobles, so you will either have to do without them or add them into the entity. This means no bookkeepers, brokers, managers, mayors, or even militia.

[neblime]

I'd just like to point out that you can mod all these functions quite easily in for other vanilla races if you want to, and just have some humans posing as dwarves or what have you

[Henny]

In entity_default.txt:

[ENTITY:MOUNTAIN]
   [CIV_CONTROLLABLE]
   [CREATURE:DWARF]

Change creature to whatever you want. This is the easiest since they retain all the jobs, noble positions etc. that the real dwarves have. Of course, they also retain dwarf ethics etc., but that can be changed as well.

[Manivald]

Thank you all, the topic is now much clearer.

[GavJ]

The ethics will match the entity, so a civilization that thinks it is okay to butcher sapients will be able to. I believe it only really affects butchering and how crimes are handled though.

Most ethics do in fact actually change real stuff.  For instance, mutilating bodies will actually mutilate bodies I think when you visit their sites in world gen. Slavery means they will actually take slaves in world gen (slaves which can grow up and be freed and then become your goblin king, for example!). Several of the ethics influence your justice system, and whether the hammerer will punish people for various things. Like starting fistfights or murder, etc. If you have "murder is A-OK" in your ethics, then the justice system will ignore murderers, and so on (and vampires may not even be exiled if so in world gen?) Butchering and eating sapients will as you say allow you to butcher invaders.

Also, every ethic influences how often civilizations go to war in world gen (and possibly still being at war when you settle your fortress). Any ethics that wildly mismatch will increase hatred between the civs and warmongering.


@OP
There's lots of other stuff that you will want to take into account, such as which jobs different races are able to do, which reactions and workshops they can use, etc. Look at both the RAW files for the dwarf civilization and the dwarf creature, and look up the relevant wiki articles for "entity token" (the civ) and "creature token" (the creatures) to see what all the [] tags mean. You will probably want to modify lots of these things to make the race seem right and reasonably playable. Because the vanilla settings are not intended for running an elf fortress, and you won't be able to build a bunch of the workshops and things, etc. etc. 

(for elves you probably don't WANT to be able to make all the workshops for roleplaying, but you will likely want to make your own decisions about each one)

[BlackFlyme]

The ethics will match the entity, so a civilization that thinks it is okay to butcher sapients will be able to. I believe it only really affects butchering and how crimes are handled though.

Most ethics do in fact actually change real stuff.  For instance, mutilating bodies will actually mutilate bodies I think when you visit their sites in world gen. Slavery means they will actually take slaves in world gen (slaves which can grow up and be freed and then become your goblin king, for example!). Several of the ethics influence your justice system, and whether the hammerer will punish people for various things. Like starting fistfights or murder, etc. If you have "murder is A-OK" in your ethics, then the justice system will ignore murderers, and so on (and vampires may not even be exiled if so in world gen?) Butchering and eating sapients will as you say allow you to butcher invaders.

Also, every ethic influences how often civilizations go to war in world gen (and possibly still being at war when you settle your fortress). Any ethics that wildly mismatch will increase hatred between the civs and warmongering.

I meant inside of fort mode, not in world-gen.

I also forgot to mention that if your civ doesn't believe in killing animals or cutting down trees, then you won't be able to trade those goods with your own caravan.

(for elves you probably don't WANT to be able to make all the workshops for roleplaying, but you will likely want to make your own decisions about each one)

Another note is that the hard-coded workshops cannot be removed. Only the soap-maker and the screw press can be removed.

[Urist McVoyager]

They don't have to be removed. If you don't have the job permitted on your people, you'll just designate a workshop that'll never be built.

Right now the elves are seriously broken. They're not meant to cut down trees at all, even in the final version. They're supposed to be able to cultivate trees that drop everything they need. The new release coming up will work towards fixing them, with fruit, but without extra modding it still won't be enough. I don't think there are any trees that drop beds or lumber yet.

So at the moment modding elves to be fully playable would render them a completely different race than they are. Which just means if you want to play with them add a second civ of "tame" elves who share the fun parts of elfdom and add playability concessions like wood cutting. Really, wood cutting and carpentry reactions are all you need.

[MDFification]

I had a worldgen once where the only available species on embark was Gremlins, back when we were still doing the Necrochambers succession game.
That was before I learned modding though, so I couldn't fix it so gremlins were playable. Besides, you changes to the entity file don't actually affect gameplay until you regen, so while I suppose you could have kept the seeds to get the same world...

[kiwiphoenix]

Found that you can roleplay elves fairly well just by giving them a large 'grove' building, which steadily yields a trickle of wood.

Since they can't mine, you end up with a sprawling surface fort that follows the contours of the land. Since trees spread over time and you can't remove them, it becomes a challence finding room for everything, much less defending it all. Also means that wherever you go, the forest will eventually follow, fitting their theme perfectly.

The fact that you can't dig ore yourself also means that you have to trade or loot for any decent weapons and armour. You will never be so excited to get your hands on a bog-standard iron helmet.

Still can't trade with your home civ, though. Worse than usual, in fact, because wood is all you have to work with.

[BlackFlyme]

I actually just tried removing all permitted jobs to see what would happen.

I thought that those were mostly just for world-gen, and that you could always do just about everything in fort-mode.

Anyways, the only labours that can always be done are mining, healthcare (all of it), hauling, architecture, alchemy, and cleaning.

So I suppose that if an elf-fort managed to get a hold of a pick, they could mine. Though there is not much they could actually do with the stone.

[Loud Whispers]

Since they can't mine, you end up with a sprawling surface fort that follows the contours of the land. Since trees spread over time and you can't remove them, it becomes a challence finding room for everything, much less defending it all. Also means that wherever you go, the forest will eventually follow, fitting their theme perfectly.

Actually fitting, since in a heavily forested area it becomes even more heavily forested, literally forcing you above the canopy layer.

[Dirst]

They don't have to be removed. If you don't have the job permitted on your people, you'll just designate a workshop that'll never be built.

Right now the elves are seriously broken. They're not meant to cut down trees at all, even in the final version. They're supposed to be able to cultivate trees that drop everything they need. The new release coming up will work towards fixing them, with fruit, but without extra modding it still won't be enough. I don't think there are any trees that drop beds or lumber yet.

In the next version, one could make a tree drop any arbitrary fruit, even several types from the same tree, but they wouldn't be regular items.  You'd still need custom buildings to turn a "sword drupe"  into a "wooden sword" and so on.

[Urist McVoyager]

Trade for blocks and you'll have everything you need to build those workshops when you mod them in.