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[ZM5]

Very minor suggestion - currently, the IS_REGION token for regional interactions has a very limited set of biomes. I think they should be swapped out for the more specific tokens, since it'd be quite helpful to modders.

For those who don't know, this is the entire list:


As you can see, it doesn't use the more specific divides utilized by entity or creature biome info, so you cannot define a regional interaction to only appear in temperate grasslands, mangrove swamps, rocky wastelands, or tropical broadleaf forests.

[PatrikLundell]

The enum type is the one that defines the types of regions. Hills and Grasslands have the same set of biomes, distinguished only by drainage (the other are distinct).
Thus, the suggestion isn't as minor as it might seem, as the type currently maps 1:1 to region types. All tiles within the region are affected by the interaction. A change to that would require DF to determine regional interactions on a per world tile level rather than only on the region level. Good/Evil is set on the region level and is carried down to the world tiles, but there each world tile can have a different value within the appropriate Evilness sub range.
It can be noted that DFHacking world tiles from evil (as they belong to an evil region) does not block evil weather from appearing, and DFHacking evil weather to appearing in non evil regions cause evil weather to appear there. The region interaction usage of the evil definition of interactions is used only as interactions are assigned to regions. Once assigned, DF assumes the interactions were assigned properly and applies the effects to the region's world tiles. Good/Evil plants and animals also appear based on biome and the overall region, but with no further check of the Evilness value (again, that was supposed to have been performed when the plants/animals were assigned to the region).

As good/evil is going to be tossed out in favor of spheres during the Myth & Magic arcs, there is room for changes to the current formula as the shattered pieces are put together in a new shape, however. Effects on a world tile basis would be a refinement of the current behavior, and sphere/interaction influences might be tied either to regions or to a location (all world tiles within a distance of X from the Volcano of Fire are affected by the Fire sphere unless countered by opposing spheres, for instance). Also, sphere influences are intended to become mutable, which means that world tiles ought to be added and removed from spheres, and whether that transition should also affect the biome ought to be dependent on what the sphere is. An expanding sphere of Water ought to be capable of increasing Rainfall in world tiles, which could result in them changing biome (with interesting consequences for the wildlife: the list of supported creatures/plants ought to change, but how? If there are no nearby biomes of the same type there's little room for migration, for instance).