Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: Goblins always go extinct in world gen while their civ thrives. Intended?  (Read 2962 times)

cephalo

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile

I've been generating alot of worlds lately, and I'm starting to notice something. The goblin penchant for kidnapping, along with their penchant for murdering each other, is causing them to eventually be replaced by the descendants of their kidnapping victims. So even though the civilization is culturally goblin, by the year 1050, actual goblins make up only a tiny percent of the population.

To see this phenomenon most easily, generate a world and look at the historical figures. Filter strings on a typical goblin name such as 'Amxu' (the goblin equivalent of Urist). The list is sorted by date of birth, so the first screen will be all goblins. As you page down however, you see more and more humans, until eventually as time progresses the list of Amxus becomes entirely human!

That's pretty funny. At first I thought that the culprite was the 'cull unimportant historical figures' flag, thinking that maybe being kidnapped made one important, but that's not the case. This happens with the option on or off.

Is this ok? Or would you consider this a bug? I didn't want to make a bug report unless I was sure that this was something undesireable.

« Last Edit: May 20, 2010, 05:44:13 pm by cephalo »
Logged
PerfectWorldDF World creator utility for Dwarf Fortress.

My latest forts:
Praisegems - Snarlingtool - Walledwar

Kogan Loloklam

  • Bay Watcher
  • I'm suffering from an acute case of Hominini Terravitae Biologis. Keep your distance!
    • View Profile
Re: Goblins always go extinct in world gen. Intended?
« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2010, 12:10:53 pm »

Interesting addition: Civs near goblin civs either have to go to war and win, or eventually die off.

This is because as the population of non-goblins rise, the amount of snatchers rise. Eventually every newborn in a city is captured days after it is born. The city then gets a negative population growth and dies off.

It doesn't happen every time, but it happens enough that I noticed it.

Logged
... if someone dies TOUGH LUCK. YOU SHOULD HAVE PAYED ATTENTION DURING ALL THE DAMNED DODGING DEMONSTRATIONS!

Kavalion

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Goblins always go extinct in world gen. Intended?
« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2010, 12:27:48 pm »

Are humans still physically superior to goblins, as well?  I've noticed that humans have a tendency to seek out and destroy all elven settlements on my worlds.  Even if they're on the other side of the region, they quickly expand until they get close enough to the elves to declare war and wipe them out.
Logged

Kogan Loloklam

  • Bay Watcher
  • I'm suffering from an acute case of Hominini Terravitae Biologis. Keep your distance!
    • View Profile
Re: Goblins always go extinct in world gen. Intended?
« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2010, 12:35:19 pm »

Are humans still physically superior to goblins, as well?  I've noticed that humans have a tendency to seek out and destroy all elven settlements on my worlds.  Even if they're on the other side of the region, they quickly expand until they get close enough to the elves to declare war and wipe them out.
Humans are declaring your wars? Been my experience that the humans expand in that area and then the elves declare war asking to be wiped out.
Logged
... if someone dies TOUGH LUCK. YOU SHOULD HAVE PAYED ATTENTION DURING ALL THE DAMNED DODGING DEMONSTRATIONS!

cephalo

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Goblins always go extinct in world gen. Intended?
« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2010, 12:46:24 pm »

Are humans still physically superior to goblins, as well?  I've noticed that humans have a tendency to seek out and destroy all elven settlements on my worlds.  Even if they're on the other side of the region, they quickly expand until they get close enough to the elves to declare war and wipe them out.
Humans are declaring your wars? Been my experience that the humans expand in that area and then the elves declare war asking to be wiped out.

Yeah, humans like to clear out those trees.

Keep in mind though, this thread is about goblins not surviving the world gen process as a species, even though a glance at the map might indicate that they are thriving. I guess that if humans are superior combatants when it comes time for murder, this could be an issue. Goblins are usually replaced by humans, though I did have one example of the goblins being replaced by exclusively dwarves. In that case, the ratio of dwarf:goblin was about 4:1. In the human case it's usually more like 20:1.
Logged
PerfectWorldDF World creator utility for Dwarf Fortress.

My latest forts:
Praisegems - Snarlingtool - Walledwar

Deathworks

  • Bay Watcher
  • There be no fortress without its feline rulers!
    • View Profile
Re: Goblins always go extinct in world gen. Intended?
« Reply #5 on: May 20, 2010, 01:02:10 pm »

Hi!

I think making large subregions helps alleviate the problem. My current 31.04 world has the entire goblin race extinct, but the first 31.04 world I genned (and where I didn't play because all the nice spots had aquifers and those without aquifers were too hot for my taste) had a few healthy goblin civs:

Code: [Select]
92: Sodordostngosp, "Deepcruelty", a dark fortress
Owner: The Static Deceiver, goblins
Parent Civ: The Torment of Sacks, goblins
116 goblins
105: Omosp渡u, "Vilewasp", a dark fortress
Owner: The Scorpion of Lobsters, goblins
Parent Civ: The Devious Sin, goblins
98 goblins
115: Remzuaslot, "Routedhexes", a dark fortress
Owner: The Seduction of Healing, goblins
Parent Civ: The Ticks of Reigning, goblins
93 goblins
134: Omkutsnamoz, "Girderhatred", a dark fortress
Owner: The Scorpion of Lucidities, goblins
Parent Civ: The Ticks of Reigning, goblins
39 goblins
137: Ubungebzo, "Dishdread", a dark fortress
Owner: The Hell of Carnality, goblins
Parent Civ: The Dishonest Hatred, goblins
81 goblins
141: Ugokstozu, "Rainpoisons", a dark fortress
Owner: The Hellish Hate, goblins
Parent Civ: The Torment of Sacks, goblins
49 goblins

Mmmmhhh, but looking at the map, I guess it is just because they don't have any neighbors to kidnap (^_^;;

http://www.mkv25.net/dfma/poi-23545-lakedistrict

Mmmhhh, and they don't have any demon overlords, it seems...

Note that there are other goblin civs in that world that have been taken over by their dwarven prisoners, though.

Deathworks
Logged

cephalo

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Goblins always go extinct in world gen. Intended?
« Reply #6 on: May 20, 2010, 04:21:36 pm »

I just generated a new huge world for actual playing on, and there are a few goblin civs left intact, but the vast majority are replaced. There is one 'goblin' civ that is fully 100 percent elves! There are quite a few goblin dark fortresses that are controlled by human civs that have a goblin 'administrator' lol.

This world seems to have a mix, which I like, but in general I would say that the kidnap rate is maybe too high. In a thousand years there should on average be no more than half of goblin civ members be non-goblins. Not a hard cap or anything just fewer kidnappings.

It's interesting that once you are kidnapped by goblins, after a probationary period you seem to have all the rights and responsabilities of full goblin citizenship. Pretty funny.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2010, 04:27:29 pm by cephalo »
Logged
PerfectWorldDF World creator utility for Dwarf Fortress.

My latest forts:
Praisegems - Snarlingtool - Walledwar

Hyndis

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Goblins always go extinct in world gen. Intended?
« Reply #7 on: May 20, 2010, 05:09:32 pm »

On small or pocket worlds its common for this to happen. Medium sized worlds are big enough to make it almost guaranteed that you will have every civilization around.
Logged

cephalo

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Goblins always go extinct in world gen. Intended?
« Reply #8 on: May 20, 2010, 05:42:13 pm »

On small or pocket worlds its common for this to happen. Medium sized worlds are big enough to make it almost guaranteed that you will have every civilization around.

Uh, oh. somebody read the title and assumed what this thread is about... Maybe I should change the title.
Logged
PerfectWorldDF World creator utility for Dwarf Fortress.

My latest forts:
Praisegems - Snarlingtool - Walledwar

blazzano

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile

Yep, I concur: this seems to happen a lot.

A standard worldgen gave me a world with two distinct 'goblin' civs.  One of them, the "Ticks of Planning," seems to be about 90% human and 10% dwarves, with copious amounts of prisoners from both races.  The other, "the Devil of Worship," is nearly evenly divided between elves and dwarves.  Both civs run by standard issue demons.  There are seven dark fortresses between the two of them.

The interesting thing about this is that the goblins haven't been run entirely extinct yet.  Nope, as of 1050 there is one goblin left on the entire planet.  Exactly one.  Nice timing, I thought.
Logged

o_O[WTFace]

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Goblins always go extinct in world gen. Intended?
« Reply #10 on: May 20, 2010, 06:39:14 pm »

It's interesting that once you are kidnapped by goblins, after a probationary period you seem to have all the rights and responsabilities of full goblin citizenship. Pretty funny.

I think the rights and responsibilities of goblin citizenship mostly involve beating stuff up and being beaten up.  I bet someday an adventurer will be able to walk into a goblin city, drop the hammer on the local leadership and start telling goblins what they are going to do. 

I usually only gen my worlds a couple hundred years, to prevent the elves from dying, but I still notice a solid number of dwarf and human goblin soldiers. 
Logged
...likes Dwarf Fortresses for their terrifying features...

Urist Imiknorris

  • Bay Watcher
  • In the flesh, on the phone and in your account...
    • View Profile

Quote
'Amxu' (the goblin equivalent of Urist).

I prefer Snodub.
Logged
Quote from: LordSlowpoke
I don't know how it works. It does.
Quote from: Jim Groovester
YOU CANT NOT HAVE SUSPECTS IN A GAME OF MAFIA

ITS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE GAME
Quote from: Cheeetar
If Tiruin redirected the lynch, then this means that, and... the Illuminati! Of course!

Kogan Loloklam

  • Bay Watcher
  • I'm suffering from an acute case of Hominini Terravitae Biologis. Keep your distance!
    • View Profile

Here's the "Site Populations" of every "Dark Fortress" in my current world, and every town that has goblins in it:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
For those of you counting, that is 62 Goblins in the world (63 if site administrators aren't counted in the population counts.)

61 Technically, since I killed the one in Liedikes (Actually that town was pretty much depopulated. I had to avenge Boatsspiraled's defeat 350+ years ago by the Spider of Humidity, and so I killed the last goblin in the civ that took advantage of their defeat by building a Dark Fortress nearby, The Malice of Moons. The humans didn't appreciate it. I carry around his head still. The rest are rotting in their unholy temple. I'll probably go back and free the prisoners sooner or later...)

Logged
... if someone dies TOUGH LUCK. YOU SHOULD HAVE PAYED ATTENTION DURING ALL THE DAMNED DODGING DEMONSTRATIONS!