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Author Topic: Wars and other interesting things  (Read 741 times)

Mormota

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Wars and other interesting things
« on: August 29, 2011, 09:14:18 am »

I've been checking the history of my world and there is an island with 3 human civilisations, each with more than 7000 human members, yet neither of them waged any wars. I'm wondering, is it possible for same-species civs to wage war on each other?

The other thing is this: Do humans, with time, become the major species? I always assumed it's so, considering the conditions for new eras, but in this world there are 66k Elves and only 42k Humans. (And 1000 Dwarves, but let's not get into that...) Or do the condition of new eras is simply that one species becomes the ruling one? So there could be an Elf-dominated world where Humans are only talked about in fairy tales?
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Lectorog

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Re: Wars and other interesting things
« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2011, 10:46:07 am »

1) Same-species civs do not wage war on each other - at least, not as I've seen. If a civ gets taken over by another, though, it could be the same race against itself.

2) As things stand, humans are most likely to become a single dominant race. It's possible for others to become more dominant, or all to be roughly equal.
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Person

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Re: Wars and other interesting things
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2011, 11:05:05 am »

Elves tend to take over in long worlds because they don't die of old age. Dwarves also rarely die of old age due to them living about 200 years.
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monk12

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Re: Wars and other interesting things
« Reply #3 on: August 29, 2011, 11:54:11 am »

It really depends on the vagaries of your worlds. Goblins and elves have a good chance to inherit the earth because they are immortal, but elves have odd breeding issues and wooden weapons while goblins tend to pick fights with everyone. Dwarves are similarly long lived and exceptionally well equipped, but they have specific biome restrictions on where they settle- they're called "mountainhomes" for a reason. This tends to mean they have few numbers and are always a few bad wars away from irrelevance. Humans are short lived, but reproduce rapidly and can live just about anywhere- this makes them least likely to go extinct quickly but they can have trouble going 1-1 with whatever race ends up dominant unless they have a significant numerical advantage. Kobolds die in four years.

Mormota

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Re: Wars and other interesting things
« Reply #4 on: August 29, 2011, 01:50:19 pm »

Thank you, interesting thoughts.
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The only thing that happened in general was the death of 71% of the fort, and that wasn't really worth mentioning.

RAKninja

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Re: Wars and other interesting things
« Reply #5 on: August 29, 2011, 05:45:12 pm »

It really depends on the vagaries of your worlds. Goblins and elves have a good chance to inherit the earth because they are immortal, but elves have odd breeding issues and wooden weapons while goblins tend to pick fights with everyone. Dwarves are similarly long lived and exceptionally well equipped, but they have specific biome restrictions on where they settle- they're called "mountainhomes" for a reason. This tends to mean they have few numbers and are always a few bad wars away from irrelevance. Humans are short lived, but reproduce rapidly and can live just about anywhere- this makes them least likely to go extinct quickly but they can have trouble going 1-1 with whatever race ends up dominant unless they have a significant numerical advantage. Kobolds die in four years.
goblins stand a good chance to own the world depending on what animals the elves get access to, and if humans are [NO_EAT].

see, the problem is that snatched humans die rapidly, just like kobolds.  lacking the ability to starve, goblins often produce significant human populations.  in addition, i dont know the specifics, goblin civ leaders will sometimes go out and tame creatures that are a match for the worst that the elves can bring.

for some reason, night creatures do not often, if at all, kidnap goblins.  sure, they kill goblins, but they dont kidnap them, so you dont have to worry about the geometric growth of night creature numbers in goblin lands.  i suspect this is what is behind many of the empty human towns and forts.  i've seen default settings worlds where several lineages of night creatures had spouses and 3-5 children...... for 7-8 generations.

goblins do have some population checks the elves lack.  murder for one thing.  and snatched kids have goblin ethics, so they murder as well.  if you're really unlucky, you'll have a clown lord that decides to eat someone every 5-10 years.

i am not sure which one is the greater population check, a wave of night creatures, or expanding population making more potential murderers.
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Funk

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Re: Wars and other interesting things
« Reply #6 on: August 29, 2011, 10:47:08 pm »

Elves have wood weapons and as there as crap in wold gen as the rest of the time thay die in mass elf wave attacks all the time.

Kobolds never fight wars,cos there smart and know there crap at it.

 
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peskyninja

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Re: Wars and other interesting things
« Reply #7 on: August 30, 2011, 11:59:47 am »

how do you know their populations?
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Mormota

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Re: Wars and other interesting things
« Reply #8 on: August 30, 2011, 03:26:40 pm »

I used Legends Viewer, the single most awesome utility to grace the Dwarf Fortress community.
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Avid Aurora player, Warhammer 40.000 fan, part-time writer and cursed game developer.
The only thing that happened in general was the death of 71% of the fort, and that wasn't really worth mentioning.