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[catoblepas]

My take on how Good Biomes could be improved would be:

Benign Good Biomes: Friendly wildlife, wild plants and trees grow faster. Creatures get bad thoguhts for attacking and/or killing other creatures ("Urist felt guilty over taking a life recently"). Possible defense buff for all living things in these areas (ex: "the arrow stops a hair away from the deer, and falls to the ground harmlessly!") This benefit would likely be waived for attackers though, so hunters killing deer or goblins attacking your dwarves might find themselves much less dangerous than they had hoped. If dwarves harm nature too much by cutting down too many trees/clearing too much grass/killing too much wildlife, they might suffer consequences such as axes breaking on tree trunks, animals leaving the map/arrows auto missing or being deflected by animals etc. Dwarves in this sort of biome would be naturally happier, but the difficulty would come from having to moderate your tree/hunting industries.

Savage Good Biomes: Similar in many ways to Benign Good biomes, but with harsher penalties for transgressions. Mist might descend on your fortress and cause dwarves to fall into a blissful sleap. Faries might snatch baby or even adult dwarves away, perhaps leaving changelings in their place. Hunting too much will cause unicorns and other wildlife to actively hunt down dwarves instead of vacating the map. overlogging will cause trees to attack dwarves instead as well as breaking axes. Booze might spoil. Satyrs or dryads might entice dwarves to frolic and be merry instead of working, perhaps even causing them to permanetely abandon the fortress to live in the wilds with them (in which case they follow them off map)

In all Good Biomes I think what we should be seeing is the biome being a safer, but not necessarily easier place to live. Violence and heavy industry should have consequences, but in the same time this should not exclude the possibility of fairies, satyrs, dryads, centaurs etc from causing mischief-ie hurdles should be typically non violent in nature. The exception being savage good biomes, where hunting will be more permissable and predator animals will be present, and fairy pranks should be more severe, possibly even fatal, with the possibility for things such as abductions or the odd wild hunt.

[irmo]

This is a good point. It may be that only elves settle in good regions, but that does not mean that good regions should be an endorsement of elfish morality. Nor should they be someone else's image of virtue, since virtue is subjective. Good and Evil regions can't really be good or evil, because land doesn't have morality. So it really is a vague association with Light and Dark rather than morality that must define such regions.

There's a simple way to fix this: Dwarves are the protagonists and the embark map is a dwarven map. Regions marked as "good" on that map are compatible with dwarves, and regions marked as "evil" are hostile to dwarves.

Once they're sphere-aligned, I expect regions that have a lot of alignments in common with dwarves will show as "good", and those that have a lot of alignments opposed will show as "evil", because dwarves don't know about spheres, but they do know that the land ruled by the forces of stone, fire, and ingenuity is a great place to live.

[Neonivek]

Given that this is a game made for humans... it will likely designate them as such for human beings.

If Dwarves think it is a great place or a hellish landscape of death is an entirely different affair.

[Starver]

You are thinking of the difference between Benevolence and Malevolence.

Good can be Malevolent and Evil can be Benovolent.

This doesn't even make any sense.

If you're into Pratchett at all, it might be worth considering the Vetinari effect.  And, as a counterpoint, a number of those that have intend to overthrow Vetinari and institute their alternate regime.

According to the point of view of any given AM citizen (and there are many other directions to view this from, where it isn't so clear cut) Vetinari could easily be considered either "Evil but benevolent" or "Good but malevolent", with these others I mention generally taking on the opposing compass-point.



(Incidentally, if (as suggested) it's going to be more Sphere-based in future, it sounds like instead of "Good" and "Bad" zones, that there might be areas aligned to the likes of Food, Fire, Speech, Lightning, Deformity, Rebirth, Speech and Wind, among others, as well as Good and Evil.)

[King Mir]

I think what will happen is Toady will add more stuff to good regions, to make them something more unique. Then later he'll add a third sphere, and good and evil will no longer be a scale. It'll just be one of three spheres. And they probably won't be that diametrically opposed as good and evil, because whatever is added to make good regions good and fun, will be of a totally different sort than the evil regions.

[G-Flex]

I think what will happen is Toady will add more stuff to good regions, to make them something more unique. Then later he'll add a third sphere, and good and evil will no longer be a scale. It'll just be one of three spheres. And they probably won't be that diametrically opposed as good and evil, because whatever is added to make good regions good and fun, will be of a totally different sort than the evil regions.

The game already has plenty of spheres, and I believe Toady has stated before that linking regions to those instead of good/evil is a goal of some sort.

[Neonivek]

Yes but I always planned on what I said to extend to that rewrite.

Afterall "Lust" an evil theme could just as easily be a benevolent theme (Wish fulfillment for dwarves, Trees that grow high quality leather, or high birth rate for animals)

In the same way "Gems" a good theme could be a Malevolent theme (Creatures made of pure Gemstones attack, living crystal viens close off tunnets)

My purposal as always was not to nessisarily made "evil" lands malevolent and "good" lands benevolent.

[Loud Whispers]

I don't think good regions should be the same as their evil counterparts, as it would become "just another nightmarish region". I prefer them being different.

This is my reasoning on it, there has to be a reason why all the races avoid evil and good reasons.

[Neonivek]

I don't think good regions should be the same as their evil counterparts, as it would become "just another nightmarish region". I prefer them being different.

This is my reasoning on it, there has to be a reason why all the races avoid evil and good reasons.

Exactly.

If there is a biome that is an outright advantage I fully expect a civilisation to capitalise on it and not avoid it.

As it stands making Good biomes the exact opposite of Evil biomes (in that they are outright beneficial "easy mode" spots... or they are spots that can benefit enemies equally to yourself) sort of gives the game a really stupid quirk.

Human: "Ohh the land over here grows abundant fruit, has the best game, and heals our wounds... why don't we go there?"
Dwarf: "Didn't you read the sign? Players only"

[Loud Whispers]

Human: "Ohh the land over here grows abundant fruit, has the best game, and heals our wounds... why don't we go there?"
Dwarf: "Didn't you read the sign? Players only"

VS

Human: "Ohh the land over here grows abundant magical fruit, heals our wounds, causes ecstatic bliss and allows us to rest and live in harmony with nature, exploit bountiful resources and unique trees and it has Unicorns. FREAKING UNICORNS!  ...Why don't we go there?

Dwarf: The bliss is murder.

[axeman157]

I'm studying The Odyssey of Homer and you post gave me an idea. Lotus flowers! What if there was a friendly tribe of Lotus Eaters near your embark. If your dwarves eat the delicious flowers, they withdraw from society...forever. They would only eat the lotus flowers if other food stocks are low, for the dwarves know what the flowers can do. What do you think?

[WillowLuman]

Maybe the other races HAVE taken advantage of the bountiful resources of good areas, but have lived there a while and used them up, so the remaining "good" areas are those that no-one's settled yet.

[Neonivek]

Maybe the other races HAVE taken advantage of the bountiful resources of good areas, but have lived there a while and used them up, so the remaining "good" areas are those that no-one's settled yet.

That would make sense if the Legends supported it.

[WillowLuman]

Maybe the other races HAVE taken advantage of the bountiful resources of good areas, but have lived there a while and used them up, so the remaining "good" areas are those that no-one's settled yet.

That would make sense if the Legends supported it.

Well, it seems to me like the world exists for some time before history begins, because you get people that "have the appearance of one who is X years old," for those born before history.

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, it seems to me like the world exists for some time before history begins, because you get people that "have the appearance of one who is X years old," for those born before history.

It also says that those people are "one of the first of their kind".

As in, the Gods created the world on the year 0, and the planet was created with light from the stars already enroute.