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[SirHoneyBadger]

Ok, this thread has some very good minds, producing very smart, thought-provoking rhetoric.

That's a wonderful resource, rare and precious, and I hope it continues to be generated unabated, but what hard applications can we draw from the discourse to improve the game? I think, along with the theory, that it's important to nail down which items are of the most practical, material importance--How important it is for realism, and the ways some of these ideas can be implemented through modding, which items would require Divine Toad Intervention, and what's more purely philosophical.

Which is still important, and may later steer and guide various future implementations, but adding more and more data, of however high a quality, is going to create an overwhelming cloud of data, if not codified, analyzed, and extrapolated from.

This is of immediate interest to me, naturally, because of my modding (I view DF as a hobby, to tinker with and ponder on, moreso than a game), but I'm also interested in the simulation of economic growth and diversification, from a very primitive and gritty survival environment, right through real-world economics, and into a fantastic world, and even a futuristic state, and how such a continuous idea, itself, might live, grow, and evolve. 

I can't say that a generic fantasy world really relates all that well to later medieval times. Mainline "sword and sorcery" style fantasy seems to me to be pulled much more out of almost a genetic memory of a pre-Christian, European iron age, from the viewpoint of tribal Europeans on the fringes of emerging classical city-states, mythologizing events such as the userpation of more technologically sophisticated but expensive and relatively scarce bronze by more crude but ubiquitous iron, the influence of mystery-cults and heavily mysticised secret societies of artisans, like masons and smiths, and day to day existence in a much less well understood and less well explored world, where the nearest forest was a potentially endless place of real terror and mystery, where sailing the open ocean was not unlike in scope to going to the moon today, where a rabid bear or an enraged aurochs or a starving pack of wolves could threaten an entire village, where there was almost no widespread understanding of disease or the scientific method--and what was known was either kept a closely-guarded secret by priesthoods and royalty, in golden cities far away, or wildly misunderstood, or just viewed with awe and fear as magic  and miracles even in day to day practices, and where fossils might as well have been dragon bones, because what else could they be?

Medieval times seem to me to be closer to the world of comic books, than fantasy novels, but that's another conversation.

Species (I consider "race" to be a very archaic, misused, and gauche term that just refuses to die) doesn't equate culture, and culture doesn't exactly equate technological progress or suitability. We don't have good choices for other sentient beings to compare ourselves to, so it's impossible to make good guesses about how rich or diverse a term such as "sentience" might truly be. What would a dolphin or a gibbon make of "Roshomon"? How about a tree?

Fantasy has an unfortunate, but very long-standing, jingoistic tradition. I personally find a hardcoded "us vs. them" incredibly boring (and the more simplified and generic and depthless and cultureless "them" is, the more bored I am, and I'm here to be entertained). If I need a mindless war against mindless enemies, there's always mosquito-season.

I'm not saying that Attempt Domination /Attempt Extermination, as choices, can't provide entertainment value, but there needs to be much more in the way of interaction with a new culture in terms of variation, degree, subtlety, and outcome. Variety, in this area of the game, is a yet-undiscovered treasure of possibilities, and I think it would be wholely possible to add a very complex and nuanced dancecard of interactions that could still appeal to, and be embraced by, all but the most narrowly focused player--who could ofcourse ignore such changes--to the greater satisfaction of all.

[kerlc]

Wow, 2 more pages. In response to NW's response on my response:

It's not that I don't want micromanagement, It's that I want it when it comes naturally, so when I'm dealing with a functional fort, and my thoughts go away from survival and onto the more complex things, such as a magma cannon or building a gigantic underground temple. My primary concern was how all this would be implemented without bugging the player during the the early game too much, and those concerns have been put to rest.


In response to the entire thread: Well, this idea is turning more and more into something i'd really love to see implemented into Dwarf Fortress. I'd like to add some ideas, but I'm not well-versed enough in the field of technological advancement relative to civilization growth.

[wierd]

Badger:

Trying to nail down specifics is what I was trying to get to, but keep getting bogged down on arguing generalities.

As for species-specific influences on cultures, again, it is because of different needs.

Humans get sick. They get sick a lot. They have an intrinsic need to discover and use medicinal products, and develop medical culture, even if that culture is 'crude' compared to our own. Even a crude doctor is better than no doctor, if you are unfortunately a group that gets sick an awful lot.

In comparison, Elves NEVER get sick, excepting from extreme circumstances. They aren't going to have as pressing a need for medicine as is a human culture, and any that develop medical culture anyway will do so out of completely different reasons than a human culture would.  It has been repeated many times that "Race isn't the primary source of culture!" as if it were a self-evident truth, or as if I were arguing from the position of some arbitrary feature like skin color holding unreasonable significance. This is not the case. I am arguing that beings that telepathically talk to animals, and do so because of their species' abilities, will have a very different culture than will a species that does not. (If for no other reason, than because they communicate with animals, and animal social structures and instincts for collectivism will naturally color the elves' culture as well!)  Again, Elves should not be McPointedEar culture, that is compacted, 2D, and homogeneous. What they should have are generalities between their cultures that get conserved with a greater probability than they get discarded. (I agree that allowing pariahs and self-deniers to exist is an important part of a believable world gen.) The same would be true of Dwarves, who are literally biologically dependent upon alcohol. Concepts like "Temperance" would be as silly to them as the idea of going without water is to us. Being able to go cold turkey without alcohol at all would be as alien to them as the elves' ability to live forever and never get sick is to us.  It is simply something they can't do; they get terribly sick if they don't have alcohol. As such, I would expect certain cultural behaviors that humans have, to not have any significance to a dwarven culture. (Things like balancing substance abuse with working, as it relates to collectivism; essentially the same reasons why we in our world often try to outlaw such substances--- Dwarves dont get "Drunk" from alcohol, they get SOBER!)

Little things add up to big things over time, which is why I would expect a world gen that is short to stick mostly to generalities imposed by racial biology influencing their outlooks and behaviors in situations-- and why on lengthly worldgens to start seeing more complicated political narratives forming, where some dwarven aristocrat's failure to get smashed at a human duke's grand ball like everyone else is seen as an affront, and it causes hostility, followed by dwarven craftsmen that have emigrated to the human civ going off alcohol cold turkey to teach the duke a lesson, with some of them even forming a religious order that chooses to stay that way, even after the hostility has ended, and other interesting things like that.

Others could be elves that decide that the other sentient species are just too wreckless, and wantonly destructive, causing terror and horror everywhere while turning a blind eye to the screams the animals make as they burn the forests down--- and go on a genocidal campaign to purge the earth of them. (again, not all elves in the world would do this! Many would honestly believe that all living things have a place in the world, and that destroying any of them utterly is misguided, and possibly even unconscionable! This would lead to such fascinating things as elven civil wars, elves purposefully hemming in goblin civs to keep killer crazy elves from butchering them relentlessly with giant desert scorpions, giant eagles, and packs of giant lions, and elves hiring dwarves to capture (but not slay) elves of the crazy forest retreat, haul them over the ocean with human help to the sensible forest retreat, and leave them there for "rehabilitation", either successful, failure, or as a vector for spread of culture good or ill.)

The "general" push each race would get from its physical makeup would only color its development, not fully dictate it, as you can see. It would make elves different and special compared to humans and dwarves, (and mutually as well), but would not be a heavy handed influence. That's why it's general. Elves can become CaptainPlanet, or they can become worse than Nazis, or anything in between, and still experience their racial influence.

The "specifics" of those influences should be directly tied to the origins of culture and technology-- specifically, what is available, and what is a need.

Toady hard-sets what kinds of sites each race worldgens on, at worldgen already. Each culture should respect that in how their cultures develop. Dwarves will gravitate toward stone based technologies because they get plopped out of worldgen on mountains. Elves know bushcrafts, because they get plopped out in forests. Humans learn agriculture because they get plopped out on grasslands. It is by the spread of these proto-cultural groups that new, exotic and unpredictable forms of culture come into being-- humans that come into contact with elves early will be different from those who come into contact with dwarves early-- with reciprocal effects on the dwarves or elves. because this order and degree of cultural overlap will be random, and defined by the RNG, it is unpredictable what specifically will come out without knowing the exact inputs. 

Instead, we need to define formulas and truth tables to determine how culture spreads, interacts with other cultures, and how the different races look at each other's cultures and technologies.  For instance, since you brought up "Masons" (not to be confused with simple stone cutters, I am referring to the secret society) one culture may not ascribe to the "mystical" underpinnings of another culture's architecture, but still adopt utilitarian aspects. In and of itself, possibly stirring up strife between them, as a result of one feeling 'profaned', and the other viewing the mystics as being backward and crazy. We need quanta to weight these reactions. Will humans be more susceptible to such mysticism, or should dwarves?  Should it be tied to a statistical value, like "how long they have worked with stone", and related to the age of their culture, and it's origins?

We cant ask these sorts of questions, until we agree on what generalities are important-- Like the argument that just transpired.

[Neonivek]

Elves are immune to illness?

[wierd]

not immune, but much more resistant than humans.
From the raws:

*Toady's Note:
   Attributes for dwarves are still described in terms of the median value below, but the actual game effects are altered according to the raw numbers.  The numbers are different percentile values.  1000 is the human median for all attributes, so dwarven strength, for instance, has a higher median of 1250, although they suffer from their smaller size.

Elves:
    [PHYS_ATT_RANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:1250:1500:1750:2000:2500:3000:5000]

Eg, Elves dont get sick nearly as often as humans do.

[Neonivek]

Well the issue is not just realism but also that the fantasy elements need to be addressed.

Or rather we have to remember that in this case the myths are also true.

So heros completely seperate from the culture that spawned them exist because the "Great person myth" isn't a myth in this universe it is law.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I agree that sickness, and also pain (perhaps even moreso) are both strong motivations to understand the world around us, but then animals feel pain too, and get sick, and even take steps to help prevent or cure disease (cats regularly clean themselves, dogs eat grass, while humans build MRI's and eliminate smallpox), so they're obviously not the only motive to evolve sentience and civilization.

This is why the philosophical end is so important, because to solve problems, we have to figure out how we want to approach them. It's much more important in a game, where entertainment and satisfaction are more important than mere survival, than it would be in reality.

Deciding on the basic animal nature of elves, and then extensively extrapolating specific cultures, technologies, and diplomacy, is a fascinating mental exercise, and it definitely has many applications, but to go into extreme depth on that should probably require a separate thread, in order to keep this one from bogging down, and to just be fair to such an interesting topic.

However, as far as eliminating the ideas that A: the game occurs in the medieval eraexclusively, and B: that it must remain static; in such a diverse universe as DF can quickly become, I do think it's very on-topic to decide on a basic level how each sentient species really differs from the others, and why they're each of them interesting enough to want to include in the game. 

For the purpose of demonstration, I'll return (with atleast the stated goal of brevity) to elves:

Elves, I feel, are interesting because of their reliance on an ecological "infrastructure". I think of their cities as being carefully-managed rainforest-based arcologies, and that elvish immortality has an important genetic impetus, because it takes a species of eternal gardeners to preserve and enhance such a complex and delicate system. Modding them properly into the game would likely be far more of a challenge than adding even the most baroque dwarf civilization, due to the fact that if a dwarf wants a nail, she learns to forge the metal they have available into a desired shape with specific characteristics, more or less; while an elf in the same predicament, plants a six-penny seed.

In other words, I qoute: "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."

Well, a human might be perfectly willing to accept fish for as long as they can get them, and may only learn to fish out of necessity, while dwarfs, suspicious of any free handouts, will always choose to learn to fish: Offer them a fish, and they're tough enough that they can choose to starve for a few days, but they'll do what they need to do to learn the basics of fishing, and use the fish you gave them for bait, so that they can feed themselves and some others. Elves on the other hand have all the time in the world to learn where the fish live, gather only the fish eggs they want, and move them to suitable elven ponds they've already prepaired for the purpose, and then breed new fish that instinctively jump into elven nets--and maybe now they glow in the moonlight, in shades of pastel--and those fish then go on to enrich the lives of every elf for generations.

They may even be living in an--extremely introverted, and self-absorbed to the point of naval-gazing--post-scarcity society where elven starvation within the confines of their territory simply doesn't occur, so they may only want a fish they've never met before.

Elves in the Toadyverse are also interesting because they're violent cannibals, existing within a dichotomy between being devoted Life-nurturers on the one hand, and murderous Life-enders, on the other, with a further split between the aspect of Provider and Consumer. This must have cultural connotations, ofcourse, but I think it makes a lot of sense that the elves would be virulent protectors of their symbiotic garden-cities. Their abhorrance of wood-harvesting plays along with this theory, as it can be simply explained as equivalent to killing and eating veal that may someday grow into a milk-providing cow. There is perhaps a jingoistic, hypocritical element to this on the part of the elves themselves, however, as obviously elves have ready access to techniques and resources that allow wood-harvesting that doesn't involve the killing of the tree, which may not be practical for other sentient beings.

The highly symbiotic and baroquely complex nature of their civilization may itself explain why they haven't bothered to conquer their universe,  despite the huge advantages of immortality, practically limitless resources, and what amounts to futuristic technology; and why elven society must exist within it's own atleast partial stasis: their methods are just too logistically intensive to place the many demands of conquest on the system, and every single elf is a necessary, highly-valued cog that can only be replaced with difficulty, with inherant laurel-seats.

Capturing new territory and incorporating it into their civilization requires a complete biome overhaul, which may require thousands of years to become fully functional, and the thought of losing many lives, or any territory, would be several degrees more terrifying for them than it would be for other species, because of the time commitment, and the ecological uniqueness of each territory.

Others are ofcourse free to see them in a different light, but the above is a very general definition of how I view the elves as currently presented in the game, based on whatever evidence I can suss out; and I think it gives a solid foundation to build on, one that can still fit a generic fantasy idea of who the elves are, without declawing them, or limiting them to steriotyping, or painting them into any specific corner, other than the ones their own natures and civilization are maybe painting themselves into.

[Manveru Taurënér]

There's just one part I'd like to comment on here:

...
Elves in the Toadyverse are also interesting because they're violent cannibals, existing within a dichotomy between being devoted Life-nurturers on the one hand, and murderous Life-enders, on the other, with a further split between the aspect of Provider and Consumer. This must have cultural connotations, ofcourse, but I think it makes a lot of sense that the elves would be virulent protectors of their symbiotic garden-cities. Their abhorrance of wood-harvesting plays along with this theory, as it can be simply explained as equivalent to killing and eating veal that may someday grow into a milk-providing cow. There is perhaps a jingoistic, hypocritical element to this on the part of the elves themselves, however, as obviously elves have ready access to techniques and resources that allow wood-harvesting that doesn't involve the killing of the tree, which may not be practical for other sentient beings.
...

I don't really see them as violent cannibals as much as being so deep into their nature conservation ideals that they see the prospect of leaving the fallen to rot as a huge waste, when they could eat them instead of having to eat one of their forest inhabitants. It's not really all that weird when you think about it. And to my knowledge the elves never actively hunt other sentients to eat do they, but rather stick to feasting on the dead after battles? (please correct me if I'm wrong)

As for the woodharvesting, since the elves bring wood to trade with the other races, they are obviously at least trying to get everyone to stick to their "eco-friendly" wood, no matter how futile the endeavour.

[Neonivek]

Elves being violent canibals has more to do with the fact that they by their nature are the closest to animals. Devouring their prey is simply animal instinct afterall and the fact that they are intelligent may not even apply to Elves who likely consider all animals sentient.

Afterall what is the difference between one animal and another?

[wierd]

Now you're gettin it.

Elves are "others". Like us enough to look twice, not like us enough to leave us mortified in certain circumstances. (With the converse also being true!)

These kinds of things will shape how they behave, and more importantly, how they think, and for that reason alone means we can't treat them like hippies with a complex.


I see elves as a force for stasis. They thrive in a world that changes only very slowly. As such, I would expect them to have a vested interest in understanding the future, and in planning for it, as well as in insisting on sending advisors to "younger" races, "to keep them out of trouble."

As such, I would think all other races would view them as hauty premadonnas, with a superiority complex, and as pernicious pests and meddlers, but also grace them with a reputation for very careful thought and planning. As such, seeing an army of elves march should be heralded as a sign of terrible importance, because elves wouldn't do so lightly.

I see them being everything from "trevor goodchild" to Hitler's Uber-race, to "rainbow brite."

Elves are ambiguous in morality, and may even be amoral, in the same way a wild cougar is amoral. (Note, amoral, not immoral. Big difference. Goblins are immoral.)

[GreatWyrmGold]

Oh I agree, but you also have to accept that any model chosen will have to, by necessity, not be perfect, and have its generalizations.  The alignments of races in particular, for instance.  It isn't something that can be consistent to get goblins to be green skinned terrorists, if you permit deviation from their ethnic alignment en masse, for instance.  You would end up with a world that doesn't follow the fantasy trope that is artificially assigned, which is very clearly what toady intends. You would end up wit pacifist goblins, geocidal elves, and the whole gamut of possible interaction, essentially negating any ethnic idenities of those races.

Why is this a problem?

Remember when goblins were pacifists during the early .31 builds, and all the complaints about it? Opening that pandora's box would make a lot of players very mad, just to suit a PC foible you are fostering about racism, and there would be no simple fix for it either.

I kinda don't see the problem. (I'm assuming Toady won't "ship" a product where everything's 100% random--goblins will still have murderous tendencies, elves hippyish ones, etc.)

Implementing this feature in a fashion that won't break expected gameplay, and only enhance it, requires some level of racism.  It cant be helped.

Why?

Neonivek:
The psychopathy inherent in economics in regard to cultural value is precisely the reason why I provided the link above. Every culture views itself as superior in some fashion, and acts in varying levels of psychopathic tendencies to the ideas and knowledge of other cultural groups. Take for instance, dwarves considering elves to be rediculous about worshiping trees. The dwarves are VERY opinionated on the matter, but then again, so are the elves!  The relationships between cultures are NEVER 1:1 value exchanges. They are *always* perversions, colored by the recipient culture's biases.

There's also the fact that he seems to be strawmanning economics.

No, that's not what I'm talking about, either.
I'm saying that you can't just say "economics" and act like it explains anything.
"Why is China rising to prominence as an economic superpower?" "Economics!"
"Why is Europe falling behind?" "Economics!"
"What is the cause of Detroit once being a massive engine of economic power, but now being a destitute wasteland of unemployment?" "Economics!"
Economics is a broad and very complex topic, and just saying the word doesn't explain jack shit.
Once again, Africa has cheap labor, just like Southeast Asia.  Can you explain the Economics! of why that doesn't mean Africa is a superpower in high technology?
The problem is that we're trying to talk about the hows and whys of the rise and fall of civilization, and simply saying "Asians make things because economics!" is incredibly unhelpful and frustrating because we're just reducing the whole conversation to spouting jargon and buzzwords.
If you aren't conveying meaning when you are talking about something, helping someone to get to a deeper understanding of the subject matter, you're doing nothing but spouting noise.  Nothing of value gets discussed at that level.

The worst part? Due to how broad economics it, those people are technically right. (In the sense that someone saying that your grandfather died due to biological causes is technically right.)

We're talking about ways to make culture change procedurally. Making race the sole determinant of culture is inherently contrary to the goals of this thread.  You're trying to talk about culture while at the same time trying to bind it entirely with race. 

And YOU are trying to negate any and all implication that racial identity would have on culture, by saying it is too general! Under your paradigm, elves are just humans with pointy ears!

No, s/he is not. Kohaku is basically saying that race shouldn't be a staightjacket for culture.

Definitionally, in order for procedural cultural changes to take place, it means that the binding of all dwarves being the same has to be loosened.  Some dwarves are going to have to specialize in skills and arts that are totally different from other dwarves.  Otherwise, there's no point.

And without hard setting racial influences on dwarves, you again make them no different from any other species, again betraying your intrinsic bias. Again. I am not saying all dwarves should end up the same. I am saying that dwarves are different from humans, fundementally, and should react to situations and stimuli differently.

Those are not incompatible viewpoints.

Not only does this mean that there might be pacifist goblins, but they still exist in the game.  Just create a world where goblins are assimilated into a human culture right now - there's going to be tons of them in the human civilization, and they're going to be thriving.

Yes, and they will be a minority, constantly fighting their innate nature. Eg, anomalies.

What makes you think they won't be in the new system?

Strictly enforcing Planet of the Hats race stereotypes undermines the whole capacity of the game to actually simulate cause and effect as it pertains to culture or technology or ideas, and that's one of the game's greatest strengths.

And again, making them all McHumans, Now with BEARDS!(tm) and Pointy-Ears!(tm), by making all the different races share the same mechanic, makes then fundementally boring.

Why do you think Kohaku wants that?

You can't look at late Medieval European history as something totally separate and distinct from the Muslim world, there's changes brought about by the influence of other cultures, and if you want to make a simulation, you have to recognize these things.

But in all instances of extant human civs, all the civs were humans, and shared human ambitions, and followed decidedly human qualities. Leaders rose to power, people fought over resources, and sought out ways to become the strong man. While the specifics of the cultures are different, they are all decidedly HUMAN cultures. What you seem unable to comprehend is that the paths elven cultures would go down would be INSANELY different from ANY human civ! I am not saying all humas have to be McHumanCiv. I am saying human civs should be HUMAN civs. VERY different beast! At this point I am beginning to question your objectivity and reading skills...

The differences between dwarven and human biology aren't that severe.

-snip-
The reason is that the instability of the region makes the investment of infrastructure hazardous,

Point missed.

and I have a counter example to yours.
The city of Gabarone, the capital of Botswana.
The city of Gabarone is experiencing fantastical economic and financial growth, as many major tech firms seek to capitalize on its relative political stability and low cost of employment. Many noteworthy firms, like seimens, cisco, microsoft, and pals have HEAVILY invested into the city's development.
So again, yes, 'economics!'
Specifically, the arbitrary association of value with a commodity or service, based on scarcity, and in this case, the subset of that discipline known as globalism, itself characterized by the efficient employment of trade networks for the benefit of the trading partners, as a means of increasing the standard of living by overcoming scarcity.
Eg, why you can buy strawberries out of season, and do so affordably.

Still missing the point.

In the specific light of the arguments that started this derailment:
-snip-

You're missing Kohaku's point. She's not saying that trade relations like that should never happen, just that they shouldn't always happen.

And about elves: I see them as semimortal variants of fey people, and therefore a bit less comprehensible than humans or dwarves, or even goblins or kobolds. I imagine that while they don't want to kill anything not trying to kill them, they don't see any problem in using a formerly living anything which has died.

[wierd]

Point missed

This is not helpful. Please elaborate and be painfully specific. I was operating under the presumption that Kohaku is an educated and intelligent individual, and has already been exposed to the workings of economic systems, including natural economic systems, like food chains. How would it be appropriate to rub his/her nose in that, given I am operating on the assumption that they are educated about that topic already, and that I don't want to be condescending?

(Concerning racism being necessary)
Why?

Again, see the very purpose of including "others" in fiction. The purpose of including others is NOT to show how they are "just like us!", they exist in fiction to show what WE "are not."  Couple that with the directly linked section. The consequence is that any given group will show innate racial preference (implicit racism) for beings it views to be like itself, over beings it does not view to be like itself.  Consider: should adorable kitties be allowed to vote? How about chimpanzees? Neanderthals? Perhaps Denisovans?  The mere fact that the answers to those questions are different, illustrates the point. Humans are innately racist agains "animals", because they "aren't like us".  The more "like us" they become, the harder it is to answer that question. Elves are like Neanderthals, in that they are like us, but can never really integrate into our society. They are purpetually doomed to the "other, not like us" category. This means the racism issue will have to be present, to be correct.

(Relating to homogenized, 100% random cultures)
I don't see a problem.

Again, "Others". It negates the very purpose of incuding others, if you turn them into "sames".
One of the gameplay mechanics that players have grown to love about this game, is the endless, relentless, and brutal assaults by "vile forcess of darkness".  When the pacifist goblins of early .31 came out, the forums were swamped with people demanding to know why, because that mechanic was fundementally broken. A peaceful, rainbows and sunshine world lacks drama, and is boring. Toady needs to avoid producing boring worlds.

Those are not incompatible viewpoints.

I didn't say they were! The argument was against a false accusation; that I wanted cookie cutter dwarves to begin with-- that instituting racially induced restraints made dwarves into such cookie cutter civs to begin with. I was arguing that it does no such thing, and that failure to introduce such restraints made them identical to humans, just short and with beards, because the proceedural generator would treat them the same.

(Regarding pacifist goblins being anomalies)
What makes you think they won't be in the new system?

By failing to account for the "driven to cruelty" aspect of their race, for starters. Without it, they are just humans with green skin to the worldgen algo. Goblin berry farms would be a very common occurance, because that is more stable than constantly being at war. The equasion MUST be rigged, or else it won't work properly. The nature of that cruelty should be RNG'ed, but their base alignment should not be.

The differences between human and dwarven biology aren't that severe

Truely!? And here I thought that dwarves died when they didn't get alcohol, and experienced mysterious siezures in their adult lives resulting in either insanity, or the creation of a unique artifact! Not to mention that the weakest dwarf is 25% stronger than the weakest human, and potentially totally superhuman strength at the peak end... Or how they can survive much more serious injuries, and heal faster/better without treatment.  yes. Clearly, dwarves don't have any seriously culturually altering biological differences. (/Sarcasm)

(Relating to homogenized characteristics)
What makes you think Kohaku wants that?

The premise that he/she wants to rely excusively on the RNG, without poking it first, and argues against such poking, insisting that doing so is racist. The assertion that racial traits are too general to impact culture, despite clearly and profoundly altering the intrinsic needs of the races in question. And of course, the over-arching subtle stink of wanting to view (and make) all the races equal.

Missing kotaku's point; saying it shouldn't always be that way.

You clearly don't comprehend that systems that can't turn a surplus are doomed to failure, due to entropy, and that this occurs in completely natural systems, without sapient actors as well. It can't work (for long) without it being in place. That is, unless you have an ingenious example up your sleeve, in which case, by all means share!

The only one I can even remotely think of is a paracitical relationship, like supporting a tapeworm.  This is outside the scope of a "trade" relationship, however.  Traders are quite correct to shout that they can't trade at a loss.

You could, I suppose argue that "altruism" could be a situation where trading at a loss is expected, but altruism is never what it seems. Altruism is really just accepting a lower efficiency, to etain an expensive asset from being lost, and becomes a value decision. Eg, allowing 75% of the population to die from plague is more expensive than devoting the kingdom's resources for a year into containment and treatment. Likewise with preserving a neighbor; you preserve them now, as a gamble that they will be valuable trade partners later.  It is still a long term profit motive, and therefor not really trading at a loss, and thus not true altruism. If you look at any system claiming altruism, you will always find a profit motive, or you will find resource depletion and collapse.

If you want a system that doesn't result in dead civs, you need to make that system discourage profitless trading. It's an unfortunate reality.

[Neonivek]

I see elves as a force for stasis. They thrive in a world that changes only very slowly. As such, I would expect them to have a vested interest in understanding the future, and in planning for it, as well as in insisting on sending advisors to "younger" races, "to keep them out of trouble."

As such, I would think all other races would view them as hauty premadonnas, with a superiority complex, and as pernicious pests and meddlers, but also grace them with a reputation for very careful thought and planning. As such, seeing an army of elves march should be heralded as a sign of terrible importance, because elves wouldn't do so lightly.

I think you should start that the very basic then apply further extrapolation.

The core values of elves no matter how they are being depicted or generated is that they
1) Are the bridge between animals and sentient beings
2) Consider animals on the same level as sentient beings (due to their ability to communicate with nature)
3) Desire the preservation of nature.

Elves may not nessisarily be forward thinking, active, or inactive.

Where the inherant issues between the species lie is that the Elves obviously revere nature while most of the other civs on the otherhand destroy and abuse nature to their own end. This is a no win scenario that can only be compromised on.

Some Elf civilisations may be more leniant and see, for example, the humans industrial nature as an extension of their nature. While others may do the complete opposite and find them an abberation and one that needs to be stopped for the good of all life.

[wierd]

I can see that early in their cultural deveopment. (World gen below 200 years)

But older word gens would have allowed elven druid leaders to see many changes of leadership in the others, and would have clearly exposed certain patterns to them. I would expect them to be more worldy-wised by the experience.

It wouldn't be an overnight thing, but the nature of their existence, coupled with being alive for a long time, will have a big impact on their culture.

[Neonivek]

Assuming of course that they were open to constantly learning and had free flow of information. Which they certainly are not.

Though I leave the exact nature of their immortality open to interpretation.

Heck one time I created an immortal race of elves who tended to become loafs because any elf worth their salt has long since completed any goal they have imagined.