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[Aichuk]

Basically, emergence in simple terms is how complex systems or events emerge from simple gameplay mechanics. In other words, it how cool shit happens in Dwarf Fortress even though they weren't very scripted. For example, hippos like water and you make sewers. Now your sewers contain water so hippos in Dwarf Fortress start living in your sewers. Stuff like these happen a lot but can you share some cool and/or complex examples that happened to you or someone you know?

[ImagoDeo]

There are many examples. At the most basic level, environmental creatures like you mentioned show up in all sorts of odd places. Try hollowing out spaces near the first cavern layer and see what happens. A lot of the time you'll get cave spider webs showing up. Similarly, dwarven water works tend to get clogged by plants that grow, especially underground trees, and magma works bring the inherent dangers of fire imps, magma men, and magma crabs.

In more advanced scenarios, emergent behavior comes out of mechanical stuff pretty often, particularly involving minecarts. They can run over dwarves and other creatures, so you can inadvertently be saved by a system that you had intended for a completely different purpose. Moreover, breeding programs of particularly dangerous creatures such as giant tigers can turn out well during a fortress siege. The critters can annihilate entire squads of goblins and leave you wondering why you haven't weaponized them before. Drawbridges intended to serve as actual drawbridges can squash goblins; accidental caveins can leave holes open for your marksdwarves to kill invaders without any personal danger; and the list goes on and on and on. With an incredibly complex game like Dwarf Fortress, emergent behavior shows up everywhere.

Actually, I should probably expand on that last one. In a recent fort, I constructed an aboveground zone for pasturing, butchery, and the like, and roofed it over at one point. I forgot, however, to properly designate floors, and some dwarves tried to build flooring using a bridge for support. It didn't work so well, and two caveins happened. I didn't notice that they left holes until some time later, when my marksdwarves used those holes as ports to snipe at some cave dragons that a goblin siege had brought. The marksdwarves assassinated two cave dragons and mortally wounded a third before I patched the hole in fear that the goblins' marksmen would fire back.

[smjjames]

The next version is going to be ripe for even more emergent behavior, thats for sure.

[SkyRender]

 Back in 40d, I built a fortress right in the middle of an elephant migration path.  For about 2 or 3 years, I'd capture a ton of elephants in my cage traps, and my fort was well-fed as a result (this was back before elephants were self-destructive grass-hungry behemoths, of course).  But eventually, the wandering herds actually adapted their migration pattern to go around my fortress instead of trying to path through it.  (Honestly, I was kinda thankful for that; you can only do so much with 20,000 meals made primarily of elephant meat...)

[Xob Ludosmbax]

I think emergent behavior is the most interesting thing in all of computer science.  Dwarf Fortress is basically a study in emergence. 

One of the more interesting examples is during worldgen, when you get a single survivor or very few survivors at a site, if they survive the initial onslaught, all of the "training" buffs them incredibly and they become killing machines capable of destroying entire armies. 

Spoiler: Talk of Clowns (click to show/hide)

This happens frequently to demons, as in the case of "Momuz Flyhexes the Dusts of Ash", a male ochre fiend who took part in 157 battles and gained 10,302 notable kills and 12,383 other kills.  (Save available upon request.)

Of course, the good old-fashioned loyalty cascade deserves an honorable mention.  Treason and rebellion emerged with absolutely no scripting in that direction. 

[itg]

Using necromancy to increase your bacon yields is a classic. Surely some kind soul will track down the thread for me...

[kero42]

Using necromancy to increase your bacon yields is a classic. Surely some kind soul will track down the thread for me...

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=113638.msg3467511

[Aichuk]

There were those... ummm... 'nasty' examples of emergence as well.
Remember the mermaid bone farming?
What about that project to train superhuman dwarves by trapping them with a wolf from childhood? Anyone knows how that turned out?

[ImagoDeo]

There were those... ummm... 'nasty' examples of emergence as well.
Remember the mermaid bone farming?
What about that project to train superhuman dwarves by trapping them with a wolf from childhood? Anyone knows how that turned out?

Thread's still going, albeit slowly. The general consensus is that fine-tuning the details is ridiculously hard. How many animals? What size cell? What kind of animals? What is an acceptable death rate? What is the measure of success? Do we use lava or not? Do we use water or not? How happy must the inmates be? All of these questions have been tackled but ultimately left unanswered. The current effort is to use a swimming school to train physical attributes for several years, followed by animals, finished off by a quick magma bath to remove any unwanted fat. It's currently unknown whether this will succeed.

[Aslandus]

I haven't been playing for long, but I've already encountered some stuff, like when you chain flying bug men outside, they try to fly away and become unreachable unless you detach the chain or shoot them, and if you leave a floodgate exposed to the outside of the fortress, a troll will activate the flood trap on its own by breaking the floodgate killing the gobbos behind it...

[VerdantSF]

Here's a pretty cool example from a newer player on another thread.

[ImagoDeo]

I haven't been playing for long, but I've already encountered some stuff, like when you chain flying bug men outside, they try to fly away and become unreachable unless you detach the chain or shoot them, and if you leave a floodgate exposed to the outside of the fortress, a troll will activate the flood trap on its own by breaking the floodgate killing the gobbos behind it...

I sense a sneaky way to drown goblins in Lava.

[Aichuk]

I can't wait for the new version. Since it's a dynamic universe, all boundaries will be broken

[xandalis]

One of the craziest examples I ever had, was when a well established fort suddenly fell apart for no apparent reason. During the spontaneous tantrum spiral, after the children had been starving for a while (most of the adults had already long starved to death...), the same children mobbed up on a passing trader. They killed the merchant, the merchant's pack animal, then looted all the food.

Another, less morbid (kind of) instance, was when after several human diplomats had been killed during orc sieges: they sent their deity. Who for some reason never, ever, tried to path into the fort. Although, he did proceed to slaughter anything and everything that might threaten the fortress, including a few were-beasts.

[Aichuk]

One of the craziest examples I ever had, was when a well established fort suddenly fell apart for no apparent reason. During the spontaneous tantrum spiral, after the children had been starving for a while (most of the adults had already long starved to death...), the same children mobbed up on a passing trader. They killed the merchant, the merchant's pack animal, then looted all the food.

Did they make it?