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[ZM5]

Regarding civilising, besides animal-men, why gorlaks and plump helmet men?
Are these 'test species' before you let everything intelligent civilise, or is there a "lore" reason? Like you see Gorlaks as far more likely to civilise than, say, trolls, gremlins or gnomes?

One of the reasons dwarves can like gorlaks is for providing "stimulating conversation" - they're also tagged as BENIGN in the raws, so they're probably helpful underground dwellers, which would make them more likely to civilise than something like a troll or gnome (both of which can't even speak - gnomes atleast have intelligence on par with humans or dwarves, trolls are just big oafs) or a gremlin (they're troublemakers and tricksters by nature so realistically most races probably wouldn't take to them too well).

No idea about plump helmet men, I guess since dwarves like plump helmets so much they'd also like the sentient version of them - they're also benign like the gorlaks so I'm guessing that helps.

[PatrikLundell]

Regarding civilising, besides animal-men, why gorlaks and plump helmet men?
Are these 'test species' before you let everything intelligent civilise, or is there a "lore" reason? Like you see Gorlaks as far more likely to civilise than, say, trolls, gremlins or gnomes?

One of the reasons dwarves can like gorlaks is for providing "stimulating conversation" - they're also tagged as BENIGN in the raws, so they're probably helpful underground dwellers, which would make them more likely to civilise than something like a troll or gnome (both of which can't even speak - gnomes atleast have intelligence on par with humans or dwarves, trolls are just big oafs) or a gremlin (they're troublemakers and tricksters by nature so realistically most races probably wouldn't take to them too well).

No idea about plump helmet men, I guess since dwarves like plump helmets so much they'd also like the sentient version of them - they're also benign like the gorlaks so I'm guessing that helps.

Gremlins can join your fortress as citizens if you capture and train them. After being in the fortress for a fair number of years they can/will petition for citizenship (without going via residency). Unfortunately, gremlins remain "animals" after becoming citizens, and require regular retraining, which is a royal pain since they stop coming to training sessions to a large extent (lower priority task than hauling, not to mention the bugged "interruptible" needs activities). I work around that by hacking them to be fully tame when becoming citizens. The forum reports animal people behave the same when caught and trained if tagged as exotic pets.

[ZM5]

I'm aware, I was playing as a modded race and one of the migrants came with a gremlin hunter "pet".

Also seems like if you have a civ that starts with trolls or similar creatures that can learn skills but cant speak, if you have them with your fort from the start they'll do some jobs, like hauling (though I notice they glitch out and perpetually "haul" an object without dropping it on the stockpile - they'll still use other objects if you draft them into the military, for some reason) - only way to turn it off and set other labors is with Dwarf Therapist - in-game they're classified as livestock but Therapist sees them as citizens. However, ones that you buy from a caravan later don't count into this and don't do anything at all as far as I'm aware, on top of that you can't set labors for them even with the Therapist, even though it still sees them as citizens.

On the other hand creatures that are "wild" but can speak on top of being able to learn seem to be classified as livestock if you buy them from merchants later, but are full-fledged fort citizens if you start with them by default - you can assign them labors as normal and they'll do them. Not sure why that is.

[PatrikLundell]

I'm aware, I was playing as a modded race and one of the migrants came with a gremlin hunter "pet".

Also seems like if you have a civ that starts with trolls or similar creatures that can learn skills but cant speak, if you have them with your fort from the start they'll do some jobs, like hauling (though I notice they glitch out and perpetually "haul" an object without dropping it on the stockpile - they'll still use other objects if you draft them into the military, for some reason) - only way to turn it off and set other labors is with Dwarf Therapist - in-game they're classified as livestock but Therapist sees them as citizens. However, ones that you buy from a caravan later don't count into this and don't do anything at all as far as I'm aware, on top of that you can't set labors for them even with the Therapist, even though it still sees them as citizens.

On the other hand creatures that are "wild" but can speak on top of being able to learn seem to be classified as livestock if you buy them from merchants later, but are full-fledged fort citizens if you start with them by default - you can assign them labors as normal and they'll do them. Not sure why that is.

In principle it should be possible for an unmodded migrant from one of your previous fortresses to bring a gremlin hunter pet, provided you can assign them as pets, which I haven't tried to do.
A fair bit of what you say seems to be based on modding creatures, and that may or may not work. As far as I understand, sapients can not be traded unless you mod that in. Animal people basically come in two flavors: wild "animals" you can't do anything with, and members of other civs that are normal civilized members of those civs, and, as such, should be able to join your fortress as well if they visit and petition (I've never had any visit).
Gremlins do random jobs (like children, but more frequently) while in the "animal" phase and can't be given jobs with DT (normally, the cheat override might let you do that), but DT can give them professions when they become citizens. In general, gremlins are an oddity systems wise as they're really too intelligent to be animals, and slavery is forbidden for dwarves. I assume this wart will somehow be addressed eventually, either with a system that handles both gremlins and wild animal people (etc.) the same and provides for a path to full, non animal, citizenship, of by getting rid of gremlins as citizens (which I think would be a shame). Trained gremlins do not engage in mischief, although there is a bug which causes doors they pass through to become "captured by an invader", which is annoying if you want to lock them, to keep eggs from being collected, for instance.
Trolls and other slow learners can't become citizens, but goblins make use of trolls (and ogres, I believe) as something between slaves and livestock. Trolls are sheared for wool, for instance, but they can also receive weapon training and attack your fortress as weapons wielders (but I haven't seen them using armor, at least not metal armor). Thus, I wouldn't be surprised if they could be used has haulers as well in goblin civs. Most trolls in a siege tend to be unarmed, but you sometimes get goblin/human/dwarf/elf recruits who are unarmed as well so it's not exclusively a slave thing.

[Shonai_Dweller]

How big are trolls? Maybe they don't have metal armour because goblin AI hasn't figured out how to size armour for trolls yet.
If you mod them to be the size of goblins do they come with armour (meaning the weapon weilding, non-naked trolls of course)?

[NW_Kohaku]

How big are trolls? Maybe they don't have metal armour because goblin AI hasn't figured out how to size armour for trolls yet.
If you mod them to be the size of goblins do they come with armour (meaning the weapon weilding, non-naked trolls of course)?

250,000 cm³, roughly halfway between the size of a lion and a donkey, and half the size of a horse (which historically, has been armored).

They are significantly (roughly four times) larger than goblins, but I'm willing to bet it has more to do with trolls giving birth in massive quantities, not being so bright or full-fledged members of society, and therefore being roughly socially valued on par with war dogs - not worth the price of armoring less than the size.  Horses had value and were armored in spite of being larger, after all...

[ZM5]

In principle it should be possible for an unmodded migrant from one of your previous fortresses to bring a gremlin hunter pet, provided you can assign them as pets, which I haven't tried to do.
A fair bit of what you say seems to be based on modding creatures, and that may or may not work. As far as I understand, sapients can not be traded unless you mod that in. Animal people basically come in two flavors: wild "animals" you can't do anything with, and members of other civs that are normal civilized members of those civs, and, as such, should be able to join your fortress as well if they visit and petition (I've never had any visit).
Gremlins do random jobs (like children, but more frequently) while in the "animal" phase and can't be given jobs with DT (normally, the cheat override might let you do that), but DT can give them professions when they become citizens. In general, gremlins are an oddity systems wise as they're really too intelligent to be animals, and slavery is forbidden for dwarves. I assume this wart will somehow be addressed eventually, either with a system that handles both gremlins and wild animal people (etc.) the same and provides for a path to full, non animal, citizenship, of by getting rid of gremlins as citizens (which I think would be a shame). Trained gremlins do not engage in mischief, although there is a bug which causes doors they pass through to become "captured by an invader", which is annoying if you want to lock them, to keep eggs from being collected, for instance.
Trolls and other slow learners can't become citizens, but goblins make use of trolls (and ogres, I believe) as something between slaves and livestock. Trolls are sheared for wool, for instance, but they can also receive weapon training and attack your fortress as weapons wielders (but I haven't seen them using armor, at least not metal armor). Thus, I wouldn't be surprised if they could be used has haulers as well in goblin civs. Most trolls in a siege tend to be unarmed, but you sometimes get goblin/human/dwarf/elf recruits who are unarmed as well so it's not exclusively a slave thing.

Gremlins do have PET_EXOTIC in their tokens, so I they are tradeable - though very rarely, I've only seen one pop up in a merchants caravan. Trolls and ogres don't have pet tags and neither does the modded creature I was talking about earlier, so they won't show up in caravans but they still seem to appear as migrants - I haven't gotten my modded creature to appear as a migrant yet, so I have no idea what they'd be treated as, since they don't have pet tags but are intelligent.

Regarding animal people, I'm fairly sure I heard reports of players finding and buying animal people from caravans, although again it seems like you can't make them do anything even with DT.

250,000 cm³, roughly halfway between the size of a lion and a donkey, and half the size of a horse (which historically, has been armored).

I don't entirely get it, why would a troll be only half the cubic size of a horse? I'd imagine they're much taller than a horse, but I don't see where all the extra size for the horse comes from.

[Random_Dragon]

I think it might be due to trolls being regarded as pets. You never see armor on warhorses in this game, so trolls don't get armor when they invade. Clothing seems to be handled via different worldgen/AI stuff, so they might seek it out of their own accord because they have the slow learner token (which allows for some intelligent AI behavior, but not a full stand-in for CAN_LEARN).

As for why gorlaks and plump helmet men can join civs, I assume there is some specific combination of tokens that determines eligibility, but it also seems to occur in worldgen based off what wild populations are in contact with civilizations. Trolls might or not not also be affected by their having the EVIL token, which is what allows goblins to have tons of them (and, combined with underground depth of 1, is why they are the only pets available on embark if you mod goblins to be playable).

[Button]

Regarding animal people, I'm fairly sure I heard reports of players finding and buying animal people from caravans, although again it seems like you can't make them do anything even with DT.

Only if you mod them PET or PET_EXOTIC; and only from the elves. Imported (Tame) animal people will claim rooms in your inn but as far as I can tell will never petition for citizenship.

[ZM5]

Weird, fairly sure that was in an unmodded game.

[Random_Dragon]

The closest I can get to confirming the behavior of animal people pets is one attempt at Elf Enclave back in early DF2014. Animalmen were valid to embark with as pets, but obviously the citizenship changes could well have altered how it works. ._.

[NW_Kohaku]

I don't entirely get it, why would a troll be only half the cubic size of a horse? I'd imagine they're much taller than a horse, but I don't see where all the extra size for the horse comes from.

I'm not sure what you mean.  Presumably, for the same reason that a lion or a donkey is much smaller than a horse, that's just the size they evolved (or were unnaturally selected) to be.

Size in this game roughly correlates to mass, since 1,000 cm³ (or, for ease of accounting, 1 dm³) = 1 kg due to how most organic materials have their densities set. Hence, it's likely Toady set animal sizes¹ by looking up average masses.

Wild horses seem to have a size more like 300kg/300dm³, and so do "light riding horses", but Toady is apparently going for "large riding horses", which can be 500 to 600 kg, while "draft horses" can go as high as 1000 kg. This correlates roughly to an Andalusian (Spanish) horse. (Meaning the "average" DF horse is actually still half the size of a clydesdale.  This also makes them poor candidates for armored chargers, as those were larger, stronger draft breeds to be able to carry the added weight of armor and an armored rider.)

¹ - Note that in DF, "average" size and mass are often biased towards the larger and heavier side of things, because muscle and fat mass added on by stats seem to be added on top of the average mass, resulting in dwarves, with a supposed 60 dm³ having an actual average size of roughly 75 dm³.<sup>2

2</sup> - Note that 75kg dwarves are more massive than the "average" human, while dwarves are "too small" to wear clothes fit for a human of 70kg, but can wear 60kg dwarf clothes no matter how massive they get.  Clothes are a really weird thing...

[ZM5]

I'm not sure what you mean.  Presumably, for the same reason that a lion or a donkey is much smaller than a horse, that's just the size they evolved (or were unnaturally selected) to be.

Size in this game roughly correlates to mass, since 1,000 cm³ (or, for ease of accounting, 1 dm³) = 1 kg due to how most organic materials have their densities set. Hence, it's likely Toady set animal sizes by looking up average masses.

(Note that in DF, "average" size and mass are often biased towards the larger and heavier side of things, because muscle and fat mass added on by stats seem to be added on top of the average mass, resulting in dwarves, with a supposed 60 dm³ having an actual average size of roughly 75 dm³.)

Wild horses seem to have a size more like 300kg/300dm³, and so do "light riding horses", but Toady is apparently going for "large riding horses", which can be 500 to 600 kg, while "draft horses" can go as high as 1000 kg. This correlates roughly to an Andalusian (Spanish) horse. (Meaning the "average" DF horse is actually still half the size of a clydesdale.  This also makes them poor candidates for armored chargers, as those were larger, stronger draft breeds to be able to carry the added weight of armor and an armored rider.)

Oh, that does make sense - I wasn't really aware of the larger horse breeds tbh and was wondering how a troll would actually be less dense and have less mass than a horse.

[NW_Kohaku]

Oh, that does make sense - I wasn't really aware of the larger horse breeds tbh and was wondering how a troll would actually be less dense and have less mass than a horse.

Keep in mind, this is cubic size.  "Twice the size" in cubic size means "about 25% taller" and along any other single dimension. 

I suspect trolls are basically shaped like gorillas that would be 7 to 8 feet tall if they stood upright.  Keep in mind that the "average" (American) Football linebacker is about 150 kg, or over twice the "average" human in this game.

So basically, imagine a football linebacker but just slightly bigger in every dimension.  Naked.  With tusks.  And really, really hairy.  Charging at you as soon as you see it, and continuing to charge until you or it falls over, unconscious or dead. That's a troll.

[Dirst]

Keep in mind that the "average" (American) Football linebacker is about 150 kg, or over twice the "average" human in this game.

If association football had linebackers, it'd probably be more popular in the US