IntroductionBlah blah blah, welcome to the world of Terra Nihalgai, a place full of strange shit you'll never want to see again ever in your life, for various reasons, be it a badly programmed left leg or an ugly body plan that put the eyes behind the throat. Or maybe because you realised how nightmarishly horrible would creatures with those attributes be.
Anyway, if you're reading this, chances are you were alerted by the new message on the for- I mean, you must have been very interested in how to play the Chirps. Not that you have much of a choice, since the Chirps are nearly the only race playable. And the master race of them AAAALL! (Am I reich? 'course I am.)
So yeah, let us begin with the changes compared to them little people of the shallow and pedantic base game. Ugh.
Them nationsWhen you've genned a world, you must actually choose to play with the Chirps rather than getting to play with them from the very beginning. Use the TAB button to switch between views when you are to choose an embark location and navigate to the page that let's you choose a civ. Choose a civ with a name that incorporates peace and protection, as the Chirps' language is mainly fixated on those.
Similarly, anything related to lies and evils are the... you know whos, anything related to travelling are the Moles and anything related to subordination are the Oyls.
Social shitChirps, being a rather peaceful race, will rarely wage wars against others in worldgen. Not that it matters, with the disgusting, ugly, barbaric Dretch still in existence. Your job will be to exterminate them all. Well, not now, but soon.
One thing to note, is that thanks to the Dretch and the vast bureaucracy, there'll rarely be enough chirps in a civilisation to be able to supply you with immigrants. So unless you choose a civ with more than one settlement, you are going to have hard time after the first two migrant waves.
...Relative speaking.
...Okay, whom am I kidding.
Mmm... cannibalism!The Chirps are birds at foremost. They are going to need Nest boxes. However, thanks to the sadist nature of the original game's midgets, mother Chirps will offer up their eggs without a second thought if they are promised a good omelette.
So, yeah, you are going to have to forbid food stockpiles from accepting Chirp eggs if you want children.
NObles (geddit? NO, as in, no! He he he- okay I stop)The Chirp nobles are relatively low-maintenance compared to most other races' ones. This might be due to their emphasis on harmony, peace and humility and other hippie shit. This is balanced out by the three main arseholes, the governors. Should your fortress be elevated into a republic, the three governors will move in. Though they don't need as much as a monarch, they together are going to demand and mandate wildly different stuff. So watch out.
Here are the nobles you might encounter in-game:
- Number Cruncher: The Chirp who is responsible for trade and accounting.
- Shaman: He is responsible for health management and also controls religion on the side. About as useful as the Chief Medical Dwarf.
- Manager: Take a wild guess.
- Orderchirp: Law-enforcement incarnate.
- Head Scout: The idiot who decided your fortress would be a good idea. Oh wait.
I am a dwarf and I'm dig-gin' a- wait noSeeing as the Chirps have no cave adaptation, they will not tolerate being undergrounds as much as the midgets from the base game would. Try building your... buildings on the surface using wood, or maybe stone. Obviously, should you do the former, you are going to need an area with plenty of trees.
Either way, you are going to need said area to be plains as well, seeing as you'll be building on the surface. Though building on the side of a hill isn't impossible either.
Public relations - interaction with other racesThe very first creature to arrive at your fortress will likely be your civilisation's colonist, a person who is responsible of directing Chirp caravans your way. Treat as a midget liaison from the base game.
The three non-utterly bollocks race (the Chirps, the Moles and the Oyls) should be generally on good terms with each other during worldgen. The Dretch will be forever hostile or at least never willing to trade at all.
Speaking of trade, here is a table of every possible caravan that could arrive your way, assuming every race survives the worldgen:
SPRING | SUMMER | AUTUMN | WINTER |
--- | Chirp | Mole | Oyl |
(Dretch) | (Dretch) | (Dretch) | (Dretch) |
Under normal circumstances, though, Dretch should never come your way, seeing as they're a bunch of bastards.