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[StagnantSoul]

Is it possible to have a reaction only be available after a certain size is met? Or age?

If so, could you, in theory, provide a type of evolution?

[Urist McVoyager]

Age and size? Are we talking about the fort or people? Because I just learned reactions only apply to objects, not living beings.

Usually when people go for evolution they use special hard to obtain items and require them for building the next set of buildings in the fort.

[StagnantSoul]

I didn't mean reactions, bad wording there. Meant syndrome that targets the creature. Meh, like, ehh... There was an idea, but I can't remember what it was specifically.

[BlackFlyme]

Alternatively, it could be about fort size or the world's age, such as the Golden Age, or the Age of Myth.

Either way, it isn't possible to base a reaction on that.

I'm not entirely sure about interactions being limited by size, but I don't believe it goes by age, though it may depend on what you want the interaction to accomplish.

Syndromes and interactions can be placed on timers, though.

[Urist McVoyager]

You could create a creature born with a syndrome that counts to a certain number of ticks before triggering. I don't know the limit on count downs, so I don't know how long the creature has before it has to change, but it's a start.

[Dirst]

Alternatively, it could be about fort size or the world's age, such as the Golden Age, or the Age of Myth.

Either way, it isn't possible to base a reaction on that.

I'm not entirely sure about interactions being limited by size, but I don't believe it goes by age, though it may depend on what you want the interaction to accomplish.

Syndromes and interactions can be placed on timers, though.

You could give the creature an interaction that can only affect itself, usable once per zillion ticks (once in its life) that confers immunity to the evolution effect until it's "old enough to evolve."

You can do something similar with workshops: make a component of the advanced workshop that can only be created at the basic workshop.  In that case you lose control of the timing, since it's just a crafting job to unlock the next workshop (though "just a crafting job" could involve an arbitrary number of intermediate steps, it keeps a dwarf consumed with busywork the whole time rather than using a timer).

[Aslandus]

It sounds like you're saying "Evolution" when you mean "Metamorphosis":

-Evolution would be more like on rare occasions you'll get a dog born with a mutation that gives it horns or something, and then its offspring have a chance of having horns as well so you could selectively breed them until you have a legion of dogs with big ram horns.

-Metamorphosis would be more like you have a caterpillar, it turns into a butterfly when it reaches a certain age and gains a plethora of new abilities, which sounds more like what you guys are talking about.

[IndigoFenix]

Technically it isn't incorrect; originally the term 'evolution' simply referred to any change that occurred over time, and was in fact used to refer to metamorphosis.  It was only later, after Darwin appropriated the term to refer to species evolution specifically, that the word took on its more exclusive modern meaning.

Of course, ever since Pokemon used 'evolution' to refer to metamorphosis, it's been kind of a toss-up term among the gaming community.

Back on topic:

It is possible to make reactions/syndromes that take age as a parameter using DFHack.  If you don't want to use DFHack, you can use the method suggested already, by adding a self-targeting interaction, used only once in the creature's life, that prevents the transformation and lasts for a long time, until the creature is 'mature'.  Admittedly, if you're using that already, you might as well just have the interaction itself transform the creature after a set amount of time.  Then you don't even need a reaction.

In either case, it won't be tied to age, the 'timer' will start only after they enter the game.  It should also be noted that it may take a while for creatures to use self-targeting interactions, so if you use the immunity method it might be possible for players to perform the reaction before the syndrome actually triggers.

[fricy]

Is it possible to have a reaction only be available after a certain size is met? Or age?

If so, could you, in theory, provide a type of evolution?

Roses' event system looks versatile enough for this.

[StagnantSoul]

Yes! Metamorphosis! That's it! I couldn't remember the word. I'll check out the timer on self targeted interaction.

[i2amroy]

Most likely the syndrome timer is (like most other things in DF) a "long", and as such would have a maximum limit of 2147483647 ticks, or 5,326 years in fortress mode (~74 in adventure mode).