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[Toxicshadow]

I had some other thoughts before but scrapped them. I left some in the spoiler below.

If we can just convert all the old pokemon to the new version, most of the work is already done.

Just segregate some civs of pokemon of the same type. You could probably put the gastly line into poison, dratini line into normal, reduce the amount of necessary civilizations. You could also go by team instead, maybe a team rocket civ with mons used historically by team rocket members.

To make a creature for a pokemon civ, you have to define a new pokemon creature with castes of each pokemon that can live in the civ. So the fire civ would have vulpix, magmar, and growlithe castes. We could use the type guidelines of the pokemon TCG, with rock, ground, and fighting types in one group, ice and water types in one group, dragon and normal types in one group, etc.

For humans, try to find a Japanese language raw file someone else already made for DF, if you want the flavor. It should be as simple as removing their basic attacks to neuter them. Probably remove the other civilizations, since we're using pokemon civs instead. We probably do want multiple hostile human civs so that we can have pokemon battles.

The game would be like the world of Sir Aaron and the Red Army. Humans and pokemon fighting each other to death, in armor. Pokemon being sentient and capable of organizing themselves, some of them might not wait for human orders but form their own warlike civilizations along mystery dungeon lines.

Some pokemon will have COMMON DOMESTIC to make all human civs bring them, and other wild pokemon can get tamed as necessary.

Spoiler: "IF you plan to start from scratch" (click to show/hide)

The first part is to decide what the scope of the game is. Probably just the 151 lines + some favorites like the Latis, Celebi, other gen starters/legends, with more to be added later.

You'd want to make each pokemon essentially the same at base level, modular so you can customize their bodies, attacks, and castes more easily. You probably want a representative attack of each type you can copy paste between pokemon if you're doing this from scratch. I don't know what there is in the other mod.

Alright, definitely feeling the Japanese lang file.

Next, lets start with the 151 and work our way through the generations. I definitely don't think we should stop at 151, but, it will be a lot of work. I think converting the old mod is our best option, I mean, they already worked out so much. Handling types and moves and such. It'll probably be a mix of recreating the raws and using the old functions.

Seeing as I don't think it's quite possible to make levels a thing (Unless I'm spacing something), we definitely should make sure they're all relative to a 'base' level.

Do we really need to make the different poke-civs though if we're gonna have the attack-less humans? I mean the COMMON_DOMESTIC idea is great, they'll all bring certain pokemon, then we could have the different teams (rocket, aqua, magma, etc...) that are humans that bring the respective Pokemon as other civs... Just a thought 

[darkflagrance]

That's entirely up to you. It's not too hard to create new entity files. Your best bet would be to have custom clothing items called "Team Rocket Uniform", "Team Plasma Sword", "Team Galactic Gloves", etc. to distinguish foe human civs. The problem would be that everyone would pull from common domestic, including the samurai humans. You'd want to address this by making the pool all of the common domestic pokemon that are likely to live in human cities: meowth, rattata, koffing, tauros, porygon, grimer, etc. Then the teams would procedurally tame pokemon nearby to attack you with (no guarantees of sharpedo for team aqua, but they might bring gyarados and golem instead).

Also, the foe humans are not guaranteed to bring any animals at all, which is why I prefer having the foes be pokemon themselves, so they are certain to be able to fight. Plus I've always thought it was illogical that pokemon did not have their own form of civilization, given how intelligent they basically are.

[Toxicshadow]

That's entirely up to you. It's not too hard to create new entity files. Your best bet would be to have custom clothing items called "Team Plasma Uniform", "Team Galactic Uniform", etc. to distinguish foe human civs. The problem would be that everyone would pull from common domestic, including the samurai humans. Also, the foe humans are not guaranteed to bring any animals at all, plus I've always thought it was illogical that pokemon did not have their own form of civilization, given how intelligent they basically are.

Very true. I wasn't planning on making the teams' civs just bring pets, I was thinking about just cloning the human creature and making the pokemon, castes, so as that they're brought along because they're 'members' of the civilization. I agree the pet system is pretty unreliable honestly, and it would be kinda frustrating having a "siege" where it's 50 humans running around like lunatics while nobody's doing anything.

Pokemon civilizations would be interesting however and, I do agree on the lack of their own forms of civilization. It doesn't make much sense. They would be such a minor civilization however. I don't see much of a trading value (what would they bring..? berries?), their ambushes might be a pain in the butt, but would a community of Pokemon really come and start a war with humans? I don't really think that would happen.

[darkflagrance]

Pokemon could use equipment like focus bands and choice scarves. They could bring rare materials like fire stone or reaper cloth. In super mystery dungeon they can ind emera gems. And don't underestimate the utility of food.

I mean, what else do you usually buy from caravans?

[Toxicshadow]

Pokemon could use equipment like focus bands and choice scarves. They could bring rare materials like fire stone or reaper cloth. In super mystery dungeon they can ind emera gems. And don't underestimate the utility of food.

I mean, what else do you usually buy from caravans?

Oooh very true. Also little crafts would be nice for some filler flavor. It seems pretty reasonable that some pokemon might carve little figures out of wood or something.

Lets take a look at what we've got so far.

• Fanciful/mega-beast legendaries
• Keep only humans but remove any attacks so they aren't running around ripping apart little pokemon
• Possible steel-based samurai weaponry/armor
• Uncivilized 'wild' pokemon that are tameable, letting the humans use them
• Japanese lang file
• Have some common domestic pokemon that most human civs should have
• Possibly different team-based civs as either humans and pokemon mix or just pokemon
• Pokemon bringing trade goods like focus bands, choice scarves, rare materials (fire stone, reaper cloth, etc), food of course

Some things that need to be addressed by looking at this list:

• If we have the samurai-civ, they're going to need someone to fight other than just wild pokemon. Other samurai civs are an option.
• Following up on that, with the team-based civs, do we include humans in them or not? It could work either way. In one case we make the pokemon castes so you get a mix of humans and pokemon, on the other hand we just have different sole-pokemon civs based on teams.
• Do we also, aside from the teams, want a mystery dungeon-like civ of bands of pokemon that have congregated into their own civilization?

I think the two work hand-in-hand. If we have the teams include humans, we don't really need other aggressive samurai civilizations because they'll have the teams in armor to deal with.

Also, I'm 100% for the non-team-based civ, it would provide possibly reliable allies, as well as a nice break from dealing with rockets and such. After all this is a Pokemon mod, not a 'go slash down team rocket' mod.

If there's anything else to address or bring up, feel free of course. I'd love to get a start soon on some of the basics, like starting the entity file and starting the creatures.

Last thing, we're for the idea of replacing current crops with berries and apricorns? Seeing as pokeballs aren't a thing in this era, we could repurpose the apricorns to be 'smashed' and then have the juice collected. I think that's how it would work. Either a juice or an edible nut-like product. We could also allow the creation of poke-blocks from the berries, which would give different effects.

[darkflagrance]

You probably want to make pokemon out of some tough material to replicate their in-game "resilience".

If you want, you could go down the route of creating original alchemy based on items found pokemon games. For example, you could bring in meteors from Ruby/Sapphire that could be forged into weapons, or shadow crystal from Pokemon Ranger as another weapon material. You might also model fire stones, water stones, etc. as metals that can be used as weapons, and combined into stronger alloys like the life crystals that made up the Ultimate Weapon from XY.

You could go with retro-teams - instead of being cults or mafia, they would be kingdoms based around control of pokemon. Imagine what Team Plasma's ancient equivalent must have been like in the days when their king ruled with the support of the fused Unova legendaries, or what the factions might have been like during the war that created the Kalos Ultimate Weapon. To build off pokemon and humans in the same "creature", Diamond and Pearl mention that humans and pokemon used to marry - this could be its own themed civilization, where humans have entered into "degenerate" relationships with pokemon that make them unplayable and irrevocably hostile to player civs. You could also make an "ancient" themed civilization like the one in the Unova desert that uses Unown and Sigilyph, Regis and Golurk, Claydol and other mystic, psychic pokemon which are hinted as having an ancient, artificial origin.

So perhaps you'd have the player human civ, variously differently flavored warlike human civs that enslave pokemon but use their own weapons to fight also, a civ where pokemon and humans are both spawned as citizens, multiple civs of always hostile pokemon (maybe just a ghost pokemon civ, or civs of powerful or threatening pokemon), and a mystery dungeon civ to trade with, along with any other civs that cross your mind.

More enemy civs means more fighting, and what's a pokemon experience without battles?

You could probably replace all crops with berry/apricorn equivalents. It would simplify the raws and make plants more powerful.

[Toxicshadow]

You probably want to make pokemon out of some tough material to replicate their in-game "resilience".

If you want, you could go down the route of creating original alchemy based on items found pokemon games. For example, you could bring in meteors from Ruby/Sapphire that could be forged into weapons, or shadow crystal from Pokemon Ranger as another weapon material. You might also model fire stones, water stones, etc. as metals that can be used as weapons, and combined into stronger alloys like the life crystals that made up the Ultimate Weapon from XY.

You could go with retro-teams - instead of being cults or mafia, they would be kingdoms based around control of pokemon. Imagine what Team Plasma's ancient equivalent must have been like in the days when their king ruled with the support of the fused Unova legendaries, or what the factions might have been like during the war that created the Kalos Ultimate Weapon. To build off pokemon and humans in the same "creature", Diamond and Pearl mention that humans and pokemon used to marry - this could be its own themed civilization, where humans have entered into "degenerate" relationships with pokemon that make them unplayable and irrevocably hostile to player civs. You could also make an "ancient" themed civilization like the one in the Unova desert that uses Unown and Sigilyph, Regis and Golurk, Claydol and other mystic, psychic pokemon which are hinted as having an ancient, artificial origin.

So perhaps you'd have the player human civ, variously differently flavored warlike human civs that enslave pokemon but use their own weapons to fight also, a civ where pokemon and humans are both spawned as citizens, multiple civs of always hostile pokemon (maybe just a ghost pokemon civ, or civs of powerful or threatening pokemon), and a mystery dungeon civ to trade with, along with any other civs that cross your mind.

More enemy civs means more fighting, and what's a pokemon experience without battles?

You could probably replace all crops with berry/apricorn equivalents. It would simplify the raws and make plants more powerful.

I love the ancient idea, I was thinking of the same thing. Especially with all those fossil pokemon we see in the games that existed 'thousands of years ago' it would be so cool seeing them alive and ubiquitous with the world.

These different civ ideas are great too! Right now for the hostile pokemon-only civs I'm thinking a ghost/psychic one, dragon/dark, and fire/fighting. I would love to include possibly a few electric/steel/ice but, they're pretty unrelated and there wouldnt be very many solid "these belong here" choices. Unlike the other type combos that seem pretty fitting.

Im about to crash but, tomorrow I/we (not sure who all wants to work on this, I'm fine solo but if anyone wants to pitch in thats okay too) can start on the skeletons for the civs, probably get the plants taken care of, and start converting the old pokemon creature raws.

[Roboson]

I'm a bit confused. You're going to take away human's normal attacks so they wont go around killing pokemon, but then are going to give them samuri swords and armor to go around killing pokemon? Am I reading that right?

[darkflagrance]

The idea is that humans don't bite or kick pokemon to death barehanded but must use specialized weapons.

[Roboson]

The idea is that humans don't bite or kick pokemon to death barehanded but must use specialized weapons.

Why? It certainly seems that if an unarmed person was attacked by a Rattata, they'd punch or kick it instead of just standing there as it bit them. It would be weird to make humans just stand there and get ripped to shreds. There are tons of pokemon that a person could fight bare handed (especially when you consider size).

[darkflagrance]

The idea is that humans don't bite or kick pokemon to death barehanded but must use specialized weapons.

Why? It certainly seems that if an unarmed person was attacked by a Rattata, they'd punch or kick it instead of just standing there as it bit them. It would be weird to make humans just stand there and get ripped to shreds. There are tons of pokemon that a person could fight bare handed (especially when you consider size).

Probably just remove biting for immersion.

[AceSV]

Wouldn't any creature still have access to the Push attack if all other attacks are removed? 

Personally, I would not try to recreate the world of pokemon, but think of it as how would pokemon adapt to the world of Dwarf Fortress.  In general, I would be more in favor of world where pokemon form their own civilizations, I think it would be too difficult to bend DF into a trainer/tamer system. Maybe you have a selection of relatively equal pokemon, like charmander, pikachu, clefairy, geodude, etc, that you can play as, and others are wild animals or mega beasts.  Another compromise could be to make it a world of Pokemon Anthros.

I wonder, can you make a transformation syndrome that is triggered by skill level?  So if a Charmander improves its Fighting skill to 4 it becomes Charmeleon, if it improves to 8 it becomes Charizard. 

I think you can assign specific animals to specific civs by manipulating their biomes.  For example, camels are not common domestic, but they will be included if a civ builds a site in a biome with camels.  So you should be able to make a desert civilization with desert pokemon, a tropical broadleaf civ with tropical broadleaf pokemon, etc.  I've noticed that bad things happen if your civ doesn't have wagon pullers available. 

For nobles, maybe you could have Gym Leader replace Mayor and Champion replace King.  To my knowledge, your local government will have a symbol associated with it, maybe there's a way to make that symbol your city's badge. 

Food and booze would be an interesting issue, since the canon goes back and forth between pokemon eating other pokemon or only berries or not eating anything at all.  A berry mixer could make for an interesting workshop. 



And actually, I can only get so far into something like this before I want to start making things up for myself.  It might be fun to just make a world where creatures like electric rodents and rock snakes exist but follow the nature of Dwarf Fortress more precisely.  Dwarrowmon perhaps. 

[Toxicshadow]

Yeah I totally get what you mean AceSV. I'm down for either I mean, both makes sense. Pseudo feudal-Japan-Pokemon-land with humans, or a land of just Pokemon. I don't think a trainer-based world would be *that* hard, I mean the player would just need to get used to constantly building cage traps and designating animal trainers.

The reason the bite/kick attacks didn't seem like a good idea is because, for me atleast, I just feel like the ancient people would have like, respect, for the Pokemon and not go around chomping their limbs off because they ran too close to each other.

Alcohol would essentially just be berry wines as far as I can see. There are, in the first series atleast, certain crops like rice, and if we wanted to we could limit the crops to the different berries/apricorns and then include Japan-specific crops. Also lets not forget, Pokemon lay eggs, and with the mechanics of DF, it's very likely you'll end up with a lot of 'pikachu egg biscuits'.

By the way it turns out apricorn juice is a thing:

Apricorns were introduced in Generation II, where their sole use was to create custom Poké Balls. In the remakes of the Generation II games, Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, Apricorns can be blended into drinks called Aprijuice. These drinks will raise a Pokémon's Pokéathlon stats: Speed, Power, Skill, Stamina, and Jump.

Then there are 'small cake-like confections that can be fed to pokemon' known as Poke-puffs from gen 4.

The pokemon themselves appear to also have been fine with eating other pokemon.

n early Pokémon games, it seems that most Pokémon were somewhat more animal-like. As such, wild Pokémon were portrayed as eating one another by some sources, in a very animal-like, prey-predator system... For example, The Official Pokémon Handbook's entry for Pidgeot says that "When they hunt, Pidgeot fly on the surface of the water at top speed to catch unsuspecting Fish element prey like Magikarp."

Lastly, for humans eating pokemon, Bulbapedia says this:

Meat is often shown in the anime, but while it has never been directly shown to come from Pokémon, no other food source has yet been explained. It is known that some Pokémon produce edible foods and by-products such as milk, nuts and fruit. These can be safely harvested with little or no harm or discomfort to the Pokémon. However, it has been mentioned that some Pokémon are hunted and used for their meat: Farfetch'd in particular are noted for making a good meal, especially when cooked with leek, and were nearly hunted to extinction because of this, ultimately leading to their rareness.
During a story arc within the Gen II games and their remakes, the newly reformed Team Rocket begin stealing Slowpoke, cutting off their tails and then selling them as a rare delicacy.

As for the transformation syndrome, I think there was something like that in the old mod, I'd have to take a look. I know I remember syndromes that did stuff, but, I cant remember if they got evolution actually working.

I agree on the nobles thing, both of those would be pretty cool, except I'm not sure about mayor and king. Maybe, militia commander = gym leader? I do like having a gym leader and champion though.

[Nahere]

If you aren't going to have each evolution line as its own creature, I would recommend splitting pokemon up based on egg groups, not type. It would still be weird to have, say, a jolteon and vulpix producing a diglett, but at least things would be able breed together when they can in the games.
As for setting, a tribal pokemon-only mystery dungeon style would be interesting, although if you're using dfhack it might be possible to do a satisfying pokemon catching system in adventure mode.
I think one of the old pokemon mods actually had two settings: pokemon only for adventure mode and dwarves with cage traps for fort mode.

[Toxicshadow]

If you aren't going to have each evolution line as its own creature, I would recommend splitting pokemon up based on egg groups, not type. It would still be weird to have, say, a jolteon and vulpix producing a diglett, but at least things would be able breed together when they can in the games.
As for setting, a tribal pokemon-only mystery dungeon style would be interesting, although if you're using dfhack it might be possible to do a satisfying pokemon catching system in adventure mode.
I think one of the old pokemon mods actually had two settings: pokemon only for adventure mode and dwarves with cage traps for fort mode.

You do have a point actually. Old Greg and Monk12's mod did have two versions, for either adventure mode or fort mode. Also using DFHack would be fun, I don't know off the top of my head though if we could do that.

Should we split it into two modes? What would be the pros/cons of two different modes? What would we do differently in each of them?


I mean I think we could possibly, seeing as we want samurai peeps in fort mode but we're also talking about the mystery-dungeon-like stuff. I'm not gonna make the final call right now but, we do need to decide for sure, are we going with the samurai-stuff or nah? I was really for the idea but, I also kinda like the pokemon-only stuff.


Quick update I'm working on the creature raws for the Pokemon, as of right now they're split by evolution line. We can change this, but it's will make the most sense this way in terms of breeding. Yeah you might accidentally have two charmanders hatch an egg with a charizard but there really isnt anything we can do about that. By the way, upon inspecting the raws from the old mod, evolution is handled

Edit: About that, I'm really not seeing anything we need to update from the old raws to make them compatible. As of right now, literally just dumping the old raws into the new ones works, at least in arena testing mode. I decided to start playing with different things, and, they work fine. Of course we'll make our own tweaks and changes and whatnot, I wouldn't just blatantly rip off someone elses mod and rename it to my own. But, as far as updating to .42 compatibility, I'm not exactly sure what, if anything, we need to handle...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)