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[Kagus]

This project has been put on hold indefinitely.  The requirements to sustain the number of civs I was planning on putting in are far too high to allow for testing, and I am unable to continue.

I will be attempting a new project, which will hopefully not overextend the civ capabilities.

[Earthquake Damage]

Simple solution:  Decrease the max number of civs for each entity (including the ones in entity_default).

[Kagus]

I don't know why they're taking up so much RAM though.  Dwarves, elves and humans have the same values they've always had.  Ratmen have the same caps as goblins had, and bandits have the same caps as kobolds had.

The only extras are the Frostlings, and they're limited to a pathetic number of sites due to the fact that they only settle in very specific areas.  They don't exactly blanket large stretches of land.

I'm gonna try a new mod which will not add any extra entities, and see if my machine can handle that.  But, since I owe it to the mod, I'll at least give lowering the cap for humans or something.  If it can turn out reasonable speeds, I might continue work on it.

The problem is that I was really hoping to add in a lot of new races.  With the way my machine's been acting, that doesn't look too promising.  I still don't have any really good replacements for Elves (satyrs don't seem to really cut it...) or Dwarves, and I at least need something for the Elves.

Current project is gonna be a devilish mod.  You play as middling/lesser demons, humans are turned into imps that serve little purpose other than trading and getting massacred, goblins will be completely changed out with armies of besieging angels (pity you can't get angry siegers without the BABYSNATCHER tag...).  Kobolds will be swapped by barely intelligent lesser demons that explode upon death, and Elves...  I don't know.  Hard to say what would work for that.

I'll be trying to limit a set of soils/minerals to [EVIL] and [GOOD] areas, but I don't know if that works.  If it does, I'll turn EVIL areas into some very interesting landscapes...  Skin as a soil layer, flesh and muscle as stone layers, blood veins (good for weapons,  but armor is so-so), bone deeper into the system (can be made into swords in the way obsidian can, also will contain pockets of marrow, whatever that might be good for).  I was hoping on making "hair stalks" grow in these areas, but there's only one color for trees.

Dunno if it's possible to limit civs to specific areas either...  Probably not.

And yes, I know there was a hell mod in the workings a while back, but I wanted to take a crack at it, too.

EDIT:  Bonus points if you can come up with a passable name for a demonic race that will replace Dwarves in fort mode...  Having a little trouble with it myself.

[ February 19, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]

[Deon]

Demon race name? You can imagine 1000 of them... Just anything
We laready have Abishai, Tanarri, Baatezu, Glabrezu, Hyborem, Eredar, Nethrezim and many others.
You can find your own, it just should be uncommon to the humans' ear and a bit "rough".

[Kagus]

Those are all taken...  And, if I'm not mistaken, all from the Forgotten Realms universe.

These are humanoid demons.  No wings, no flight, just tails, and the ability to hurl fireballs and breath flame.  These are meant to be rowdy, disorderly creatures that don't have the power of the greater demons, but have no quams about creating elaborate and bloody trap/siege systems.

They are, in effect, the demoni equivalent to Dwarves.  Booze included.

[Earthquake Damage]

The number of entity definitions is unimportant.  The number of civs in the game is.  By default, each world contains 3 dwarf civs, 3 elf civs, 10 human civs, 10 kobold civs, and 5 goblin civs.  If you add 10 bandit civs and 5 ratmen civs on top of that, you've increased the number of civs (and world population, probably) by nearly 50%.

In my own mishmash of installed mods, I had nearly 2 million events and probably half a million total living & dead by the end of world gen.  So I cut the max civ count on all new entities to 1 or 2 and on all default entities to 2 or 3.  Gen time and final population are both very reasonable now.

[Kagus]

That's just it, I didn't "add on" the bandit and ratman civs.  I removed kobolds and goblins, and replaced them with the new civs.  The number should still be the same, except for the small groups of frostlings.

[Earthquake Damage]

That's odd.  I should think that given the same number of civs and population parameters that you'd get roughly the same world gen time.  Did you test your mod and vanilla DF for the same world seed?  The seed makes an enormous difference.

[Kagus]

I don't think you can get a "bad" seed four times in a row, but alright.  

Anyways, after halving the number of human civs (never liked the blighters anyways, too many names like "the Hill of Boys"), worldgen is now what may be considered by some an "acceptable" level.  It's still a pain in the arse to test something, as I have to generate a world almost every time.

I've now got two civ spots left.  I have no idea if I'm going to fill them, or just leave them open for speed in generation.

[Kagus]

Elves have been removed.  I stuck bandits into the open [TREE_CITY] spot, so they'll hang out in forest retreats instead of caves where they'll just get attacked and eaten by something.

Vampires have been added as a civ.  You shouldn't run into them in fortress mode unless you happen to settle on top one of their ruins.  Since they're a civ, they'll equip weapons, clothes and armor.  Hopefully.  I haven't actually survived long enough as an adventurer to make it to one o' their spots.

Bandits are a little odd right now.  Since they're now in forest retreats instead of caves, their settlements show up on the map.  That's okay with me, but apparently since they live in what would normally be an elf-city, they've named all the trees.  I'm having a hard time explaining that one away.

Also, they need a custom [CHILDNAME:], as the kids show up as "bandit Children", which is obviously unacceptable.  I think I'll just call them "kids".

Forgot to add custom child names to vampires as well.  All in good time.

Got a quest to hunt down a stone knight in a cave recently, and I was quite excited to get the chance to see one of my creations in action.  Two large rats, however, weren't too keen on my presence in the cave, and I was duly ripped apart (Note to self:  give frostlings damblock or heightened speed or something, they're pathetic as it is now).

I've been thinking about what I'm going to do with Dwarves.  Should they stay or should they go?  And if they stay, should they remain a fort-mode civ?

But now it is time for lunch.  India still provides lovely food, and I intend to take it up on the offer.

[Kagus]

Vampires not only didn't have a specific [CHILDNAME:], they didn't have any kids to use it on.  This made adventuring to vampiric ruins rather dull, as there would be only two or three in the whole place.  

Also, I had attempted to make it so that they would die if their heart were sufficiently damaged (something a creature with [NOBLEED] normally won't die from), and so I quickly added a new heart bodypart with the insta-death "HEAD" tag added to it.

This generated some rather interesting results.

The heart of a vampire would now sprout ears, eyes, a nose, throat and neckbone, as well as a mouth from which to bite.  Teensy bit of cleaning up needed, as that image was just a bit too creepy for my liking.  Maybe I'll use it on some other critter later on.

[Kagus]

Tweaked vampires and bandits.  I got ticked off with them being out in the open, so they now live in caves.  That'll show 'em.

Most main entities have a cap of one civilization.  At first this was to lessen load times (they are now almost acceptable, thought not quite), but now it's to make things a bit more interesting.  I'll be adding numerous new entities to fill the gaps, and each one will have a cap of a single civilization.

This means that the adventure mode race selection will also look a bit more interesting, since instead of

Human from .......
Human from .......
Human from .......
Human from .......
Human from .......
Dwarf from .......
Dwarf from .......
Dwarf from .......
Etc.

It will be

Human from .......
Dwarf from .......
Satyr from .......
Centaur from .......
Jötun from .......
Etc.

Which, at least to me, seems a bit prettier.  And a person can never have too many pretty things.

Satyr, Ents, and Centaurs will be added as forest civs to replace Elves.  Satyrs trade in exotic animals (as well as exotic animal meat, interestingly enough), and get angry if you try to sell them blood-coated or animal-related items.  They've got no problem with wood items, however.

Ents will trade in exotic woods (hopefully), but will try to enforce a tree-cutting cap and will get mightily annoyed if you sell them dead trees or any products thereof. Instead of sending an archer squad, however, ents will siege your fort with all their woodly might.  They don't carry weapons or armor, but they're big, made of wood, and can rip a man to pieces. These are not the best neighbours of the three, obviously.

Centaurs are essentially human-mimics.  They don't mind trading in dead animals or wood, but they don't offer any exotics either.  Piss them off, and you'll have a party of armored centaurs at your door, including their very proficient bowmen.  They're generally easy-going however, so unless you insist on having a centaur diplomat in your zoo, you don't have to worry about something as trivial as wood or animal items incurring the wrath of a nation.

I should mention that both satyrs and centaurs use metal weapons and armor.  Keep that in mind when deciding what to do with them.

Gnomes will be added at some point or another.  Although smaller even than dwarves, they pack powerful weapons and interesting (but useless) gizmos with really long and utterly befuddling names.  Mountain gnomes will be renamed to feral gnomes.

Natives will be added to jungles, and will be just about the only source of blowguns/darts you'll come across.  They'll try to steal stuff from you, like bandits.  River monsters and savage pygmy-creatures will be added as well.  

I've also got a few things lined up for evil forests, as they've now become my favorite biome.  Expect wandering woodspiders (no webbing, thankfully) and packs of vicious black wolves to pass by, as well as darker creatures of the woods...

Right now it's 11:04 PM, which is a tad late.  I'll continue working on this fabulously doomed mod tomorrow when I get some time/ideas.  

Cheers as always,
--Kagus

[Earthquake Damage]

quote:Originally posted by Kagus:
<STRONG>Mountain gnomes will be renamed to garden gnomes.</STRONG>

Fixed.

[Kagus]

Well, this should be fun.  Tomorrow's sunday, and a new version of DF is coming out.  I'm really hoping that Toady hasn't made any really major changes, as it might interfere slightly with what I've modded...

Centaurs will be made playable, as will ents (they need to be tweaked a bit though).  Gnomes are in, but I need to come up with more weapons for them.  It's also a bit strange looking at something your eyes tell you is a goblin, and yet you know that it's really a gnome.  I might need to find a better tile for them than 'g'.

Tentacled river monsters added, as well as ocean lobsters (seemed stupid to me to only have cave lobsters).  Moist tropical broadleaf forests will also have giant mosquitoes, since no jungle is complete without the buzzing menace.  There's a vermin version, too.

I'm going to add a friendly desert entity, a sieging troll entity, and probably a marsh entity since they're rather barren as it is now.

I'll need plenty more races though.  Also, Jötun seem slightly overpowered.  I recently took out three frostling towns before I finally keeled over from overexertion and was strangled to death while another frostling methodically broke all my joints.  It still took about fifteen pages of combat messages before I died.   I may need to up the weight of their weapons some more, to slow them down a bit.  They also need to have their layering dropped, as most glaciers are a bit too hot for them as it is.

I pity whoever ends up with these bad dudes as their [EVIL] entity...   At least they only attack during autumn/winter (I think).  

Speaking of which, I need a lot more evil entities.  There simply aren't enough siegers as it is now.

Once I get a few more entities in, I'll need to add in quite a few languages, as I've just been bumming off of the main four languages for now, and having 12+ civs using the same four languages seems just a bit too weird...  Also, it makes finding sites of the same type (but different entities) a real pain.

I'll need to find an elegant solution for my nuisance civs.  If they're in a cave, neither the sites they settle nor their entity will show up during embark. That's good.  However, there are some civs I don't think really "fit" in a cave (bandits and natives, to start), and so I give them other sites.  These sites, of course, show up.  And they show up on the embark screen "neighbour" list.  You can tell when you're getting the cave-dwellers because a name drops from the list.  That's bad.

Once I've ironed out these major points, I might release an early version so I can get opinions/bug feedback.  Provided, of course, that I don't do something stupid and lose all the info with the newest DF update.

Giving me ideas will make this go all the faster.  Also, if someone can come up with a suitably complex technical gadget-thingy to replace the gnomish chainsaw (which currently "lashes"), that would be great.  I can put up with "lashing" someone with a chainsaw, but I'd rather have something else to chop down enemies/trees with.  A spear-type gizmo would be appreciated as well, since I can't think of any.

[Earthquake Damage]

quote:Originally posted by Kagus:
<STRONG>They also need to have their layering dropped, as most glaciers are a bit too hot for them as it is.</STRONG>

AFAIK layering never causes overheating.