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[orion]

Just wanted to get this off my chest while i'm thinking about it.

in my youth i read some great fantasy books about ants and their adventures. they would fight battles, have democatic debates with the royalty of the colony, interact with other insects, steal spider babies, attack other wild insect beasts.  one book in particular was called "a rustle in the grass" it was great to read in middle school.


I would love to see dwarf fortress modded into a fantasy/simant type game. The digging aspect obviously is perfect for ant colonies. Ants could share the personality structure of the dwarves, making the game much more interesting than say something as straightforward as simant. The history tracking part of dwarf fortress would lend itself well to tracking the mythology of different colonies of ants, queens, etc. The different races in the game could be adjusted to reflect different species of insects/creatures. The ants could team up with spiders, tame wild catapillars for transport, butterflies etc. Perhaps you could even have a human race, (same size as the ants) that would have access to all the fun mechanical tools and weapons to have a balanced fight against the number and strength of the ants.

just wanted to toss some ideas out. I'm just starting out with DF.

[orion]

I don't know how i posted this in the wrong area!

DOH!

can this be moved to a general discussion area?

thanks!

[a1s]

people tried this before. turns out you can't mod in a mining body part, you need tools, and tool using ant would just be a "skin" of sorts.

[Eagleon]

You could make the tools produceable in the smelter, and also make them have low damage. They'd still have to go and grab one to dig or cut wood (Grape vine? Dandelion stalks?), but you could produce as many as you want as long as you had that one workshop.

I think it's a decent idea. There are a lot of things you'd have to add, though, to make it feel in-theme, and not all of it will make sense. It's quite a large project. I think making humans a power race (to ants, whose lifespan are much shorter, we might seem like immortal gods) would be more interesting than just another civilization - you could also add other mundane animals as megabeasts. Not sure what the vermin would be; Waterbears could replace fluffy wamblers, nematodes... The smaller predators could be replaced by things like moles, thread snakes, hunting spiders, etc.

[Eita]

Heh. Would a dog be a megabeast or semi-megabeast?

[Deon]

A scorpion/spider should be a megabeast.
A dog is a godly being.
It would be funny to see an ant who killed 5 dogs.

[Hishan]

Modding in new creatures and renaming old ones seems the way to go. I even believe theres a red ant tileset out there for dwarves! No really! Butterflies for transport may not work as flying creatures in fortress mode tend to fail spectacularly. (they fly into the air then complain of dangerous terrain). And mounting is bugged anyway. But yeah go for it, also renaming trees is a good idea to small plants and flowers.

[Demonic Gophers]

Aphids would be required as a common domestic.

[orion]

that is all great stuff. I couldn't log in all weekend, but I've got plenty to stew over for the next few days!
great stuff.

[Mohreb el Yasim]

really a god idee
i have fear that many things are still hardcoded so it could be hard to make it ...

[alfie275]

Make aphids milkable like cows!

[Deon]

Cows are not milkable .

[personjerry]

Make cows domestic vermin that can be milked!!!

[Sean Mirrsen]

Then cats will hunt and kill them, and hungry dwarves will eat them whole...

[PantheraDwarfus]

Just wanted to get this off my chest while i'm thinking about it.

in my youth i read some great fantasy books about ants and their adventures. they would fight battles, have democatic debates with the royalty of the colony, interact with other insects, steal spider babies, attack other wild insect beasts.  one book in particular was called "a rustle in the grass" it was great to read in middle school.


I would love to see dwarf fortress modded into a fantasy/simant type game. The digging aspect obviously is perfect for ant colonies. Ants could share the personality structure of the dwarves, making the game much more interesting than say something as straightforward as simant. The history tracking part of dwarf fortress would lend itself well to tracking the mythology of different colonies of ants, queens, etc. The different races in the game could be adjusted to reflect different species of insects/creatures. The ants could team up with spiders, tame wild catapillars for transport, butterflies etc. Perhaps you could even have a human race, (same size as the ants) that would have access to all the fun mechanical tools and weapons to have a balanced fight against the number and strength of the ants.

just wanted to toss some ideas out. I'm just starting out with DF.

Oh, I love those sort of books. I read 'Empire of the Ants', but I didn't know there was more.