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[Sergius]

Grr... stupid browser cleared my post.

Anyway, yeah, having civs with more than one species or race of critters. Would be interesting, yadda yadda.

-Melting-pot society (stereotypical D&D human civ, with elves and dwarves everywhere).
-Caste system with goblins, hobgoblins, trolls, etc. each with their own clothing, possible professions, etc.
-Same "species" with different "races" (a canine civ with poodle men and wolf women? maybe named erak-hir and erak-hur and erak-babaloo or whatever)

Support for this in the raws (even if the vanilla world isn't this way). I can see the gobbo caste based society working for vanilla DF tho.

[Granite26]

Beastmen collectives, the Covenant from Halo, Xenomorphs from Alien, Antmen, workers, queens and warriors.

In terms of race, the word you are looking for is Polymorphism and it's in the dev_now notes.  In terms of society, I guess caste is the best world, but for some reason, english nor latin has a world for a society divided on species lines (well, the spca might...)

Hopefully...

[SirHoneyBadger]

I'd like to add that this type of society seems especially applicable to goblins. I know that's obvious, but-since goblins already have trolls-I think it would add significantly, even profoundly, to goblin seiges, if goblins (and demons even more-so) were able to enslave *any* other humanoids, upto and including giants, ettins, minotaurs, etc. Maybe even any other creature. Gobbos might have general access to an "Enslave" skill that allowed them to yoke any and all creatures they encountered, and then harness them to their war-machine.

This would not only improve seiges, and make goblins a direct threat to anyone and everyone, but strongly differentiate goblins from the other races, as *THE* evil race.

Perhaps the children they stole, being raised into the society, would have their own loyalties and place in goblin society, making them better "tools" for the goblins to employ than their captured/dominated adult slaves.

Humans, to give a counter-example, might allow other species into their society, either as pets (dogs, cats), draft animals (horses, oxen), or in a "ghetto"-type environment, as second-class, but free, citizens. Humans might occasionally employ slavery as a means to an end, too, but not on the wide-ranging level as the gobbos, who would be out to forcibly integrate everyone, everything, and everywhere, into their society.

By the way, in order to not step on any toes: I did a search for a similar topic to post this idea in, and didn't find a more suitable one than this, but my search time is limited, so if there's a better place for it to appear, feel free to have it moved over there.

[Warlord255]

As mentioned before, the polymorphism/caste works in progress for next version could very well fit this. If it can pull off antmen colonies properly, we may well be able to rework it to make multi-creature creature entries.

The trouble, however, is that it's currently unknown how many subsets/stats can be put under a caste heading; for example, if castes can have complete individualized body entries.

[Tormy]

IIRC something like this has been suggested before. So I say it again: this is an excellent idea. 

As mentioned before, the polymorphism/caste works in progress for next version could very well fit this. If it can pull off antmen colonies properly, we may well be able to rework it to make multi-creature creature entries.

The trouble, however, is that it's currently unknown how many subsets/stats can be put under a caste heading; for example, if castes can have complete individualized body entries.

We won't be able to create multi-racial civs in the next version. The differences between the castes won't be significant enough, if I understood everything correctly at least...You can create lot of castes, but those will be part of the same race still.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I personally feel that hobgoblins (hobbos?) should be a part of the goblin race. Maybe as a larger, tougher, more militant breed, but with less numbers, and less overall cultural significance (maybe less magical aptitude too, when that's in the game), so that you'd see hob generals and elite warriors, but a gob emperor, gob beurocrats, gob artisans, gob traders, what have you.

[bjlong]

It would also make sense for towns near borders or where a lot of trading is done to have a multicultural society. But that's not a civilization--I'm not sure how that one would be modeled.

[Warlord255]

IIRC something like this has been suggested before. So I say it again: this is an excellent idea. 

As mentioned before, the polymorphism/caste works in progress for next version could very well fit this. If it can pull off antmen colonies properly, we may well be able to rework it to make multi-creature creature entries.

The trouble, however, is that it's currently unknown how many subsets/stats can be put under a caste heading; for example, if castes can have complete individualized body entries.

We won't be able to create multi-racial civs in the next version. The differences between the castes won't be significant enough, if I understood everything correctly at least...You can create lot of castes, but those will be part of the same race still.

Hmmph. Well, that's a downer.

If, however, castes can be assigned better damblock, tags like [NOFEAR] and new names, that'll suffice.

[Belteshazzar]

I am in favor of both polymorphism and multicultural/multiracial civilizations.

[Capntastic]

I am in favor of civilizations being based around culture more than race, in the future.

So the civilization of Plate Smashers of Bad Juggler or whatever has a lot of elves and humans, with a few dwarves, but they are all united in their love of pasta and baroque architecture.

[Tormy]

IIRC something like this has been suggested before. So I say it again: this is an excellent idea. 

As mentioned before, the polymorphism/caste works in progress for next version could very well fit this. If it can pull off antmen colonies properly, we may well be able to rework it to make multi-creature creature entries.

The trouble, however, is that it's currently unknown how many subsets/stats can be put under a caste heading; for example, if castes can have complete individualized body entries.

We won't be able to create multi-racial civs in the next version. The differences between the castes won't be significant enough, if I understood everything correctly at least...You can create lot of castes, but those will be part of the same race still.

Hmmph. Well, that's a downer.

If, however, castes can be assigned better damblock, tags like [NOFEAR] and new names, that'll suffice.

Hm yeah, that would be neat...I am wondering that we will be able to do that or not...perhaps we should ask Toady about this in the FotF topic. 

[LumenPlacidum]

As I understand it, very little will not be caste-specific if you want it to be.  Most notably, body definitions cannot change across castes.  Relative sizes can change (that's the only real difference between a dwarf and a troll anyway), names, preferred jobs, gender specifications, ages and growth rates, I think the thickness of layers of body parts can change, too.  So long as you're fine with everything breeding together or having "races" that are sterile and having ONE race that breeds, then you can do pretty much anything.

It is not known whether attacks will be caste-specific.

[Granite26]

As I understand it, very little will not be caste-specific if you want it to be.  Most notably, body definitions cannot change across castes.  Relative sizes can change (that's the only real difference between a dwarf and a troll anyway), names, preferred jobs, gender specifications, ages and growth rates, I think the thickness of layers of body parts can change, too.  So long as you're fine with everything breeding together or having "races" that are sterile and having ONE race that breeds, then you can do pretty much anything.

It is not known whether attacks will be caste-specific.

I think that this is not accurate.  I think that the caste a critter is a member of cannot change due to the body parts not necessarily being the same.

[Sergius]

As someone else suggested, I was thinking this multi-species polysomething thing would extend to things such as draft animals, special pets, etc. "Regular" pets would probably be available to nearly any civ (you can tame anything, just like in real life... right), but specialized roles for said animals are culture-dependant. So, while humans would tame dogs for certain types of jobs, horses for mounts, etc. Goblins have beak dogs, dwarfs could have dogs or something else. Elves might not even be able to tame any work animals (they live "in harmony" with nature and doesn't enslave it).

It would be awesome if civs were generated randomly, like most of the content (some other thread suggested random weapons for civs? and there's random gods, random magic spells are probably on the works). A player wouldn't know what he would get when he generates a new world. Of course fixed "vanilla civs" would be an option, maybe the default one.

[Footkerchief]

As I understand it, very little will not be caste-specific if you want it to be.  Most notably, body definitions cannot change across castes.  Relative sizes can change (that's the only real difference between a dwarf and a troll anyway), names, preferred jobs, gender specifications, ages and growth rates, I think the thickness of layers of body parts can change, too.  So long as you're fine with everything breeding together or having "races" that are sterile and having ONE race that breeds, then you can do pretty much anything.

It is not known whether attacks will be caste-specific.

I think that this is not accurate.  I think that the caste a critter is a member of cannot change due to the body parts not necessarily being the same.

Yeah.  It's an important distinction.  After all, Toady mentioned genitals and other caste-specific body parts would be possible.  Like antman soldiers with giant fucking mandibles or something.