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[darkflagrance]

Hey, Threetoe did post a story where the elf ruler wielded a sword that was as sharp and strong as steel, if I recall correctly.

[Neonivek]

Not exactly Dark, he has a wooden sword that he bathed in a river blessed by some sort of spirit patron. (there was also some sense of non-pernamence)

As for Pop caps the problem is super high populations arn't handled well in the game. Elves quickly max out the world population if left to their own devices and the inflation of legends due to war with the elves is just rediculous.

As for Elves not being able to take advantage of their immortality... That would probably come when civilisations arn't so anxious to wage war with eachother every second of the day. I'd also would like to see Enemy nations who arn't at war with someone (currently the game seems to be at a "WAR or PEACE" state) as well as inactive wars (As in, we are at war with you... We arn't sending solders or anything)

[smjjames]

There are several reasons why a spider of that size, but not the structural changes to support it, would be incapable of surviving.

Though these are the reasons why the GCS is so powerful
1) Poison
2) Size
3) Webs
4) Immune to pain/unconsciousness (Most tough enemies in this game faint long before they die. The GCS doesn't)
5) Enclosed Space (usually)

Still, if you can get them mobbed, they can be taken down. In a previous fortress where I decided to attempt a fortress suicide by GCS by making its lair a meeting zone. Instead, a whole bunch of my tame animals (mostly dogs, but I think there were a few horses, muskoxen, and maybe cows in the melee) mobbed the spider and essentially pinned it down. I guess they had it by the legs since a bit before death I saw that its legs and other parts were grey and the spider had been immobilized since it quickly died after that.

[Granite26]

I think the answer will come with the new material raws.  Adamantine will be unnaturally strong and sharp, but still light (bad hammers, which is a good thing for us!).

We don't need 'wood with the stats of steel' in order for elves to have a material advantage, just a wood with ridiculous properties that allow them to make extra powerful bows, or somesuch.

(Although I'd lean towards Dwarves = Stuff, Elves = Friends, Humans = Themselves, Kobolds = numbers as an advantage scheme.)

[Areyar]

Still, if you can get them mobbed, they can be taken down. In a previous fortress where I decided to attempt a fortress suicide by GCS by making its lair a meeting zone. Instead, a whole bunch of my tame animals (mostly dogs, but I think there were a few horses, muskoxen, and maybe cows in the melee) mobbed the spider and essentially pinned it down. I guess they had it by the legs since a bit before death I saw that its legs and other parts were grey and the spider had been immobilized since it quickly died after that.

That is great! a legless GCS would be a perfect silk farm.

[Neonivek]

Not saying the GCS is unstoppable, I am just explaining why it is more difficult then most creatures (Even ones of greater size).

As for Advantages.

Kobolds don't need to be capable of competing with the other major races (unless they are somehow weakened) they should be able to rise to power should they be left alone and a nation somehow takes a lot of damage.

Kobolds would be a great ally to have.

just a wood with ridiculous properties that allow them to make extra powerful bows,

Gems and Obsideon? They could also, I guess, make it out of the bones of an already passed on creature. Imagine them making unicorn Ivory arrows! (assuming unicorns arn't immortal)

[PermanentInk]

I'm also one of those people who thinks that balancing things by making everyone equal is less interesting than giving each faction unique strengths. The latter is usually harder to balance, but it's not like we need perfect balance here anyway.

It's not such an uncommon strategy -- basically, it's the rock-paper-scissors approach to game design.  The designers I work with refer to this all the time.

I guess having higher skills could be one solution (potentially as an emergent result from being immortal)

This.  Emergent behavior ftw.

I guess currently elves cannot really realize their skill potential from their immortality because everyone starts at zero at world creation and elves then never get to live long because of their initial disadvantages...

Yeah, it'd be nice if the balance of skill levels in a population would have a chance to "season" and reach some sensible equilibrium point before civs all start clashing.  Elves are frequently an "elder race" in the fiction; perhaps at some point Toady will introduce the concept of different races arising at different times.

That reminds me of a board game a friend introduced me to recently called Small World.  Players control competing civilizations in a fantasy world, fighting over limited territory.  The cool central mechanic is that each race "runs out of steam" after a few turns, and goes into decline.  The player chooses and introduces a new race after that, while collecting lingering profits from territory still held by the declining race.  Timing this cycle right is an important point of strategy.

For DF, there'd have to be a reason in the fiction for races to arise.  The map has a square border, implying perhaps that it could be part of a larger overall world, so one solution is immigration from elsewhere on the globe.  Alternately, the races could literally be created by gods (and then worship those gods etc.).  A demon (or wizard, a la Saruman?) creating the goblin (slash orc slash etc.) race, for example, certainly sounds cool to me.  I like the idea that the earlier ages of the world could be true times of titans, where lesser races don't even exist yet.  That would leave more room/cycles for larger populations of megabeasts and elder races to rise and war and fall and leave cool ruins and artifacts for us to find in later ages.

[PermanentInk]

They could also, I guess, make it out of the bones of an already passed on creature. Imagine them making unicorn Ivory arrows! (assuming unicorns arn't immortal)

Yeah, bone seems like a good option to me.  Goes along well with the animal friendship thing.  Maybe elves could also occasionally find starmetal meteorites or something to craft legendary swords.

As you mentioned the necessity for the unicorn (or whatever creature) to be already dead, since the elves wouldn't want to slaughter them, doesn't the same go for wood?  Trees don't fall down by themselves (yet) in DF, so how are these elves getting all this wood anyway?  Do they sing it out of the trees?

[G-Flex]

Does "proportional strength of a spider" ring a bell?

Also, a real spider that size would collapse in on itself.

Right. Bugs have great proportional strength BECAUSE they're small.

[Neonivek]

It wouldn't be so bad if Elves did have a distinct long term disadvantage unless presenting with opportunities.

In less magical worlds without monsters, spheres, or special kinds of wood, the Elves could otherwise be completely overwhelmed eventually being able to hold on barely by their immortality advantage

It would be interesting if Skill caps also applied to age. So while the average human may cap out on professional, a Elf simply through honing their skills for thousands of years have an average skill cap of Grand Mastery simply through ordinary training, meditation, and study.
-Mind you these are Soft Caps... Basically the further someone goes on the harder it will be to raise their skills further. Elves live so long that even though they gain skills slowly, they will eventually reach the greater skill levels.

As for Elves and wood, it is a mystery how they get so much wood. They COULD have got it from already fallen trees or bundles of wood fallen off a tree but one persistant theory, beyond them being hypocrites, is that they use magical processes to extract wood from living trees.

[Chronas]

Elven immortality isn't an advantage, it's just a means of making sure that no elves die of old age so that they can eventually be cleaned up by a dwarf.

[dreiche2]

Hm, yeah interesting ideas. Assuming skills are acquired even in the absence of war during world gen, an earlier start for the elves, or alternatively an initial age of peace, might be enough to have the immortality factor play out to the elves' advantage.

For example, going along with the ideas of 'elder races', elves and maybe dwarves could get a headstart. Because they have rather different territorial interests (due to preferring forests and mountains, respectively), they would not clash too early, and by the time they do or by the time the more aggressive races enter the game, elves might have attained a skill advantage due to the older members of the race not dying of.

I guess this would also go well with what seems to me to be traditional fantasy lore. The older the members of a race get, the lower their reproduction rate would be (goblins being the exception because they die violent deaths all the time). This means that dwarves and especially elves will be more skilled, but every life will also be more precious, and the loss of a life a much greater loss to the race itself. In the long run, you might thus get a situation where you have ancient societies with members of legendary abilities, which however slowly get overrun by the more populous 'common' races...

[AbacusWizard]

I very strongly favor the idea of each race having its own very different advantage and disadvantages, rather than each race just having its own cosmetically different version of adamantine. More complicated and difficult to balance, yes, but much more enjoyable results.

Dwarves: long-lived, tough, superb mining and smithing abilities, extensive steel production, access to vast mineral resources (sometimes including adamantine), nigh-impenetrable underground fortresses laced with clever mechanical defenses, mounted war-bear cavalry, maybe some sort of runic magic or whatever once that's implemented. On the other hand, somewhat reclusive, on the small side, susceptible to cave adaptation, FREAKING CRAZY PSYCHOLOGY, and somewhat slow to reproduce.

Elves: VERY long-lived, rather high initial skills due to longevity (especially ambush, bowyer, archer), good memory so skills don't "rust," can survive and even thrive in any "natural" environment (I'd love to see desert elves as in Battle for Wesnoth, sea elves, maybe even mountain elves), have powerful animal allies (maybe even riding into battle on unicorns and griffins and the like), nature-themed magic once it's implemented, overwhelmingly fast-firing elite archery squadrons. On the other hand, somewhat shunned by other races due to cannibalism and disdain for city folk, very slow to reproduce, complete lack of metal (although hardened wood about on par with iron would certainly be reasonable).

Humans: innovative and flexible in ways that the Older Races find difficult to understand, faster reproduction rate, well-organized due to city life, widespread civilization, aggressive and confident, excellent balance of industrial and agricultural capabilities that can both feed and arm large armies, fast and hard-hitting horse cavalry, reasonable diplomatic relations with most other races. On the other hand, relatively short-lived compared to Elves and Dwarves, typically less skilled, seen as somewhat "new" on the scene, less magical ability apart from the occasional powerful sorcerer.

Goblins: small, weak, and often poorly armed, but there are LOTS of them, they're vicious, very well-organized in battle, accompanied by trolls to bash down doors, and often led by powerful demons or sorcerers with dark magic to back them up.

Kobolds: small, weak, primitive, but very sneaky, and cute too! I don't know; maybe give them a poisonous bite or a mutant healing factor or something; I almost feel sorry for the little guys. I guess kobolds don't really seem like they need to be balanced in the same way as the other races; I don't really see them as the sort that are going to be attacking the fortress as a huge army so much as sneaking in as single spies or small gangs to scout, steal, or sabotage. Heck, maybe they could sell information or stolen artifacts to the goblins. I would imagine that playing as kobolds wouldn't be so much managing a kobold cavern (do kobold caverns even have managers?) as controlling a squadron of kobolds infiltrating some other civilization to accomplish some mission. (Anyone here play Kobolds Ate My Baby?)

[Mandaril]

I very strongly favor the idea of each race having its own very different advantage and disadvantages, rather than each race just having its own cosmetically different version of adamantine. More complicated and difficult to balance, yes, but much more enjoyable results.

I am not sure exacly. I don't like artificial limitations and "advantages". If one wanted significant racial differences from world generation, then those should come through behaviour, not pre-set conditions.

I mean, why would elves lack metal? They obviously can trade some from other civilizations. Steel tipped arrows would be better than pure wooden arrows, right? And why on earth would every goblin on the face of the earth be poorly equipped? I'm sure they got some nice weapons from a fort that tribe raided a while back.

Making racial limitations like that does in my opinion more harm than good. Make it a mod (or possibility to do such a mod) or something, but not into my vanilla DF, please.

[Granite26]

Straight up R-P-S is only marginally better than everything being equal...

For the elves, I like the thought that an elf that lives long enough will be effectively immortal, kinda like turtles on the beach.  When they are first born, they are zergish and dumb, but after they hit that skill hump, they are so much better(more skilled) than anyone they meet that they have that as an advantage.  (Requires you to ignore the fact that you hit the skill cap in 3-4 years, but hey)