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[Reese]

It's important to look at what makes civilization occur(and how you define civilization); we have plenty of examples of human cultured in various forms of civilization.  granted civilization should mean the building of cities or villages, the primary factors would be a race's willingness to live together in large groups and close quarters, and the race's capability with invention or adoption of technology.  Considering how world gen goes, a desire to expand and settle into a large kingdom or empire should also be a factor.

The question is, what races exhibit these three characteristics? Dwarfs for certain, humans historically, elfs barely meet the last requirement, and seem to get a pass on the second.

From the Biology perspective civilization like comes from a certain type of food scarcity (meaning you have to leave the social group in order to stay reasonably well fed,) with display-fights between neighboring groups. In this case raiding groups to pick off members of the other group are an effective tactic to guarantee dominance. Then the whole smarts thing can take off because instead of other things in your environment being the limiting factor on how smart you need to be it switches to members of your own species being the most important threat to your well being and a lot of the base group mechanics are already in place so soon you can't afford to forgo society, particularly based on the level of society of your neighbors.

I'm not really sure if that's simple enough for other people to follow along with or not anymore. I can barely tell that cell-type vocabulary isn't common knowledge after having been in it so long :/

Are there any fantasy creatures/races that form 30ish member groups but never societies? I picture satyrs possibly running around in small packs for more elaborate pranks and things but they're the closest I can think of and they're already half-human.

yeah, that's true, but in the context of DF a civilization is an entity that builds towns and cities and claims territory (never mind that the territory claims mean nothing when it comes to a player building a fortress... you could build your fort on top of the human or elf capital with no repercussions if you're not at war with them...)

The smaller groups work would work as nomadic civilizations (thinking animal people) but I understand there isn't really anything like that yet.

Like I said, it depends on how you're defining civilization for the purpose of the conversation.

Speaking of my little side note above, and granted it's a bit further into the fortress future than the next release,  will other civilizations ever eventually react to you building a fort within their geopolitical boundaries?  I'd like to think there will eventually be repercussions if a group of dwarfs just started digging in in the middle of human territories, especially if they are digging up all sorts of valuable minerals and gems that technically belong to the humans... I'd like to see something like the humans annexing your fortress by defeating your military, allowing you to continue running it, but swapping your parent civ to human and stationing NPC human guards.  maybe you could even rebel against the humans and kill their guards by training and arming new troops in secret...  That'll need some pretty sophisticated AI on the human guards, though, and some way you keep you from dealing with the human guards like caravans and nobles currently can be dealt with... Or maybe not

[Innominate]

What do people think about starting a fantasy ark project? Goal would be to produce thousands of innovative non-sentients for all biomes. Bladderfish would be fantastic for a swamp biome, for example.

[Kavalion]

Some dwarf-eating trees and shrubs would be nice.  They look like ordinary trees and shrubs, don't show up on the unit list, and then suddenly they swallow a dwarf wood cutter whole.

Was stealth and ambush from wild predators discussed?  Alligators that are hidden in ponds until something edible comes along?

[Ironhand]

I agree.

The wilderness seems so much less dangerous and exciting when you have immediate access to a comprehensible list of every creature within a mile of your fort.

[powell]

Some dwarf-eating trees and shrubs would be nice.  They look like ordinary trees and shrubs, don't show up on the unit list, and then suddenly they swallow a dwarf wood cutter whole.

Was stealth and ambush from wild predators discussed?  Alligators that are hidden in ponds until something edible comes along?

so basically, like carp on land?

[Ironhand]

Except actually hidden.
Like from us.

[powell]

scary

[Diablous]

Speaking of my little side note above, and granted it's a bit further into the fortress future than the next release,  will other civilizations ever eventually react to you building a fort within their geopolitical boundaries?  I'd like to think there will eventually be repercussions if a group of dwarfs just started digging in in the middle of human territories, especially if they are digging up all sorts of valuable minerals and gems that technically belong to the humans... I'd like to see something like the humans annexing your fortress by defeating your military, allowing you to continue running it, but swapping your parent civ to human and stationing NPC human guards.  maybe you could even rebel against the humans and kill their guards by training and arming new troops in secret...  That'll need some pretty sophisticated AI on the human guards, though, and some way you keep you from dealing with the human guards like caravans and nobles currently can be dealt with... Or maybe not

I'd like to see that.

[atomfullerene]

Took a class on the rise of complex civilizations once...it was really interesting stuff.  I wish I could remember more from it right now. 

Anyway, I think even people aren't a naturally civilization-building species.  Perfectly modern humans lived in hunter-gatherer bands for 100,000 years at least before starting to settle down in the past 10,000 years.  We took up civilization eventually, but not quickly.  We'd have once fit the "no groups with more than 30 members" pretty well.  So I don't think your species need any sort of unusual characteristics to get the no-civ tag, even with normal humans you could just say they haven't invented civilization yet.  Still, certain characteristics could make civilization even  less likely....my bet is that asociality is the best one.  Humans have always lived in groups or bands, it was only a matter of extending them.  But some species are strictly solitary.  I don't think aggression alone would  do it, because that tends to get channeled into dominance hierarchies.

This made me think of some other things too.  Neolithic humans we know, and elves are pretty neolithic as is.  But what about stone age dwarves....interesting!  I'd never thought of it.  Secondly, a number of the civilization related things we do aren't "natural" exactly, but are side effects of having a big and versatile brain.  So talking and social interaction come naturally to us, while large societies and building do not.  What if you had an intelligent species that was naturally solitary but had an instinctive knack for building (beavermen?) or something that naturally built cities and huge societies (antmen?).

[tfaal]

Some dwarf-eating trees and shrubs would be nice.  They look like ordinary trees and shrubs, don't show up on the unit list, and then suddenly they swallow a dwarf wood cutter whole.

That's totally doable. You'd just have to use the GCS's ambush code, and make them completely sessile by not giving them any stance parts or graspers. I would recommend making them poisonous and fairly weak. A dwarf should be able to kill it, and possibly die from the poison, but a cat should probably be toast. On the whole, the CGS ambush code is really underused. Maybe I could make an "ambush predator" mod to take advantage of it more.

[Shoku]

It's important to look at what makes civilization occur(and how you define civilization); we have plenty of examples of human cultured in various forms of civilization.  granted civilization should mean the building of cities or villages, the primary factors would be a race's willingness to live together in large groups and close quarters, and the race's capability with invention or adoption of technology.  Considering how world gen goes, a desire to expand and settle into a large kingdom or empire should also be a factor.

The question is, what races exhibit these three characteristics? Dwarfs for certain, humans historically, elfs barely meet the last requirement, and seem to get a pass on the second.

From the Biology perspective civilization like comes from a certain type of food scarcity (meaning you have to leave the social group in order to stay reasonably well fed,) with display-fights between neighboring groups. In this case raiding groups to pick off members of the other group are an effective tactic to guarantee dominance. Then the whole smarts thing can take off because instead of other things in your environment being the limiting factor on how smart you need to be it switches to members of your own species being the most important threat to your well being and a lot of the base group mechanics are already in place so soon you can't afford to forgo society, particularly based on the level of society of your neighbors.

I'm not really sure if that's simple enough for other people to follow along with or not anymore. I can barely tell that cell-type vocabulary isn't common knowledge after having been in it so long :/

Are there any fantasy creatures/races that form 30ish member groups but never societies? I picture satyrs possibly running around in small packs for more elaborate pranks and things but they're the closest I can think of and they're already half-human.

yeah, that's true, but in the context of DF a civilization is an entity that builds towns and cities and claims territory (never mind that the territory claims mean nothing when it comes to a player building a fortress... you could build your fort on top of the human or elf capital with no repercussions if you're not at war with them...)

Well once agriculture hits the nature of territory changes and it's assumed that you're going to mostly be building on a different z layer. We obviously don't always do that but it would be asking a lot for the game to recognize when you were cramping their town.

The smaller groups work would work as nomadic civilizations (thinking animal people) but I understand there isn't really anything like that yet.

Like I said, it depends on how you're defining civilization for the purpose of the conversation.

Well if you want to hop up to that stage then it's largely two things: being able to take a hit to the old diet and survive on a crappier variety of food and having access to farmable foodstuffs like wheat and cattle. We can grow cows in the polar regions if we want to right now but I think anybody can recognize that just growing a few hundred animals indoors would take a lot more work. Without the whole having to feed them and feces issues it's very different.

Took a class on the rise of complex civilizations once...it was really interesting stuff.  I wish I could remember more from it right now. 

Anyway, I think even people aren't a naturally civilization-building species.

When you're talking about a species who's behavior is so dominated by learning natural loses a lot of meaning.

Perfectly modern humans lived in hunter-gatherer bands for 100,000 years at least before starting to settle down in the past 10,000 years.  We took up civilization eventually, but not quickly.  We'd have once fit the "no groups with more than 30 members" pretty well.

200 would be a better estimate. Humans almost can't survive unless you've got (I forget if it's 22 or 30 adults paired up with each other,) in isolation and I don't think hunter gatherers sent members between groups that often.

So I don't think your species need any sort of unusual characteristics to get the no-civ tag, even with normal humans you could just say they haven't invented civilization yet.  Still, certain characteristics could make civilization even  less likely....my bet is that asociality is the best one.  Humans have always lived in groups or bands, it was only a matter of extending them.  But some species are strictly solitary.  I don't think aggression alone would  do it, because that tends to get channeled into dominance hierarchies.

This made me think of some other things too.  Neolithic humans we know, and elves are pretty neolithic as is.  But what about stone age dwarves....interesting!  I'd never thought of it.

I'd say that would come from the point before they got their first anvil n_n

Secondly, a number of the civilization related things we do aren't "natural" exactly, but are side effects of having a big and versatile brain.

Well if you want to be specific we went the sexual selection route somewhere between that chimp ancestor and what we are now. It adds some direction to evolution in that females would be wanting the mates that gave them the best shot at not going to dinner with the neighbors as the dinner. Usually the mate choice is all on the one gender with animals and the other isn't picky because they're in excess but with us you see both genders rejecting poor quality mates and otherwise being picky. It would stand to reason that this has a lot to do with the male being willing to risk his life for his children, and all those other things we do to raise them.

So talking and social interaction come naturally to us, while large societies and building do not.  What if you had an intelligent species that was naturally solitary but had an instinctive knack for building (beavermen?) or something that naturally built cities and huge societies (antmen?).

I don't know if beaver dams could really become a good enough way to get food for a beaver society so they're kind of forced apart by that issue. They'd likely never have enough time to visit a beaver library or such. With intelligent ants that can presumably speak there's the issue of whether or not they would actually ever speak with foreign ants. The pheromones are an attack on sight type of response from what I can tell and you only get things like the supercolony with human trade having granted them a short "distance" connection.

[CobaltKobold]

Speaking of my little side note above, and granted it's a bit further into the fortress future than the next release,  will other civilizations ever eventually react to you building a fort within their geopolitical boundaries?  I'd like to think there will eventually be repercussions if a group of dwarfs just started digging in in the middle of human territories, especially if they are digging up all sorts of valuable minerals and gems that technically belong to the humans... I'd like to see something like the humans annexing your fortress by defeating your military, allowing you to continue running it, but swapping your parent civ to human and stationing NPC human guards.  maybe you could even rebel against the humans and kill their guards by training and arming new troops in secret...  That'll need some pretty sophisticated AI on the human guards, though, and some way you keep you from dealing with the human guards like caravans and nobles currently can be dealt with... Or maybe not

I'd like to see that.

Go read about Augustus Heinze/Butte, Montana. One odd claim law leads to very interesting, dastardly (dare I say dwarven?) mining conflicts. Also multiple solutions to this-I mean, you can just leave surface layers intact and undermine them

(Unfortunately present ore veins in DF will not support "Copper Kings" style setups.)

[Shoku]

I was kind of disappointed the first time when I found that I couldn't really pursue the metal all through the mountain.

[lordcooper]

Woo! Page 700!

Who is Carlos Castenada?

Carlos Castaneda was an anthropologist on a field assignment to mexico who went "full native", became a powerful shaman, and wrote some books about it that seem to be part fiction although it's hard to say for sure. The books are great though.

Tales of Power is a must read.

And remember kids: knowledge is a moth.

[Toastergargletop]

Perfectly modern humans lived in hunter-gatherer bands for 100,000 years at least before starting to settle down in the past 10,000 years.  We took up civilization eventually, but not quickly.  We'd have once fit the "no groups with more than 30 members" pretty well.

200 would be a better estimate. Humans almost can't survive unless you've got (I forget if it's 22 or 30 adults paired up with each other,) in isolation and I don't think hunter gatherers sent members between groups that often.


you might want to have a look at Australian aboriginals.  the were a thriving hunter gatherer society until about 250 years ago.