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[Footkerchief]

^^^ oh, I guess there is that

Just wondering out loud out of curiosity, any idea what breed of cat Scamps is or is he a 'mutt' or whatever you call a mixed breed cat?

He's got more or less typical tabby coloration, so I'm guessing he's just a mixed breed (best kind).

[Zantan]

I just skimmed the eternal suggestions, and saw mention of bread fairly far down.  That made me wonder whether the custom workshops in the next version will allow for us to make custom foods.  Looking at the current raws, it seems that it would be difficult to do right, though you could define bread to be a seedless plant, and define a flour --> bread reaction in a custom workshop.  Does anyone know how this might work in the next version?

[Footkerchief]

That made me wonder whether the custom workshops in the next version will allow for us to make custom foods.  Looking at the current raws, it seems that it would be difficult to do right, though you could define bread to be a seedless plant, and define a flour --> bread reaction in a custom workshop.  Does anyone know how this might work in the next version?

A seedless, biomeless, non-processable plant is probably the best route for that and many other custom food items, yeah.  Items are still very inflexible compared to materials.

[Rockphed]

And what do you mean by first world areas not having a sense of sovereign? As far as I know, the US, european countries, canada, etc, haven't given up on their territory or submitted themselves directly to the will of a foreign power. The EU countries haven't given up on their sovereign either, they just agreed to work togheder, but a country can defect from it if it wishes to do so, there's nothing absolutely preventing it from doing that.

The number of countries where the leader is actually sovereign is dwindling. In plenty the King or whatnot is more for show and you certainly can't say any of the various politician groups have indisputable power since it's really all about limits. If Obama was sovereign losing the Massachusetts seat wouldn't matter and we'd have socialized medicine already

Of course Obama isn't the sovereign.  The People is.  More specifically, the people who actually vote are the sovereign.  I don't remember exactly how the argument went, but didn't some philosopher ask, "If the king cannot choose his heir, who then has the power: The king, or the King Makers?"  Okay, that is a paraphrase of what is probably a translation, but it contains the idea.

Also, did you never take a high school civics class that talked about "Popular Sovereignty?"  It is very much present in the Republics of the western world.  Other places, like north Korea or Cuba, not so much, though they tend to have some form of autocrat in power.

At any rate, a better question to ask with regards to defining civilizations would probably be whether they have a formal power structure or not?  In Egypt, they had the pharoah, in rome they had the senate and later the emperors.  During the Senatorial period, would you claim that the romans were not civilized?  Okay, neither would I, but that is more because they were a blood thirsty people who delighted in murder and killing than because I feel like applying real anthropological principles to them.

[Cardinal]

They still voted in Consuls who exercised executive power and even dictatorial power if the situation merited it (That's where the word dictator comes from).

I think the transitionary state between mixed bands and centralized power is the best place to look for DF inspiration.  Folks on Crete and in the Yucatan and in ancient China sacrificed people to a degree and in a manner such that it would make your average DF player blanch.  Heck, how many DF barons demand that their tomb contain not only some Microcline statues but also their sacrificed servants and concubines?  How many Dungeon Masters mandate "two dozen children's fingers" whenever there's an earthquake?

[Neonivek]

Well there are large differences within breeds

For example there are several types of Siamese Cats. My Sister has a Classical Siamese, specifically blue-tip, (rather then the current mutant ones you get now) which has even further atypical traits.

[AfterShave]

A seedless, biomeless, non-processable plant

Wouldn't that be some kind of imaginary plant that wouldn't exist anywhere because it has no biome?

[Neonivek]

A seedless, biomeless, non-processable plant

Wouldn't that be some kind of imaginary plant that wouldn't exist anywhere because it has no biome?

It COULD. It also could exist through other methods such as being generated from creatures, spheres, or it could be a template for other plants to be randomly generated.

*shrugs*

Actually I have no idea what your talking about

[Diablous]

A seedless, biomeless, non-processable plant

Wouldn't that be some kind of imaginary plant that wouldn't exist anywhere because it has no biome?

Probably. Would be nice to use custom workshops to make bread, pasta and the like.

[Footkerchief]

A seedless, biomeless, non-processable plant

Wouldn't that be some kind of imaginary plant that wouldn't exist anywhere because it has no biome?

Yes, that's the point.  If you check what I quoted, we were talking about how to implement loaves of bread.  They'd be "plants" that would only be produced via a kitchen reaction.

[smjjames]

They still voted in Consuls who exercised executive power and even dictatorial power if the situation merited it (That's where the word dictator comes from).

I think the transitionary state between mixed bands and centralized power is the best place to look for DF inspiration.  Folks on Crete and in the Yucatan and in ancient China sacrificed people to a degree and in a manner such that it would make your average DF player blanch.  Heck, how many DF barons demand that their tomb contain not only some Microcline statues but also their sacrificed servants and concubines?  How many Dungeon Masters mandate "two dozen children's fingers" whenever there's an earthquake?

The Great Wall of China has a legend that peoples bones were buried inside it. Many thousands of workers died while working on it. The Egyptains also used huge amounts of manpower, but even they weren't quite that brutal. It would still have been brutal by any modern standard though.

The Egyptains may also have buried a pharoahs most beloved concubine(s) and possibly valued servants, but they died of natural causes.

@AfterShave: What are you trying to get at?

@Foot: If you went by a well known fairy tale, you should be able to make bread from bone....

[CobaltKobold]

The differences between nerd geek and dork are awfully recently constructed. It feels like expecting everyone to abide by my definition of pudding also being an adhesive such as the mortar used in bricklaying.

Nerd: erudite, nonsocial smart person, often ostracised.
Geek: Someone who will eat odd things e.g. buckets of nails
Dork: a euphemism.

Why people go out of their way to put others down I will ne'er sympathise.

@smjjames: Well, the bonemeal is in, if not the mill job to make it.

[Thndr]

Your pants catch on fire!
Your third toe, left foot is burned!
Something smells delicious.
Your lower body is incinerated!
Something smells delicious.

Dwarves can make bacon sheets, and then make them into clothes!?
(A lot of conversation for just one day passing >_>, 5 pages D: )

Kobolds are the way they are mostly because they have the "skulking" tag and have caves in [DEFAULT_SITE_TYPE:].  The former causes sieges to be triggered by how successful thieves are rather than the entity raw triggers.  The latter matters because during worldgen, civs can only create new sites of their default site type.  Since civilizations can't create caves it means kobolds usually can't/don't found new sites.  If you give them towns or something as a default site and drop [SKULKING] they act just like the goblins (not counting minor metals and religion).

One thing I'm not sure about is if skulking has any effect on how entities expand in world gen.

So potentially with all the underground work going on, kobolds will have towns/cities in caves now?

A seedless, biomeless, non-processable plant

Wouldn't that be some kind of imaginary plant that wouldn't exist anywhere because it has no biome?

Yes, that's the point.  If you check what I quoted, we were talking about how to implement loaves of bread.  They'd be "plants" that would only be produced via a kitchen reaction.

Well would unprocessable make it unable to be cooked or made into alcohol?
Because I'm fairly sure you can do that with bread.

[CobaltKobold]

Kobolds are the way they are mostly because they have the "skulking" tag and have caves in [DEFAULT_SITE_TYPE:].  The former causes sieges to be triggered by how successful thieves are rather than the entity raw triggers.  The latter matters because during worldgen, civs can only create new sites of their default site type.  Since civilizations can't create caves it means kobolds usually can't/don't found new sites.  If you give them towns or something as a default site and drop [SKULKING] they act just like the goblins (not counting minor metals and religion).

One thing I'm not sure about is if skulking has any effect on how entities expand in world gen.

So potentially with all the underground work going on, kobolds will have towns/cities in caves now?

[jamoecw]

And what do you mean by first world areas not having a sense of sovereign? As far as I know, the US, european countries, canada, etc, haven't given up on their territory or submitted themselves directly to the will of a foreign power. The EU countries haven't given up on their sovereign either, they just agreed to work togheder, but a country can defect from it if it wishes to do so, there's nothing absolutely preventing it from doing that.

The number of countries where the leader is actually sovereign is dwindling. In plenty the King or whatnot is more for show and you certainly can't say any of the various politician groups have indisputable power since it's really all about limits. If Obama was sovereign losing the Massachusetts seat wouldn't matter and we'd have socialized medicine already

Of course Obama isn't the sovereign.  The People is.  More specifically, the people who actually vote are the sovereign.  I don't remember exactly how the argument went, but didn't some philosopher ask, "If the king cannot choose his heir, who then has the power: The king, or the King Makers?"  Okay, that is a paraphrase of what is probably a translation, but it contains the idea.

Also, did you never take a high school civics class that talked about "Popular Sovereignty?"  It is very much present in the Republics of the western world.  Other places, like north Korea or Cuba, not so much, though they tend to have some form of autocrat in power.

At any rate, a better question to ask with regards to defining civilizations would probably be whether they have a formal power structure or not?  In Egypt, they had the pharoah, in rome they had the senate and later the emperors.  During the Senatorial period, would you claim that the romans were not civilized?  Okay, neither would I, but that is more because they were a blood thirsty people who delighted in murder and killing than because I feel like applying real anthropological principles to them.

well the formal power structure is quite civilized, the people however were not.  eventually the praetorian guard chose who was going to be heir, and to a large extant when that transition occurred.  before rome became an empire the republic was ruled by political parties which decided things through backdoor politics, and the people had no real power anymore.

to simulate such fluidity in DF i would have different power structures, taken from generalized ones that happened in history (there isn't a great many mind you).  then each person will based on personality bend to the will of someone more charismatic scaled on familiarity and ratio of the charisma (or intimidation, which ever is higher).  hence you could have a king that listens to one of his advisers more than he should, or a republic in which the representatives listen to a religious leader more so than who he is representing, or a collection of city states that acts in the best interests of only one of the city states.

while this seems complicated it is actually not only simple but fairly light on resource usage as well, as you are only comparing a couple of personality trait values amongst the ruling elite, as well as keeping track of meeting between them.  in the case of a direct democracy you would only do these checks while they are at a town meeting, and thus not working/eating/etc.  currently DF does similar operations in regards to likes and dislikes.