Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[irdsm]

Remember guys, we are talking about tags that toady probably wouldn't use for any race. It would be used by modders. We all have ideas of fantasy races that are inherently brutal and bloodthirsty. It's impossible to actually make these races unless you want them to either be unable to speak, baby snatchers or thieves. I personally feel that [always_hostile] would make an excellent tag, but it shouldn't be used in vanilla DF.

[Rakeela]

With the caveat that it not actually enter the main game, [always_hostile] could be great.  I'd just never use a mod that included it without ripping it out.  I think the thing is an insult to the glorious concept of why.

I'm all for modding flexibility though.

[Tenebrais]

Perhaps it would be better to call it a [RAIDER] tag, with the same essential function but the basic justification that the race is a greedy and violent one that tends to take the wealth of other settlements by force. So the same basic thing as the Goblins without the baby-snatching, and no more of an affront to the question of "why".

[SirHoneyBadger]

How about simply(?) an adjustable [XENOPHOBIC] tag? That would sit in my mouth a little better than the OP suggestion, and I might even make some use of it.

[Fieari]

Instead of a [XENOPHOBIC] tag, which makes it genetic, why not an ETHIC for "Tolerates other species"?  Or even one for "Tolerates (specific species)".  If you set it to UNTHINKABLE, it would cause total unending war.  Non of our standard races would be set to hate everyone else, or even hate a specific race... even the goblins by default LOVE all other species (love them so much they want other species to be raised by themselves).  But it would be very useful for beings of the underdark, or even demons.

And we could also have our standard races detest demons as well, to make it mutal.

At any rate, once this was in, modders could change it as they like.

[Hyndis]

This idea has been suggested a few times before, and I really don't like it. I mean the whole point of Dwarf Fortress is that it's supposed to simulate a world and the history of that world. If dwarves hate elves, that should be because of something that happened in the game, like the terrible beard mutilations of 125 or something like that. Having one race just unequivocally hate another for no reason other than 'well they just do' feels like a very artificial construct to put onto the game.

Plot device.

Without conflict anything will very quickly become boring. Game, movie, book, sports, even conversation. And it sucks to have to continually regenerate worlds and deleting worlds in order to produce one where such conflict exists.

[Solifuge]

Plot device.

Without conflict anything will very quickly become boring. Game, movie, book, sports, even conversation. And it sucks to have to continually regenerate worlds and deleting worlds in order to produce one where such conflict exists.

Still, one of the things about DF is that it generates its own plots... and not all of the plot conflicts involve warfare. The conflict could be trying to maintain peace in order to maintain trade with elves or humans or even goblins. Frankly, I think that making someone Always Hate another civ would greatly reduce the complexity of interactions that are presently possible.

Even so, I think once we see the Warfare Arc, being able to send invasion forces to other settlements will allow warmonger players to encite all the bloodshed they want to.

[LordNagash]

This idea has been suggested a few times before, and I really don't like it. I mean the whole point of Dwarf Fortress is that it's supposed to simulate a world and the history of that world. If dwarves hate elves, that should be because of something that happened in the game, like the terrible beard mutilations of 125 or something like that. Having one race just unequivocally hate another for no reason other than 'well they just do' feels like a very artificial construct to put onto the game.

Plot device.

Without conflict anything will very quickly become boring. Game, movie, book, sports, even conversation. And it sucks to have to continually regenerate worlds and deleting worlds in order to produce one where such conflict exists.

Yeah, except 'well they just hate them because uh.. they do' is a really lame reason for there to be a conflict.

I think this whole debate is caught up in the other thing that comes up a lot, about how goblins should attack everyone all the time 'because they're evil'. That's a fallacy - morality is relative, and goblins certainly don't think they're evil. So if they have no actual reason to go to war, why should they? War is destructive, costs a lot of money and carries the danger that you might lose. You don't do it unless you have a decent reason.

I'll agree that at the moment that it can be difficult to get people to go to war (unless you just go the elf path and make them vegetarians who hate people who mistreat plants and animals), but I'd rather toady work on leader personalities and other stuff that will cause wars than add a tag like this.

Besides, next version will have the kind of semi-entities for the animal men and such, they should provide all the mindless violence you need

[Felblood]

Yes, dwarf fortress is about a randomly generated world where international conflict can grow up naturally. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't have world gen parameters or raw tags that can force additional violence into the world. It is a game after all.

While generic tags that force constant conflict between two races would be very bad if they were given to one of the big five races of vanilla DF, they would be an invaluable tool for modders and for fleshing out more minor races.

A race with fast reproduction and an intense, instinctive hatred for elves would go a long way toward balancing the current population drifts, for example. Likewise, being able to mod in a bunch of races that always attack dwarves, without bothering to steal their socks first, would be a huge boon to military minded players.

Unfortunately, the simplistic nature of such a tag robs it of both the unpredictability of a dynamic world, and the ability for racial relationships to change over time. Players who want to see natural conflicts arise over time, or racial grudges grow out of genuine slights, are going to feel cheated if we get a tag like that and development ends there.

Thankfully, I find that highly improbable. The presence of a forced military conflict tag wouldn't completely overwrite the core goals of the project, to create a living fantasy world that functions without the need for such brutal tactics, to make it work.

The, "but they don't have a motive!" argument, likewise falls flat. Personally, I don't see the difference between a [CONQUERER] tag and a [BABYSNATCHER] Tag as far as motive is concerned. Goblins steal children because of their beliefs and instincts, but the tag itself doesn't say that.

Someday, I'd like to see the racial behavior tags folded into the ethics system, but until that day comes, I don't see any reason why the tags themselves couldn't become more diverse and versatile.

[Pilsu]

You still haven't addressed the issue with races having to be babykillers to pick any kind of fights. The ethics systems fails sorely at accommodating the civ's motivations for wealth and power. Making it dependent on one guy isn't gonna cut it, no nation really worked that way. They'd constantly swing from warring to pacifism, completely ignoring past bitter wars

I should be able to force the ancestral conflict driving grudges. Leaving to the RNG all but quarantees nothing ever happens

[Felblood]

So, you want a tag that biases a culture to attack a specific target, but doesn't force that behavior 100% of the time? --Something between a strait up [GENOCIDE:ALWAYS] tag, and a general foreign policy like [CONQUEROR].

As to the issue of new leaders swinging relations too much, I already said some system of tracking would be needed, so that relations could change slowly over the course of several generations.

Perhaps the two could be combined, with the addition of tags that allow us to determine the initial state of racial tensions.

If you wanted two races to hate each other and fight a lot, without being in a state of constant warfare, you could just set their initial relationship to the worst possible settings, and count on all the wars that causes to keep relations poor.

Once that's done, the [HATE] tag could simply lock the relationship at that worst possible state.

[Fieari]

To be honest, I also want the [BABYSNATCHER] tag moved to an ethic as well.  It makes more sense as an ethic.  It's a cultural thing, after all.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Instead of a [XENOPHOBIC] tag, which makes it genetic, why not an ETHIC for "Tolerates other species"?  Or even one for "Tolerates (specific species)". 

It wouldn't have to be used in it's genetic sense, it could simply be cultural or political. The Tolerates (specific species) might be workable.

[Drake1500]

First of all, I can't help but call this:

morality is relative

This is your opinion. There are those of us who disagree with you. Please, understand that this IS opinion, which IS relative. Not everything is relative, although that is my opinion, and you are allowed to have yours, which may or may not be that everything is relative. If you just understood what I just said (I barely understand it :p), then understand: opinion is not fact.

However, you are right in this:

So if they have no actual reason to go to war, why should they?

Reasons are what puts "reality" in "virtual reality" and I agree that they need to be present. However, chew on this for a moment: why did the British enslave the Africans? Well... because. They're Africans! In the likely words of a British man who lived through that era, "they're not good for anything else." Did logic play a part in why they did what they did? Yes, but not the decent logic that we are accustomed to. Certain races can hate others, with no need for logic. So, your entire argument here falls apart.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. It should depend on the other suggestion presented, namely, Felbood's, that leaders change relations over time, but I cannot let such an argument go unanswered.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Morality? Absolute morality can only happen for a species (written in their DNA). But we're speaking about different races (which should be different species altogether) that can have VERY DIFFERENT mindset.

Like Wood Elven eat everything they kill

to Human and Dwarves enslave (not kill) the defeated (Goblin needs to do this too... They have [BABYSNATCHER] already, right?)


Anyway, I would say it should be possible to let the rulers themself decide to their civ's policy, even though I have no idea on how to make it works.