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[LordNagash]

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.

Uh, morality IS opinion. Ethics are too, they're just an agreed set of opinions on what is 'right'.

There are very few people who believe they are evil, despite what everyone else may think. They justify their actions with their own set of morals.

It's the same in Dwarf Fortress. What makes the morals of dwarves any more 'right' than the morals of goblins? The only difference is one is a lot closer to our own morals, and so that makes them the 'good guys'

[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.

Uh, morality IS opinion. Ethics are too, they're just an agreed set of opinions on what is 'right'.

There are very few people who believe they are evil, despite what everyone else may think. They justify their actions with their own set of morals.

It's the same in Dwarf Fortress. What makes the morals of dwarves any more 'right' than the morals of goblins? The only difference is one is a lot closer to our own morals, and so that makes them the 'good guys'

I understand what you are saying now. What I was talking about was the issue of "absolute right/wrong" vs. "relative right/wrong", eg: killing is wrong no matter what you believe. This is absolute, whereas realtive would be "killing is only wrong if you think it's wrong".

You are correct in that everybody does not think they're evil. Or are you? Personally, I think there are people who know that what they do is evil, but whether or not they'd believe they are evil... well, I'm not everyone and I don't know a lot of people that can speak for everyone. Basically, nobody. I doubt that anyone would believe they are evil, but I am unsure whether I am right or wrong. I see no convincing argument in your words, so they do not sway me one way or the other.

I really don't want to take over Pilsu's thread and turn it into a philospohical discussion Therefore, I would like to point out, IndonesiaWarMinister, that FelBlood's idea of a leader changing foreign relations over time would do exactly what you are saying. The question is, how gradual? I think that within three generations of leaders, a civilization could move from "alliance" to "war". This will give DF the kind of fluidity and change that is natural. Any faster, and it's simply too much, although up to 5 generations for such a change would not be too unbelievable for me either.

[Byakugan01]

Wars can happen quite suddenly too, however-a dispute over a particularly valuable piece of land could turn into an armed conflict very fast. There should also be a chance for wars to erupt suddenly over a mutually desired resource/location.

[Drake1500]

Wars can happen quite suddenly too, however-a dispute over a particularly valuable piece of land could turn into an armed conflict very fast. There should also be a chance for wars to erupt suddenly over a mutually desired resource/location.

Very true. Not sure how we'd be able to implement this, however. Also, how would you define what a mutually desired resource/location is?

[Fieari]

Wars over differences of philosophy, ethics based wars, those should only change after societies change (if they ever do).  Wars over territory should crop up all the time.

What may get interesting is when ethics can change, and why they change.  Perhaps there's an ethic where a culture won't go to war unless it's an ethical war, but the leader really wants that territory.  He could go about changing an ethic of his civilization as a pretext for the war!

[Drake1500]

Wars over differences of philosophy, ethics based wars, those should only change after societies change (if they ever do).  Wars over territory should crop up all the time.

What may get interesting is when ethics can change, and why they change.  Perhaps there's an ethic where a culture won't go to war unless it's an ethical war, but the leader really wants that territory.  He could go about changing an ethic of his civilization as a pretext for the war!

Maybe we could generate a mix of this and Felblood's suggestion, where the leader causes the ethics to change, based on his own ethics. Quite possibly, the leader could have ethics of his own which replace the civ's ethics, and his own ethics are generated  ased on the civ's last ethics, with some randomization?

[Granite26]

Wars over differences of philosophy, ethics based wars, those should only change after societies change (if they ever do).  Wars over territory should crop up all the time.

What may get interesting is when ethics can change, and why they change.  Perhaps there's an ethic where a culture won't go to war unless it's an ethical war, but the leader really wants that territory.  He could go about changing an ethic of his civilization as a pretext for the war!

Check out Akhenaton for some of that

Maybe we could generate a mix of this and Felblood's suggestion, where the leader causes the ethics to change, based on his own ethics. Quite possibly, the leader could have ethics of his own which replace the civ's ethics, and his own ethics are generated  ased on the civ's last ethics, with some randomization?

[Warlord255]

I'd say that a [DEVELOPS_GRUDGE] tag would work best; they will stay more hostile towards a race for longer, even through peace, making war progressively easier to start.