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[Granite26]

One of the dev desires for the new genetic information is for dwarves to know when they are being selected against.  Specifically, red headed dwarves should get pissed off if the last X dwarves killed have been red-heads.

1:  Fun with Math:  Obviously there is a non-zero potential for 3-4 redheads to die in a row naturally, especially if you've got only four hair colors and an even distribution.  One thing that would make for FUN is to vary dwarven tolerance for this randomness.  Basically, Urist McConspiracyTheorist might see the 5% chance that it would happen naturally as proof of noble(player) intent.  It would take some math to figure out the chances, and the threshold should be attached to a personality trait (new or not).  This has the player advantage of serving as an early warning system.  (Conspiracy Theorist getting unhappy at the number of Redheads dying could protect you if, by chance, your military is mostly Irish.  Maybe you need some diversity before your soldiers mutiny)

2:  What else should be monitored?  Obviously physical charactoristics and mental ones.  Anything else that's touched by the genetics system.  That solves the 'Eugenics is bad' desire, but that's a lot of code that could be put to broader use.  Religion is another good one, both God and Fervency.  Group membership, especially if you're killing migrants and the offsite civ gets pissed.  Losing too many cripples should also wierd dwarves out... Care would be taken that this didn't apply to any dwarf getting wounded on the way out.  Skill levels?  The Soapmakers band together to defend themselves from your wrath?

Edit:  This is what I'm talking about:

eugenics stuff

Yeah, I'm quite mindful that when I mentioned people can breed dogs now, of course the enterprising player is going to be doing all sorts of whatever who knows.  The timeframe is probably a bit grueling to get anything like that started with dwarves though, as you'd need something like a 12 year fortress to even get started, but the only restrictions I think I'm planning to put in place (in a future release) are having creatures notice when they are being selected against -- it's sort of a tricky problem, but if the last ten dwarves to die all had red beards, I think the other red-bearded dwarves might start to notice and either flee or take action against their leaders, and that's certainly easy enough to code, though applying it outside of a controlled environment like the player's fortress is more difficult.  I'm vaguely worried about how much untoward player experiments will crap up the forum with flamewars and racism, but I don't think it'll be so much that it can't be handled properly.

[Neonivek]

No offense to you Granite but for some reason reading this... Kinda makes me want to tell Toady to remove that part of the game.

Why does haircolor somehow turn into race especially if there are no other races of Dwarves (Albino has the excuse of being exceedingly rare and coupled with disorders)

I think any sort of "Dwarves with this hair color seem to be dying" be very particular.

[Granite26]

I'm just riffing off of what he said he planned on anyway (as quoted above).  Personally I think think it's a huge amount of work to get something even remotely usable out of it, but if it's going to be in, it should have some play value rather than just punishing the odd wacko who wants to have an aryan fort... (Let's be honest, it's easier to change the raws).


Certain honor squads are also a possibility (Unless people want to argue that having your Royal Guard made up of busty blondes is untoward).  If you do that and the squad bites it, will they feel selected against?  How do you tell the difference, or what 'story' can be told to justify them feeling selection pressures in the future?

Eugenics-wise, you wouldn't even have to kill all the red-beards, just any that formed mating pairs... would that be sufficient to feel selection pressure? (especially if you are losing a few dwarves randomly to fights)

[Silverionmox]

This brings up the question again: what is the role of the player? The expedition leader? Fate? Armok? The Volksgeist of the fortress? A noble?

The dwarves might be discontent with what Fate or Armok deals them, but they can't reasonably expect to change something about that, can they? While guillotining a noble is always a possibility..

(mmm... blocks+mechanism+axe=guillotine)

[Rowanas]

All the blondes will be killed if this happens to my fortress.

[HAMMERMILL]

Well, since you cannot specificly order the death of any dwarf, no dwarf could come to the conclusion that any specific ethnic group is being targeted. Random mining accidents and unfortunate encounters with regrettably released Goblin POWs can't be construed as a genocidal campaign.

You'd just get the normal result of tantrum-spiraling dwarves pissed because Urist "Awesome" Yellowhair got crushed by a drawbridge.

[Starver]

You'd just get the normal result of tantrum-spiraling dwarves pissed because Urist "Awesome" Yellowhair got crushed by a drawbridge.

Without reading the doubtless extensive background to this, I thought the idea was that it was a little "extra" push, potentially.

i.e. Effectively, where deaths of close relatives means more than those of 'mere' friends.  Something like where Enemy/Grudge < Random Dwarf < Aquaintance < Friend < Relative < Child||Lover||Spouse (however the last few order, if they do), but with "Nth Dwarf with similar genetic disposition to self" meaning a shuffle up a place.  2Nth Dwarf, ditto up another place.  But more to do with a sliding scale.  And just like death of an enemy/grudge dwarf might actually mean negative 'upsetness', seeing the demise of all dwarfs with a certain particular hair colour not their own might actually be a negating factor.  (Imagine saving Urist McValuableRedHead from a foul mood by 'accidentally' stationing all unrelated brunettes on the spot with the mystic engravings "At oms mas her.  Dono tenter".)

[HAMMERMILL]

But people don't really have any caveats or special hatreds for people with certain haircolors, blonde jokes aside.

Unless said dwarf is a serial killer that murders brunette hookers, I don't see why anybody would want to kill people based on their hair color. I mean, Adolf Hitler had brown hair and brown eyes.

[Granite26]

This brings up the question again: what is the role of the player? The expedition leader? Fate? Armok? The Volksgeist of the fortress? A noble?

The dwarves might be discontent with what Fate or Armok deals them, but they can't reasonably expect to change something about that, can they? While guillotining a noble is always a possibility..

(mmm... blocks+mechanism+axe=guillotine)

Well that's focusing on the front end... The point is, Toady WANTS dwarves to feel it if there's an unnatural selection pressure on them and react accordingly.  Players as 'the will of the fort' working towards some ethnic cleansing goal would be representative of an inherently racist society, which is something that RL people have methods of dealing with, from leaving, to rebelling, to refusing to work, or becoming dispirited zombies (same effect as no-booze).

You can't say that players can't ensure the death of unwanted dwarves, the prevelence of magma and drowning chambers for nobles, migrants, and cheesemakers proves that.  Since the player can trivially arrange for the slaughter of disfavored dwarfs, should they be capable of seeing it?

But people don't really have any caveats or special hatreds for people with certain haircolors, blonde jokes aside.

Unless said dwarf is a serial killer that murders brunette hookers, I don't see why anybody would want to kill people based on their hair color. I mean, Adolf Hitler had brown hair and brown eyes.

It's a relatively facetious argument intended to be unoffensive.  With hair color and skin color, religious updates that will certainly affect your fortress, and whatever else coming up, there are plenty of opportunities for players to vent their real world prejudices on ascii characters.  If it makes you happy, replace 'redbeards' with the ethnic slur of your choice... Personally, I'm going to stay neutral.

[Pilsu]

Yeah, I really don't see how this is supposed to work. Dwarves die legitly all the time, how is the game supposed to differentiate the Valkyrie Squad of nothing but busty blondes biting it in a legit accident vs. the player having some irrational hatred of blondes and tits and any combination thereof?

[Rowanas]

They wouldn't, but dwarves will still be less happy if they realise that loads of brunettes are dying for totally legit reasons. To a dwarf, every reason is legit. Whether you posted the Valkyrie squad to kill or be killed by the dragon makes no difference, the fact is none of them survived, so it's possibly not a good thing to be blonde.

[Grendus]

Personally, I'm iffy on the whole eugenics thing anyways. While interbreeding might be worth coding against, the last thing I want to do is have to worry about accidentally interbreeding my chow sized war dogs with a chihuahua brought by the traders.

[Granite26]

Personally, I'm iffy on the whole eugenics thing anyways. While interbreeding might be worth coding against, the last thing I want to do is have to worry about accidentally interbreeding my chow sized war dogs with a chihuahua brought by the traders.

Right now it's just skin and hair colors... I'm hoping that we get breeding control (and milking, etc) at the same time or before genetics come in...

You might want to watch the difference in definition between Genetics and Eugenics

[buman]

This feels like it's violating important aspects of a sandbox game, and is essentially the dwarves meta gaming the player.

[Hyndis]

This whole thread seems like a solution in search of a problem.