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[Neruz]

Carp are individually almost as deadly as Sturgeon, but come in big balls instead of singular.


Also, we recently (re)discovered that the game has moss in it, there's all kind of fun little tidbits in there.

[Dvergar]

You obviously don't have much experience with carp.

I have tons of experience embarking in carp infested areas, but sturgeon and lamprey kill my dwarves not carp

[Demonic Spoon]

They're trying to lure you into a false sense of security. 

[Dvergar]

They're trying to lure you into a false sense of security. 

Awesome, mindgames with carp!

*Dvergar has gone Stark Raving Mad!*

[MrFake]

But then you could segregate your military and "evolve" them to have badass offspring.

I assume anything like that applied to animals ought be applied to all living creatures. It would be pretty sweet to one day enounter some goblin civ that had such a hard time they were actually tough.

I think Toady mentioned that he was thinking about breeding possibilities.  Like Unintelligent said, it could be used to breed together animals.  For instance, you could make pure breeds of animals, or mixes, or practice eugenics on your dwarfs (it should apply to all creatures).  However, Toady or someone else mentioned the counterpoint that even with the ability to mix genetic traits, the time to maturity for both dwarfs and animals is so long that it's not something that's practical in play.  At least not for quite some time.  Mostly it would be for the cool but insignificant things like Unintelligent's example; on an individual basis, not a population basis.

To the OPs idea of evolution and natural selection: well, the foundation is still the raw data for a deer.  If the only thing that changes is the deer's stats, and the deer with the higher stats regularly beat the others, then all worldgens are going to end up with the same kind of deer--for the statistically minded: the same probability distribution of deer stats.

So ... without actually evolving traits, what is the point?  It's just widening the randomization factor and increasing the bias for stats.  Always stronger deer, with more variation in strength, and possibly biome-dependent.  That's still a nice result, but it doesn't need anything like a full-on evolution framework to achieve.

[Plazek]

However, Toady or someone else mentioned the counterpoint that even with the ability to mix genetic traits, the time to maturity for both dwarfs and animals is so long that it's not something that's practical in play.  At least not for quite some time. 

Worldgen. Few hundred years should do something
Though I hate to imagine the poor fate of immigrants in a fortress obsessed with eugenics, they get a tough enough time already.

[Christes]

The problem with carp is less about them be vicious and tough and more about your dwarves dodging into the river.  Now, skeltal sturgeons that crawl on the land ... that's more like it.

[Neruz]

The problem with carp is less about them be vicious and tough and more about your dwarves dodging into the river.  Now, skeltal sturgeons whales that crawl on the land ... that's more like it.

[yarm102]

you would need to make grass an actual edible plant for the grazers.

you would need some sort of basic behaviour file for the predators, so that lions don't always get stomped trying to kill elephants and hippos for food, and maybe lions form prides where tigers and leopards don't.

you'd need some sort of moss/lichen for cave dwelling herbivores to eat.

smaller predators would need to eat vermin.

maybe granting [CAN_LEARN] to ALL creatures would create some sort of darwinian impulse, especially if they need to eat to survive. some sort of code to make higher XP creatures more attractive to the opposite sex might make breeding plausible.

A top predator in a map might look like this:

"Urist McGhost" - Lion
Ultramighty
Superlionly tough
Perfectly Agile
Legendary biter
Legendary ambusher
Legendary mauler
Legendary mater

after a while, you would certainly end up in an equilibrium between predator and prey species, or no species as the prey would all have been eaten and the predators all died of starvation.

ADDS: some sort of basic genetics would be required, where inherent things like potential strength, susceptibility to disease and ability to learn would be passed along, and maybe where random mutation is possible, although that may lead to speciation where a "lion" in one area is radically different to a "lion" in another due to the environment putting differing pressures on lions.

[NFossil]

Talking of undead sea creatures, I never seem to get more than a couple of them and they never come near the shore. Any idea how to get more?

[Dvergar]

However, Toady or someone else mentioned the counterpoint that even with the ability to mix genetic traits, the time to maturity for both dwarfs and animals is so long that it's not something that's practical in play.  At least not for quite some time. 

Worldgen. Few hundred years should do something

Oh absolutely, I failed to mention that this would largly only take place in worldgen, it would add another layer of complexity to the worldgen.  It would generate immensly tough creatures in resource-scare enviroments, and make every embark unique

I can also see this being compatable and similar to Toady's randomized organisms

[Reese]

I think Toady mentioned that he was thinking about breeding possibilities.  Like Unintelligent said, it could be used to breed together animals.  For instance, you could make pure breeds of animals, or mixes, or practice eugenics on your dwarfs (it should apply to all creatures).  However, Toady or someone else mentioned the counterpoint that even with the ability to mix genetic traits, the time to maturity for both dwarfs and animals is so long that it's not something that's practical in play.  At least not for quite some time.  Mostly it would be for the cool but insignificant things like Unintelligent's example; on an individual basis, not a population basis.

To the OPs idea of evolution and natural selection: well, the foundation is still the raw data for a deer.  If the only thing that changes is the deer's stats, and the deer with the higher stats regularly beat the others, then all worldgens are going to end up with the same kind of deer--for the statistically minded: the same probability distribution of deer stats.

So ... without actually evolving traits, what is the point?  It's just widening the randomization factor and increasing the bias for stats.  Always stronger deer, with more variation in strength, and possibly biome-dependent.  That's still a nice result, but it doesn't need anything like a full-on evolution framework to achieve.

to do some interesting evolution stuff, you would need to have tradeoffs in stats; if each stat can improve and be the best, you'll just end up with everything "evolved" to max stats.  you would need a ssytem of drawbacks.  Such as (for example) bulkiness; deer living in a cold biome would survive better being more bulky to weather the cold and to survive off their fat when the vegetation is dormant from cold, but might be slower, deer in warmer climates could have lower bulk, which would allow them to move faster and avoid predators more easily, but be less able to defend themselves when cornered.

From a player's perspective, a mountain deer would have more units of meat and fat and be easier to catch, but also harder to kill and be able to do more damage to a hunter, and a lowland dear would be easy to kill in few hits, but better at running away and provide less meat and fat.

Of course, these distinctions are already evolved in the real world animals that biome specific animals come from, so it would be kind of redundant.

[blah28722]

It would be really interesting if there was a game out there that basically allowed the player to be god. Kind of like the concept behind the advertisement for Spore, but not the actual game.

[Mohreb el Yasim]

It would be really interesting if there was a game out there that basically allowed the player to be god. Kind of like the concept behind the advertisement for Spore, but not the actual game.

like "populus" and "black and white"?

[blah28722]

I was thinking less "Let your civilization prosper and beat the other guy" and more "Oh look, I just made a new animal. It ate everything."