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[assimilateur]

1. I'm thinking about modding some semimegabeasts like giants or cyclopes to make civilizations, but for that I need to better understand what some of the basics. Thus I ask you for any tips you might find useful, and for one piece of info in particular: what exactly is the difference between kobolds and goblins? I ask this, because the former will never show up on the neighboring civs screen during embark, and will always have names even though they lack the can_speak tag, whereas every other civ will have names like "goblin maceman" when deprived of said tag.

2. What is the difference between megabeasts and semimegabeasts?
2.a. Is there a way of making them more keen on attacking you? Even when I'm actually sure that there are some in my world, and my wealth is in the higher 6 digits or low 7 digits, I pretty much never get besieged by them.

[Wirevix]

I'm not an expert, but I can answer a little bit at least.

First things first, to my understanding, no creature with the [MEGABEAST] or [SEMIMEGABEAST] tag will ever actually form a civ.  In order to make a cyclops civ, you'll have to remove their [SEMIMEGABEAST] tag first.

In regards to kobolds, couple things: First off, kobolds live in caves, which are not registered on the region maps as civilization areas.  Goblins, on the other hand, live in dark towers, which do show up as civilization areas just like towns, forest homes, and dwarven fortresses.

Another difference is in the speaking - kobolds use the [UTTERANCES] tag, so even if they do have [CAN_SPEAK], it doesn't matter.  [UTTERANCES] makes the creature speak in meaningless babble, but also does carry a sort of [CAN_SPEAK] function in that it does let the creature have a name.

As far as the difference between megabeasts and semimegabeasts, not entirely sure.  Megabeasts are generally more powerful, and less common, but I don't think that's anything to really do with the tag itself.  I think semimegabeasts are more likely to settle in caves, while megabeasts are more prone to wander around?

Also, to make megabeasts more likely to find you, you can do a couple things:
1. Make them more survivable.  Lots of megabeasts die in worldgen, you can do things like increase their size or use improved bodyplans (especially for the Hydra) to help them live longer.
2. Set worldgen to stop with a lower percentage of megabeasts dead.  The default is 80% of megabeasts dead, so there's not all that many left by the time default worldgen finishes.
3. Modify their [FREQUENCY] tag to be higher (ex., a dragon has a default frequency of 5, which is very low when the max is 100)

[soul4hdwn]

I'm not an expert, but I can answer a little bit at least.
...
2. Set worldgen to stop with a lower percentage of megabeasts dead.  The default is 80% of megabeasts dead, so there's not all that many left by the time default worldgen finishes.
...

that part is incorrect as i was trying to mod world parameters and found out that that number and the year number paired with it says "if this amount of megabeasts in percentage are dead, starting at the specified year, then stop world gen".
this normally ends gen'ing early because the default or medium map can go up to year 1050 and it almost always stops around 200 because 200 is that specified date to do the check if the percentage of megabeasts are dead or not, also on default.

[Wirevix]

I don't really get what you're saying.  Or rather, I don't get how I'm incorrect.  It checks at 200 to see if 80% of megabeasts are dead, yes.  If they are, it stops.  If they aren't, it doesn't.  It won't stop until it either hits the max year possible, or 80% are dead.  Since the vanilla megabeasts are rather weak, it rarely goes above 200, because by then 80% or more megabeasts are dead.  But whether or not it goes above 200, you don't have many left when the worldgen finishes.

So what part of what I said was incorrect?

[Strange guy]

I think the main difference between megabeasts and semimegabeasts is that megabeasts may visit your fort in fortress mode.

I've done a mod myself with a semimegabeast civilisation- I found that they act as though there are two creatures- some of them form civilisations normally and others act as normal semimegabeasts.

[Caesar]

A simple way to test whether or not they will successfully form civilizations would be to let the Giant-Civilizations build towns, and then look to see whether or not a Giant-Town has been formed. If so, they'll also form civilizations in caves if you change their [DEFAULT_SITE:...] to 'CAVE' again.

[assimilateur]

So you guys have never had giants or cyclopes visit your forts? How about settling in evil biomes? I remember once being attacked by a bunch of minotaurs, or something like that, right after embarking.

Regardless, looks like I'm going to have to try make at least one of the races of tall vermin into a civ, so I can get besieged by them.

Also, you misunderstood part of my post: I didn't have a problem with all my mega- and semimegabeasts dying out. I've upped their chances of survival already, not via the options you've recommended, but via increased cluster size. According to exported world sites and population data of a recent world I've made, I had at least a couple dozen dragons survive, while giants and ogres and the like worked even better (but probably only because I went even more over the top with their cluster size).


Another thing: so you're saying that making kobolds live in cities will make them show up on the civ screen? That's good to know. I don't quite understand the part about utterances and can_speak, though. My goblins are generally nameless already, as I've swapped their intelligent tag with can_speak and can_civ; only the ringleaders get names, while the grunts are called goblin axeman and the like, only getting a name when they kill someone (the same as wild animals). So you're saying that speaking in utterances overrides this and gives kobolds names when they shouldn't have them?

[3]

Effectively, yeah. Nonsense names, of course.

[assimilateur]

Effectively, yeah. Nonsense names, of course.

How would taking away their utterances tag work? I mean, I'm guessing it would break something as they don't have a proper language file.

[Jay]

I'm not an expert, but I can answer a little bit at least.
...
2. Set worldgen to stop with a lower percentage of megabeasts dead.  The default is 80% of megabeasts dead, so there's not all that many left by the time default worldgen finishes.
...

that part is incorrect as i was trying to mod world parameters and found out that that number and the year number paired with it says "if this amount of megabeasts in percentage are dead, starting at the specified year, then stop world gen".
this normally ends gen'ing early because the default or medium map can go up to year 1050 and it almost always stops around 200 because 200 is that specified date to do the check if the percentage of megabeasts are dead or not, also on default.

Umm.
That doesn't contradict what was stated at all.

[3]

How would taking away their utterances tag work? I mean, I'm guessing it would break something as they don't have a proper language file.

I hate to answer in such a backhanded fashion, but is there a point to this? Taking things out of entity files tends to break them. That's about it.

[Hugo_The_Dwarf]

I think can speak and utterances work together, it just makes their speech a mess of words to other races but they seem to understand each other

[3]

The main functional difference between UTTERANCES and CAN_SPEAK is that creatures with UTTERANCES can't be spoken to in adventurer mode - not even by one of their own entry. Also, playable creatures with UTTERANCES can speak quite happily to creatures that can speak, which doesn't really make much sense (unless it's assumed that they're just being spoken to).

Of course, there's always the possibility that having both tags gets you the best of both... I'll have to test this.

[assimilateur]

That doesn't contradict what was stated at all.

As has already been said by the poster addressed above. Thank you for your valuable input.

I hate to answer in such a backhanded fashion, but is there a point to this? Taking things out of entity files tends to break them. That's about it.

The point is consistency in naming. It's jarring to see kobolds getting names while my other invaders are called goblin swordman or human axelord.


I just noticed I've made a mistake above. I meant that I had given my invaders can_learn and can_civ, and not can_speak. Right now I've removed the kobolds' utterances tag and I'll see how it goes come next regen. I'm still gonna try to make a civ of tall vermin* first.

*Is tall vermin even the right term? I remember dwarves in D&D having a peculiar term to refer to giants and the like, but I'm not sure if I recall it correctly. Anyone care to correct me?

[Wiseacre]

Giant kin?