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[Ari]

I was thinking about getting into modding, and I wanted to create a race (I use the word "race" loosely) of undead that functioned more like a civilization (again I also use the world "civilization" loosely).

Basically, it would be closer to the entire zombie idea of having bands of undead just wandering around the world attempting to eat anything living they came across, not sitting there in cities or the like.

I am not sure where to begin with this idea.....can anyone lend me a hand? I know the current skeletal and zombie tags are templates applied to previously living creatures, but I was under the impression you could not use that form of zombies to do what I am trying to accomplish in world gen.

[3]

Essentially, no. You can mimic undead as closely as possible (ITEMCORPSE, SPEED, NOFEAR, NOPAIN etc) but they'll still be "living" - there aren't any tags that specify whether a given creature is undead or not, only ingame flags.

Also, they'd act exactly like anything else would. So while you might be able to stop them from having apparent leaders (entirely possible via LEADER_TYPE:STANDARD), they'll still have leaders in worldgen/legends, still get married, still breed, still get into wars based on ethics/ITEM_THIEF/BABYSNATCHER, etc.. It'll... kinda work as far as gameplay goes, so long as you make them convincing enough.

[immolo]

I was thinking about getting into modding, and I wanted to create a race (I use the word "race" loosely) of undead that functioned more like a civilization (again I also use the world "civilization" loosely).

Basically, it would be closer to the entire zombie idea of having bands of undead just wandering around the world attempting to eat anything living they came across, not sitting there in cities or the like.

I am not sure where to begin with this idea.....can anyone lend me a hand? I know the current skeletal and zombie tags are templates applied to previously living creatures, but I was under the impression you could not use that form of zombies to do what I am trying to accomplish in world gen.

What you described could be accomplished by making a "zombie" race of creatures as the previous poster noted. For this race instead of making them a civilization because what you described is the exact opposite of a dwarf fortress civilization, you make them normal creatures that are active in all biomes and at night, and have them spawn in large clusters.

[3]

The only problem with that idea is that you're unlikely to encounter large numbers of them besides those which are on the map when you embark.

[Aequor]

Not to mention that as a creature, there's a strong chance that they'll refuse to actually attack anything that doesn't first attack them, which isn't very zombie-like at all.

If you make them as a civilization though, then just make sure the zombies have [CAN_CIV] and [CAN_LEARN] but not [CAN_SPEAK] and they'll automatically end up at war with everyone, (just because they can't speak, talk about intolerance -_-) and then if you give them high birth rate or strength you can end up with world spanning zombie empires.

[3]

Not to mention that as a creature, there's a strong chance that they'll refuse to actually attack anything that doesn't first attack them, which isn't very zombie-like at all.

LIKES_FIGHTING can see to that.

Also, removing CAN_SPEAK (and this also applies to ITEM_THIEF and BABYSNATCHER civs) will make the civ hostile to you in fortress mode, and makes it a valid candidate for worldgen/legends warmongering, but doesn't actually force wars to take place - chances are, when you start out the civ will be hostile to you but not at war as such. Nonetheless, this distinction is only really important in adventurer mode.

[Aequor]

LIKES_FIGHTING doesn't guarantee they'll attack. From what I've seen, they'll simply charge at your dwarves, then hang around from a distance and flee if a dwarf comes near, though some do attack.

[Ari]

Considering there is not something hard coded into the game for this, I am surprised this much is possible. I suppose you could just say every birth is someone being killed and brought back as a zombie.

Another idea: Is it possible to A.) Make megabeasts roam in packs and/or B.) Give undead a trait that makes them wander the world as megabeasts do?

I think hoards of them spawning and wandering around your map (boatmurdered elephant style) until they see a dwarf and they attack would be cool. Is there any way to make it so if one zombie notices a dwarf it alerts all the other zombies nearby?

[3]

LIKES_FIGHTING doesn't guarantee they'll attack. From what I've seen, they'll simply charge at your dwarves, then hang around from a distance and flee if a dwarf comes near, though some do attack.

Yeah, you're right. The ideal solution would be to combine LIKES_FIGHTING with SAVAGE and some personality arguments, though SAVAGE would limit the variety of biomes they could show up on.

[Dude_Jebawe]

Give them LARGE_PREDATOR and make them larger than dwarves, maybe?

[Shades]

What you described could be accomplished by making a "zombie" race of creatures as the previous poster noted. For this race instead of making them a civilization because what you described is the exact opposite of a dwarf fortress civilization, you make them normal creatures that are active in all biomes and at night, and have them spawn in large clusters.

This could end up with you having skeletal zombies and zombie zombies though

[Keilden]

What you described could be accomplished by making a "zombie" race of creatures as the previous poster noted. For this race instead of making them a civilization because what you described is the exact opposite of a dwarf fortress civilization, you make them normal creatures that are active in all biomes and at night, and have them spawn in large clusters.

This could end up with you having skeletal zombies and zombie zombies though

Only if you give them the tag that allows them to be undead.

[Ramirez]

Removing the tags for children stops the "undead" from being able to breed, adding the no gender tag stops them marrying, and removing the maxage tag stops them dying of old age. Basically starting from the bronze colossus creature and adding what extra things are needed is the best way I have found to create psuedo-undead creatures in the game. (Stopping breeding and setting them to live indefinately means you will need to give them a large starting population so they don't go extinct during worldgen).

For Civs I believe they will be largely hidden from the world map and legends if you set them to live in regular caves, like kobolds.

[Aequor]

Yeah, you're right. The ideal solution would be to combine LIKES_FIGHTING with SAVAGE and some personality arguments, though SAVAGE would limit the variety of biomes they could show up on.

I can confirm that adding [PERSONALITY:ANGER:100:100:100] to zombie creatures causes most of them to actually attack the dwarves, a group of about 30 of them swarmed me within 5 minutes of embarking and slaughtered all but one dorf.



They then proceeded to topple my wagon and kill my pack animals while my last dwarf heroically fled.

In terms of adding a zombie civ, following the advice by darkflagrance here, I added in ten identical civs of zombies. They sieged me with about 20 zombies in the 2nd autumn and then another sieged me with 30 in winter after which I was slaughtered.

[EDIT: I added [LOOSE_CLUSTERS] onto the zombie creatures, now they fan out into a wide area and nearby zombies move in to kill any nearby dwarf, rather than the tight swarm from before.]

[3]

Setting the rest of them is probably worthwhile as well. Here's my interpretation, simple enough:

Code: [Select]

[PERSONALITY:ACTIVITY_LEVEL:91:95:100]
[PERSONALITY:ADVENTUROUSNESS:91:95:100]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ANGER:91:95:100] #Assuming you have NOEMOTION
[PERSONALITY:ANXIETY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ARTISTIC_INTEREST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CHEERFULNESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:COOPERATION:91:95:100]
[PERSONALITY:DEPRESSION:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:DUTIFULNESS:91:95:100]
[PERSONALITY:EXCITEMENT_SEEKING:91:95:100]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:91:95:100]
[PERSONALITY:IMAGINATION:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:IMMODERATION:91:95:100]
[PERSONALITY:INTELLECTUAL_CURIOSITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:MODESTY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:LIBERALISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ORDERLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SELF_CONSCIOUSNESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SELF_DISCIPLINE:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS:91:95:100]
[PERSONALITY:GREGARIOUSNESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ACHIEVEMENT_STRIVING:91:95:100]
[PERSONALITY:EMOTIONALITY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SYMPATHY:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SELF_EFFICACY:91:95:100]
[PERSONALITY:CAUTIOUSNESS:0:0:0]