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[ProZocK]

Okay, let me give my first impressions here
I have been building my own dark tower( not so dark since its made of limestone, but oh well). The game is still on its infant states, since i usually take my sweet time to do anything, so im sorry for not being able to test the military or the more exotic workshops yet.

First thing I noticed, lots of animals. You can buy pretty much any living thing under Armok on the embark screen, and  I had an illithid tadpole coming with a pet gremlin. That is interesting, but maybe the list could use some trimming.
And trolls are waaay to cheap. For 1 point each, I bought 50 and made them a burrow on the entrance of my fort. Its funny to see the Rhesus Macaques being torn to pieces without me having to lift a finger, but its seriously overpowered.

There are no ways of buying seeds on embark as well. Easily fixable by plant gathering, but I see no reason to not allow at least some basic underground crops so my slaves wont eat all the meat saved for my Illithids.

I started with 2 slave cast humans, and they have been making short work of any animal that gets close. I have yet to test them against armored foes, but they are awesome indeed.

And maybe you should make a help text explaining how the new items and workshops you made work, as well as a short description on the difference between every caste.

More to come as soon as I can

[D_E]

Yeah, good points all.

I noticed the Troll thing too, it's because the vanilla troll doesn't have a PETVALUE.  The insane variety of animals probably should go.  I was wondering if it would be ok, but ... no.  There is only limited ability to alter the animal selection range, though, while still keeping the illithids able to use the wild slave castes I want to add (such as the lobotimized slave castes you were sugesting).  I'll play with it.

There are no seeds because I left off both farming tags for the illithid civ (so you may be unable to make farms in this version), however, the no farming thing is probably redundant with the CARNIVOROUS tag on the mind flayer castes. 

Definitly on the custom workshops.  In the future, I will put a [P] in front of rxns that produce psychic polution, so they can be easily spotted.  A quick summary:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Poluting reactions ('flayers only, keep away from slaves)
Extract sapience from human, dwarf, or elf brain.  Kitchen. Skill: butcher
Use casket of blilestone (cutting, bashing, or stabbing).  Smelter Skill: Furnace opperating
Employ spatial warp (any).  Alter of Nature or Alter of War (deeps only) Skill:psionicist or hunter (varies)
invoke aberant entity (mineral-mother or black bile of the world) Skill: druid (asign workers using shift P)
FEED nearest mineral-mother (Smelter) Skill:  animal care



Safe reactions
ACTIVATE nearest mineral mother Smelter, animal care (low success rate)
make an axe Smelter, weaponsmithing
create brain stew Kitchen, Butcher
mass produce lead/gold bars Smelter, furnace opperating
Open brain jar, Smelter, furnace opperating, not exactally SAFE, but not deadly either
use crystalized knowledge, Library, varies (assign worker using Shift+P)

Castes:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Basic mind flayer:  Weak mind blast, kinda sucky close combat capabilities (make tentacles harder?), descriptive text says that mind flayers are seldom seen without one or two slaves.  (<-fix vagueness)
Fleshwarper:  weak mind blast, better close combat capabilites (equivalent to steel), descriptive text says that flayers are noted for their mastery of flesh and blood.  (<-fix)
Grigori:  Rare, powerful and resilient.  Strong mind blast, ok close combat capabilities.  Descriptive text talks about it consuming an angelic being.
Master:  Rare, strong mind blast, larger basic mindflayer.  Descriptive text says it's a master, I think.
Arch-Master:  Fleshwarper version of the Master.  Descriptive text says it's an archmaster.
Void-Master:  RARE.  Many powerful attacks, resilient to damage (but still mortal, so don't get cocky).  Put it in your military and don't get in its way, it spams fire, cold, and heat attacks which your 'flayers aren't immune to.
Tadpole and tadpole swarm.  Animals.  Ball of iritants.  I think I'll demote 'em for the next version.  Hard to kill.
Slaves:  Gendered slaves are you're basic workers, they won't equip armor, so keep 'em out of the millitary.
War slaves:  Genderless slaves are war slaves.  Have no hands, so can't work.  Won't equip armor, but have natural weapons and armor.  Put them in your millitary.
Conquest slaves (slave generals, "multiple combat mutations"):  Currently damn-near immortal, they got that way after I set their attributes too high.  Headed for a nerfing next version.  For now, if you get one put it in the military and enjoy your dominance on the battlefield.  A lucky crossbow bolt may still end your party, however;  although this thing did kill over 50 dwarves in arena mode.
Outpost minds:  range from really weak to quite strong (based on age).  Put in your millitary and use as a support unit.  Even the strong ones will bleed to death if the enemy gets much time to hack at them.
Elder brains:  stronger Outpost minds.  Bleeding to death is a big weakness, just 4 dwarves with iron axes were able to inflict enough damage that it bled out in arena mode.

_____________________
In the future I will move the make axe rxn to the temple of war, and probably change tadpoles to be a purchasable pet, instead of a caste, as they're kinda irritating right now.

Now that I know that ammo works (thanks, Deon!), the psychic crystals will used ammo of the same damage type as themselves, and at least one high-end ranged weapon will go in.

[ProZocK]

Okay, here I am again

Had my first mood. An Illithid clothier got fey. Unfortunately I did not have any plant clothes, so he went berserk. And I have to say, he managed to mind-rape one of my War Humans. The poor guy was dead before he could do anything. You DO NOT want to have Illithids going berserk. Gotta love those mindblasts.

And remember my trolls? They are taking over. Better yet, they are enacting a POLITICAL takeover. Since they stay all the time hanging out on the burrow at my gates, they talk a lot and apparently they are all best friends forever now. The results? My outpost leader is a troll. Thats hilarious.
But in a serious note, maybe you should look into that. All the animals that you can buy that are actually sentient have the ability to do that, so you might want to take them out of the list( which would be sad) or make special pet mindless animal versions of trolls and gremlins so they actually behave like slaves and not freeloaders servants with the ability of voting their masters out of position.

Ill be back with more as soon as I can. Just upped my pop cap to 70, the game will run slower, but the FUN will be bigger.

Edit: The trolls are getting bolder... The expedition leader troll is moving freely outside of his burrow and is bringing 2 friends with him... I think I will put him down before this gets out of control

[Huggz]

Working on something right now, but I will play this next. Subbing.

[ProZocK]

Okay I just got my first ambush and my first migrant wave.
The ambush was pretty normal, the only but all the goblins had ranged weapons and managed to kill my elf woodcuter(HA!) before being turn to shredded meat by my trolls with no casualties on my side. Maybe ill just let them be the leaders after all.

And i got a migrant wave that doubled my tower population. The only thing I didn't like about it: Only one warrior came with them(pretty badass one though, a dwarf with flesh-warped armor as well as weapons). I don't know how common the warrior castes are, but maybe they could be a little bit more common right now. If there were no trolls on my gates, my slave warrior caste would have been wiped out clean. But I have to say I haven't used the new ranged weapons you created, so maybe ill just try to do that and see how it works.

Funny thing, if a tadpole makes a craft, the crafts is said to have been mad eby "material the craft is made of". A troll bone earring, for example, comes out as if made by Troll bone.

Edit: Okay, some minor stuff
Are outpost brains supposed to constantly emit explosion bursts while moving? It doesn't hurt anyone as far as i have seen, but it is kinda weird.
A have now 60+ citizens, and I have yet to see the position of mayor to show up, its still on expedition leader. Is that intended?
And on another note, I hate shells. cant get any, and every illithid happens to need them on their moods, fortunately no more beserks

[D_E]

Soldiers are currently only 1/20th as likely as a normal member of that species.  In the future I will increase this ratio.  I'm thinking of trying equal probablility as either males or females (so 1 out of every 3 slaves would be a warrior).  I'm also planning to add more warrior classes.  I'm thinking fire and acid classes.  The basic warrior classes right now painfully weak.  On the other hand, those new ranged weapons are painfully overpowered.  I'll be nerfing the weapons and boosting the hides of both the illithids and the slaves.

I checked the raws, the mayor position is set to open up when you hit 60 pop.  If it doesn't open up, I may know what's wrong:  I changed the landholder values, to try to make nobles show up sooner.  I think I set the first one too low.

Good news about the slaves electing themselves into power:  It looks like you can limit positions by class, so I'll be fixing that for the next release.  I should be able to use it to ensure the arival of at least 1 of the higher castes (brains and upper levels slaves and flayers) at particular times.  I hope this works out, as it would be an excelent incentive to actually try to climb the noble ladder.  Dealing with stupid noble mandates would be a lot more fullfilling if you knew that there was a chance* at a void-master mindflayer at the top of the chain.

About outpost brains:  elder and outpost brains are supposed to emit a constant field of mental energy.  Thus the explosions you noticed:  The toxin won't hurt your flayers, but park the brain near enemies to stun them.  In retrospect, though, it should be an undirected breath weapon instead of the boiling secretion it is now, since I bet those constant clouds are killing you're frame rate...

I'll replacing the generic temples of War and Nature with:
Temple to the God-Brain (produce spatial warps)
Temple to the Black Mother (produce mineral-mothers)
Temple to the Burrowing Worm (produce bilestone)
Temple to the Violet Flame (produce flame traps based on the bonfire mod).
Temple to the Enclosing Sky (produce high-end weapons and ammo)
Temple to the Consuming Dark (not so sure about this one, but possibly vermine that leave poisonous puddles)
(many of these entities are taken from the DnD 3.5 eddition Lords of Maddness book).




*I believe a void-master would actually have to be born during world gen for one to show up as a noble...

[ProZocK]

Awesome plans. I eagerly await your next update. 5 goblin ambushes together with a Cyclops killed my entire fortress so I should be reclaiming now. Did not have enough time to test the ranged weapons, but since you say they are overpowered already, ill leave that testing for the next version after you worked on them.
Love the idea of positions being tied to the higher castes, that is perfect for the mod.
And I remember you saying something about making tadpoles as pets, since they are so annoying right now. I agree, since i slaughter them all as soon as they arrive since even a low level human slave is better them these guys in every way, and unfortunately, I cant think of anything right now to make them better.
On a funnier note, before everyone had died, a human slave had married a dwarf slave, and gave birth to a Tadpole and a regular illithid. Someone has been jumping the fence I say!

This mod is great, keep working on it man!

edit: I know, make the tadpoles verminhunters. That will make them useful and a part of every Illithid tower.
And no matter how much I ask my Liason for pets, he wont bring any. Any idea why is that?

[D_E]

No idea about the caravans not bringing pets.  How big, overall, are the illithid caravans?  Mine was pretty tiny.  If they're small, the caravan may just not be able to fit the pets, since pack animals are loaded in a specific order, and anything that doesn't fit is left off.  I'm not sure why the caravan would be small, though.

In other news, I think I found out why the illithids were doing so badly in world gen:  I had the female slave casts set to be only 1/10th as likely as the males, which meant that the effective pop size of the illithid civs was less than 1/10th the listed population, or about 25 families.  No wonder the civ was going extinct. 

[ProZocK]

Those Illithids...too worried about eating brains to get it on with the ladies...

Some more info.
The caravans are of medium size, about 4-5 carts. The elves don't have any problems bringing Grizzly Bears with just 2 carts, so its kinda weird that my Liaison would not be able to squeeze some groundhogs on his companions. Now, bear in mind I know next to nothing on modding, but did you change the raws on all those creatures so they are considered pets (with the [pet] tag)? Probably nothing, but Its a guess...

On a funnier note.
I had a massive tantrum spiral on my tower( I kinda dropped part of an upper floor on the dining room...oops!) and noticed something interesting. Outpost brains will simple not die when they get stark raving mad. I have one right now that has been babbling on my meeting area for about 2 years. I know its not intended, but honestly, how awesome is that! I have a crazed abomination just rambling around the fortress. Sets a great mood!

But since that spiral, I have been getting some problems with my citizens. They are all fine now, the spiral ended, but for some reason they randomly decide they will not do jobs. I had my miners on the Unit list saying they had no jobs while there were plenty of stuff to dig, and even though they are actually digging as of now, suddenly everyone just decided that they would leave all my food to rot on the butcher's shop, putting my survival on th tower at serious danger. I have no idea of this is a bug on vanilla as well, I know I have never experienced it on the genesis mod. Maybe its a pathfinding bug, have you experienced it?

Oh, and a tadpole glassmaker entered a mood, proceeded to go to the craftdwarf's workshop and came out with a crazy expensive item, an amulet made of bonfire i think...whats up with that?

[D_E]

I gave the illithid civ the use_any_pet_race tag, which is I believe the same one as what the elves have.  The pet thing required no other tags be added.  So I don't know what's up.  I'll have to look at the elf raws, because this may cause problems for the slave-pets.

The outpost brain thing is an unintended (though cool) side-effect of brains not needing to eat, drink, or sleep.

The job thing sounds like a pathfinding bug, but I haven't experienced it yet.

The bonfire thing is because I used the bonfire mod in this version, with an eye towards the fire traps I mentioned in my previous post.  Unfortunately, I think the bonfire mod has some problems, which I'm not sure how to fix.  The bonfire mod works by having special flammable stones and woods that ignite as soon as they are created.  I've had two mysterious fires on embark now, and I think I know what's causing it:  the game selects random woods to make barrels for you're starting food supplies, and I think it occasionally chooses bonfire wood.

Edit:  I think I've got the nobles working.  I'll post a new test version with just the nobles and a few other improvements tomorrow, since I really want to know if it works !

[ProZocK]

Ahh, the bonfire thing must be kinda like the bug on vanilla that makes bone artifacts turn out as iron ones then. Should have remembered that, since the a similar thing happened with me on an older version of the genesis mod, but stuff was actually being made of dark lignite and evaporating as soon as the artifact was done. Its a bug from the game, not the actual Bonfire bug, so don't sweat it.

I don't know what would be the solution to the caravans not bringing pets, but even though it will be that much more work to you, I think you should just add the animals you think Illithids should have on the domestic animal file with the needed changes, and creating the "domestic animal" mindblanked slaves to be butchered, otherwise there is really no other way to ignore animals you don't want on the fortress without actually taking them out of the game.

Oh, one question, what about goblin slaves? Do you have any plans on adding them?

Well, now I am eagerly awaiting the new version then! Ill build underground this time, so i don't spend most of the time building a tower instead of actually testing the new stuff. Cant wait to get my hands on some wicked Illithid nobles. Can you post the prerequisites for getting them when you post the update, just so I can know exactly what to shoot for?

[D_E]

Edit:  I think I've got the nobles working.  I'll post a new test version with just the nobles and a few other improvements tomorrow, since I really want to know if it works !

Status of the update:  snarled in reactions.  I added some rxns to deal with the fact that DF doesn't see reagents in barrels, which was tripping up the whole brain-economy thing.  This involves figuring out a few things I don't know yet.  It'll happen, but it's too late to finish tonight.

The good news is that I think I've put in a source of alcohol the 'flayers will drink, so that's good.  I've also stumbled across world gen parameters that leave the perfect illithid embark point:  Three dark towers with human constructed buildings at their bases.

The bad news is that I still haven't divined how to make pet races show up for the illithids (in the way that I want).  I know it can be done, because it works for the troll.  I just haven't figured out WHY it works for the troll.  It should generally get much easier to play aggressively once I figure that out.

[Deon]

Do you mean goblins bringing trolls? Trolls are evil cave animals, and goblins can use cave animals and are evil too, that's why.

[ProZocK]

Do you mean goblins bringing trolls? Trolls are evil cave animals, and goblins can use cave animals and are evil too, that's why.

I think he means the trolls being extremely cheap(1 point each on embark) and not behaving like animals would, since they are sentient.

[D_E]

I set illithids to use evil animals, too, and they can order trolls off the embark screen no problem.  The difficulty is that I copied the biome info from the trolls into my thrall creature and it isn't showing up.

Code: [Select]

[BIOME:SUBTERRANEAN_CHASM]
[UNDERGROUND_DEPTH:1:3]
[LARGE_ROAMING][DIFFICULTY:2]
[POPULATION_NUMBER:5:10]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[LIKES_FIGHTING]
[LARGE_PREDATOR]
[CAN_LEARN][SLOW_LEARNER]
[EVIL]
[CANOPENDOORS]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[HOMEOTHERM:10067]
A direct copy of the troll (with a different creature ID), however, does show up.  So either I missed a token from the troll creature, or I made some other mistake with my new creature that prevents it from showing up.

I think he means the trolls being extremely cheap(1 point each on embark) and not behaving like animals would, since they are sentient.

Trolls now cost 201 embark points .  They just needed a PETVALUE tag.  Making them non-sentient would just be a matter of deleting their INTELLIGENT token, but for now I think I'll leave it, since I may have fixed the noble problem.