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[NW_Kohaku]

Currently, it is possible to find small bands of sentient critter-people in the caverns, which may be hostile or friendly to the dwarves.  Hostile cavern civs are basically just another thing to kill in the caverns, but the friendly kind would hold more promise to give dwarves something to do besides just kill hostiles in the caverns and mine resources. 

Unfortunately, they just sort of sit there, and let you steal their stuff. 

In the grand tradition of Imperialism, why not give us more to do with native peoples whose lands we are invading than merely ignoring them and maybe stealing some of their food?  We could be doing things like stealing their children so that they can be "properly raised", or else paying them to kill the other things in the caverns for us and trade whatever beast carcasses to us.  You could even arm them with armor to stand a chance of surviving some of those attempts.

Maybe a rift might split in their civ, where some want to keep the old ways alive, and others want to adopt the new ways of the outsiders with the thick armor to protect them from the hostiles around them, and the strange contraptions that rain magma upon their enemies.

Something I'd really like to see, though, is the ability to get a few of them to merge into your own society, and become part of dwarven culture.

Whether that means "Full citizenship" or "slavery"... well...


EDIT: For the purpose of making the full suggestion in one post:

Part of what I want to see is some sort of trading post and liason to the cavern civs that would let you interact with them diplomatically, economically, and potentially even culturally.  You could have missionaries that try to "bring the light of civilization to the primitives", have hunters exploring the caverns who trade with cavern civs to get more pelts or the like, or just shove them off the land because you want it.  (Just to go over the Spanish, French, and English ways of treating the Native Americans.) 

Of course, while this all helps illustrate the options, this is also making cavern civs into very obvious analogues to actual historical events and peoples, which needs to be avoided.  For one thing, I know there's at least one actual Native American on these forums, and that person would probably not like the comparison to a fish-person who sits among piles of their belongings and just stares at walls all day.  Fish-peoples, at least as currently implimented, really are primitive.

To that end, though, we could have some more unique abilities that cavern civilizations might possess.  They might, for instance, have some sort of reactions using some cave creature parts that might make useful chemicals or medicines that would be valuable to dwarves for trade.  It would give your dwarves an obvoius incentive to keep them alive if there were some sort of medicine that were more effective than dwarven doctor's already woefully inept care.  A tonic that raises the healing rate, for example, the way that soap is supposed to.

[Max White]

I feel sort of bias right now. I saw your name and thought 'Oh good, this should be a suggestion of decent quality!', so I could be too much of a fan boy to give an objective opinion...

I like the idea, although maybe a few more options then just 'I found freindly bat people, now I get bat people slaves!' If toady ever get's around to making each cavern civ a little more unique and give each there own ethics, maybe give some clothing and others not, let some use more advanced weapons ect, then when you come across a feindly civ, there unique propertys will define how they act.

So some will want little to do with you at all, but still be freindly.
Some will carry on the spirt of Asax and help out by attacking hostile intruders, but not much else (It is their land too, and they want to help defend!)
If toady extends the 'bustling town' thing to the underground, then they might even wander up to your trade depo every now and then with some hides and meat to see what you have to offer.
And some will go like calculas and get intergrated.

[Artzbacher]

Nice! I really like the idea of improving these civilizations, adding further variation to the caverns.

However, I feel that most of them should react negatively towards dwarves who intrude on their turf by mining the rock, destroying their natural habitat. Perhaps they would be more reasonable if given an annual bribe or tribute.

[Qinetix]

I just wonder , can we use them as siege fodder or for !!SCIENCE!! ?

[NW_Kohaku]

I like the idea, although maybe a few more options then just 'I found freindly bat people, now I get bat people slaves!'

Heh, this was one of those "I was writing it in a hurry at 2 AM, then thought of more when I was in bed" type of deals.  I often forget to add things in the haze of sleeplessness, and have to come back the next day to flesh things out - especially with the Improved Farming thread.

Anyway, yes, I meant this as both a tongue-in-cheek reference to the treatment of native peoples by invading Imperialist nations, but also as a way to do things "fairly" if you so chose.  (But really, this is Dwarf Fortres, morality need not apply.)

Part of what I want to see is some sort of trading post and liason to the cavern civs that would let you interact with them diplomatically, economically, and potentially even culturally.  You could have missionaries that try to "bring the light of civilization to the primitives", have hunters exploring the caverns who trade with cavern civs to get more pelts or the like, or just shove them off the land because you want it.  (The Spanish, French, and English ways of treating the Native Americans, respectively.) 

Of course, while this all helps illustrate the options, this is also making cavern civs into very obvious analogues to actual historical events and peoples, which needs to be avoided.  For one thing, I know there's at least one actual Native American on these forums, and that person would probably not like the comparison to a fish-person who sits among piles of their belongings and just stares at walls all day.  Fish-peoples, at least as currently implimented, really are primitive.

To that end, though, we could have some more unique abilities that cavern civilizations might possess.  They might, for instance, have some sort of reactions using some cave creature parts that might make useful chemicals or medicines that would be valuable to dwarves for trade.  It would give your dwarves an obvoius incentive to keep them alive if there were some sort of medicine that were more effective than dwarven doctor's already woefully inept care.  A tonic that raises the healing rate, for example, the way that soap is supposed to.

[sockless]

This would be good with the armies arc, because then you could actually travel and find them instead of just hoping that you have them on your map.

[Lex Talionias]

i would love some ant-men slaves making rock blocks for me and manning my smelters!

yay!

*dreams of them doing tedious and skilless tasks while milta watch and jab with spears when they slack off*

*snaps out of it*

AWESOME IDEAS GUYS!

if we are pushing them off their lands they need to go somewhere, so why not send them somewhere? that somewhere being into cages and off to the trade depot!


footnotes: some civs should ban my dream like the spoil sports they are and stop my "evil"  practices. so if i wanna do it i have to become a rouge fort or make sure word doesn't get out that i am doing it.

[LordSlowpoke]

Let's take this further. If we can imply all civs have access to caverns (they do, according to the caravans who can enter from there ingame and the access points in caves) - elves may want to "civilize" the *men there, humans would trade, mostly, and dwarves, well, are dwarves. Dig it out, grab it, and kill anything that opposes? Pretty much like that.

[Lord Shonus]

They should also actively steal artifacts (in this sense just general items, not Artifacts) of your technology for themselves. Real world peoples like the Amerindians were constantly trying to obtain European technology, trading for or stealing it. (This was the reason for many of the towns that they destroyed. Not having a national identity to the extent that the newcomers had, they saw no reason that the town over there would attack them for destroying the town over here.)

[NW_Kohaku]

I love how, when I give out all these options, slavery is the only thing we think of.

I guess I have to go all PC and stuff, now, thanks to having let this genie out of its bottle...

First off, I kind of glossed over it earlier, but in America, the contact of the Europeans with the Native Americans had a profound impact on the philosophy of the day.  It took people from the Divine Right arguments that everyone should be subservient to the state and the king in a pyramid of social status against which it was literally evil to question your place to having the whole notion of social contracts and re-emphasizing self determination and individual liberties.  This was in part because many people, especially those at the lowest rungs of society, found living with the "savages" would actually promise them a much better life in terms of not just liberties, but also that they tended to eat better and live longer than they would under the crushing poverty they were exposed to.  (Staring at a wall all day next to a pile of free food sure beats hauling for The Man from dusk to dawn for pennies.) It was, in fact, one of the hidden motivators for America to drive the natives back from their frontiers - all the slaves and indentured servants and lackeys would just run away if over the next hill, they could find a better life.  Then who's left to do chamberpot scrubbing duties?  They're certainly not doing it themselves! 

Of course, as of yet, cultural shifts in DF are not modeled.  The "Fantasy World Simulator" has a long way to go, yet.

The other thing to keep in mind is that a good chunk of Native Americans were peacable farmers who probably could have been integrated into European American society if the Europeans would have let them.  In James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, there is a section on how Cherokee peoples (in the area of the Georgia) would build European-style homes, and own property including 47 mills, 69 blacksmithies, 762 looms, and a whole list of livestock not worth mentioning.  The Europeans effectively sued to take away Native American property rights because they were afraid the Natives would become more wealthy than they were. (p130-2)

With that said, letting players who revel in their immorality try to one-up themselves in knowingly committing atrocities is part of what makes DF what it is.  I fully expect more people will enjoy trying to think of the worst possible things they can do even to totally pacifistic peoples, like, say, mermaids, than to genuinely try to act in a just or moral way just because acting morally makes them feel better about themselves or something (smug bastards), since the game's sure not giving you any reward for it.

I only bring it up because, well, reveling in horribly immoral actions against simulated people who feel no pain is all fine and good, but that shouldn't be used as an excuse for reveling in the prejudices and rationalizations of the real-life horrible immorality of the European settlers.

[Max White]

I love how, when I give out all these options, slavery is the only thing we think of.

I like the idea, although maybe a few more options then just 'I found freindly bat people, now I get bat people slaves!'

 

[NW_Kohaku]

Obviously, you don't matter. 

No, no, I'm kidding.  "We" is obviously not all-inclusive, here (Artzbacher didn't talk about slavery or genocide for fun, either).  I just meant to comment on how, given any amount of power, the first thought about 2/3s of the fanbase of this game will do is try to deduce the most extreme abuse of that power they can achieve.

[Max White]

 
That's ok, just point it out, because I thought it was funny, not because I was hurt... Like an arrow through my heart...

*Sob*

[Strangething]

I've been waiting for Toady to do some sort of generalized diplomacy system. Just modify the trade screen to allow blackmail and bribery and we're halfway there.

[Solace]

Yeah, as nice an idea as this is, I'd like to see those sorts of options for /every/ other civilization. For that matter, unless the game should start genning several 'tribes' and several wilderness areas underground, this sounds like it'd work better if there was some, I don't know, expeditionary force or outpost portion of the game. Maybe a few squares over there's a tribe of fish people, and you can pay them to hunt some underground wildlife a few squares over from that, or such.

For that matter, I've always liked the idea of being able to enact indirect changes, from a sort of puppetmaster point of view. For example, give the fish-people some weapons purely from the goodness of your heart, and now with their stronger military, they expand outward, and attack some stuff you wanted dead anyway. How convenient that an aggressive group next to your elvish enemies suddenly got much more dangerous, imagine that.