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[Urist Imiknorris]

And that is why Adventure Mode exists.

[krenshala]

A possible solution to the elven horde, and to provide more of the expected immortal, but slow to gain new members ...

Mod the age at which elves are considered "adult" by the game.  They won't get married/infected with spores until they are adult, right?  So, give them a century long childhood and see how they do.  (Note:  I have no access to the raws at the moment, so this might be a silly suggestion. )

[Maxwell5123]

Looks like Urist McStrangleandbreakeverysingleelf is being taken out of retirement it looks like?

[krenshala]

Now that I've had a chance to check the raws ... elves mature at 12, just like dwarves and humans. ([BABY:1][CHILD:12] are the specific tags.)  So, if we changed the [CHILD:n] tag to something a little more reasonable for an immortal (barring mishap ... like an axe to the brain) elf you can probably reduce the damage someone.  I'd say give them a childhood of 60 years (instead of 12) for a test and see what that does to world generation.

In case you had the problems I did, the elf definition is in creature_standard.txt.

[veok]

I'd like to think that the reason elves are doing so well is because the humans, dwarves, and goblins are all starving to death in world gen. But the elves kill them, eat them, and don't starve.

[Langdon]

Serious questing real quick: Is there any way to check what the actual populations of the individual races are without just counting all the still living ones in the Historical Figures?

Check out World Viewer in the modding forum : http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=72900.0

It's kinda old, but since it works from the XML generated from Legends mode, it's not picky about versions and it'll still work with .25.

I use it to look for important towns and civ centers for Adventure mode (i.e. towns with large populations or un-abandoned forts).

It lists populations by civ, by race and by settlement. It also allows you to sort historical figures by kills, so you can get a rundown on the most dangerous heroes and monsters in your world.

[Jeoshua]

It's sort of amusing that the ultimate product of elven immortality is the dominance of said elves due to the vast numbers of meatshields. Really makes it obvious just how ridiculous the standard elven "immortal yet rare/dying race" scenario is.

In most "standard" settings, elves do not breed OR age normally, meaning that they have to wait until around 50-100 years to have kids.  That keeps their population WAY down, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to do that in DF without making every elf you see a child.

[3]

The entire thing make so little sense on so many levels, though.

Okay, so elves aren't interested in sex or otherwise capable of producing children as quickly as others, which implies (along with other factors, such as the immortality itself) that they're not geared towards being a successful species. This means they must have been created by something, which is also standard practise. So, if elves are possibly of divine origin, why do they look like men? There isn't an argument for "well, it's actually the men looking like the elves" because men have a much better case for their appearance coming about naturally, while the elves have no justification of such... unless the elves directly created humanity via some means (I'm looking at you, Eldar).

Then there's the whole idea of elves actually being completely alien/ineffable to other races due to said immortality; the way their culture would develop would likely be at complete odds with that of non-immortals, and people'd never be able to figure them out. They'd have absolutely nothing in common.

Also, the concept of immortality and knowledge. Tolkienesque elves are generally said to be wise and knowlegable, but as elves don't age beyond adulthood, and it's implied that they don't suffer from dementia or (in DF's case) memory loss or any other such thing, they'd probably be more educated by orders of magnitude than lesser races. After possibly tens of thousands of years of each generation being taught the knowledge of the previous generation flawlessly, with none of the historical drift we suffer due to misremebered or misinterpreted things (the elf who designed the concept would probably still be around to refer to), they'd basically be so godlike at everything, they wouldn't have any trouble conquering the entire world even if they were at a numerical disadvantage.

/textwall

[Jeoshua]

Ah! Good conversation is so lacking these days!

You make some good points.  Ultimately, however, I must fall back to Tolkien's vision of elves, which is not only the basis for our fantasy elves, but also answers these questions quite well.

Basically, Elves have renounced their passions.  They do not seem sex or money or power.  And that is why their numbers are lower than might otherwise be expected for a race that does not die of old age.  I would seem that adrenaline, or other chemical/spiritual/mental changes caused by a state of arousal cause elves to lose their immortality.  See: Arwen, after falling in love.

That being said, DF elves are CERTAINLY not Tolkien elves, but of course, should strive to be as realistic.  The problem with elves is absolutely not Tolkien's vision, but others interpretation of it.  DF elves could simply not exist! They are uber-passionate, super-psycho, and breed normally while being un-dying.  These could not coexist in a living being that did not immediately overrun it's environment and kill itself off.  No help from warring humans required.  If DF's elves were actually required to eat meat, being cannibals, as they seem to be, and did not recieve norishment from anywhere else, they would DIE.  Add [carnivore] to their creature file and remove [outdoor_farming] from the entity.  They'll die in year 4.

Even if they could gain nourishment from the bodies of their slain enemies, the caloric intake they would gain would be VASTLY overshadowed by the expenditure of energy required to kill said foe, and further made a moot point by the numbers of fallen dead surrounding them.  Since they would not eat their own kind, their kinfellow's meat would be wasted, therefore leaving less biomass for the next generation, every time they attack.

What does this all mean?

MY elves have been modded not to be cannabalistic, and to age very very slowly.  You might also simulate their "lack of passion" by making a third caste of elves called "breeders", named "female" and making up 1/100th the population, and changing the regular "female" elves to not actually breed by removing the "[female]" tag.

[3]

Add [carnivore] to their creature file and remove [outdoor_farming] from the entity.  They'll die in year 4.

Just so you know, this is due to the incomplete food/stocks stuff. The same would happen to goblins if they actually had to eat (which they currently don't). It'll be possible for carnivourous civs to survive later on.

Since they would not eat their own kind, their kinfellow's meat would be wasted, therefore leaving less biomass for the next generation, every time they attack.

Of course, this is further complicated by the fact that they refuse to eat carrion...

[darkflagrance]

That being said, DF elves are CERTAINLY not Tolkien elves, but of course, should strive to be as realistic.  The problem with elves is absolutely not Tolkien's vision, but others interpretation of it.  DF elves could simply not exist! They are uber-passionate, super-psycho, and breed normally while being un-dying.  These could not coexist in a living being that did not immediately overrun it's environment and kill itself off.  No help from warring humans required.  If DF's elves were actually required to eat meat, being cannibals, as they seem to be, and did not recieve norishment from anywhere else, they would DIE.  Add [carnivore] to their creature file and remove [outdoor_farming] from the entity.  They'll die in year 4.

I suspect that DF elves are semi-balanced by their relative floppiness. As the above legends mode example shows, though elves can zerg enemy civilizations, they die off in droves. They do survive on vegetation in the meantime. This means that elves are generally held in balance by their predators and enemies, who effectively enforce a non-natural max age. Of course, eventually elves will overrun their enemies, leading to overpopulation of the world by elves, but DF is only an alpha anyway, and those finer details are awaiting implementation.

[3]

"Relative floppiness"? Compared to dwarves, maybe, but they don't have any physical stats in the red (their only attribute with a negative median is patience), and have above-average recuperation and spatial sense, high kinesthetic sense, and (most importantly) above-average agility. The only thing holding them back at the moment is equipment.

[Jeoshua]

That's another thing.  Below Average Patience? They live forever and they can't stand being bored?

No... does... not... work... that... way.... ARGH! Must mod this again.

[darkflagrance]

"Relative floppiness"? Compared to dwarves, maybe, but they don't have any physical stats in the red (their only attribute with a negative median is patience), and have above-average recuperation and spatial sense, high kinesthetic sense, and (most importantly) above-average agility. The only thing holding them back at the moment is equipment.

Hence "relative".

[MasterMorality]

The world I'm using at the moment is kinda funny, the dwarves are ganking the centaurs always outnumbering by a factor of about ten or more. If there are 9 centaurs in a settlement, there will be 90 dwarves.
Must hilarious one so far is 102 dwarves vs four centaur.