Let this wait until Laws and Customs, 5-6 years into the future. It'll be more appropriate. And we should spend time on fixing bugs for now. And we have a magic release to do 1.5 years from now.
Whilst I'm all sure we're aware of Dwarf Fortress' negative representation of migrants (swarms of people with useless skills entering into your fortress, eating your food and demanding stuff whilst not providing anything in return), I think the relatively new residency stuff is much, much worse.
Also, citizens / residents side with their parent civilisation if they get invaded by you. This is unrealistic and a very negative idea that these people haven't integrated into dwarven society at all. Again, mirroring right-wing rhetoric.
2. Even if a large percentage of DF users were taking away political lessons from the game, that 'large percentage of DF users' would translate to 'an infinitesimally small percentage of politically-active members of society' and it would be hardly a blip compared to the sway of modern sources of status-quo reinforcing media.
... That is actually the delusional beliefs of certain dwarf fortress players speaking ... representing their hatred of actual real-life immigrants and nothing else ... their ignorance of economics ... The players are applying their own political lessons to understand ... the players understanding of the actual mechanics is warped by their own beliefs that run counter to them.
That is actually the delusional beliefs of certain dwarf fortress players speaking not the mechanics, representing their hatred of actual real-life immigrants and nothing else,
Altogether, this paints a very negative picture of migrants and refugees. Whilst I have no doubt that Toady didn't intend for this to happen, I feel it's a problem in terms of representation of migrants and refugees in popular media.
Whilst I'm all sure we're aware of Dwarf Fortress' negative representation of migrants (swarms of people with useless skills entering into your fortress, eating your food and demanding stuff whilst not providing anything in return), I think the relatively new residency stuff is much, much worse.
Since a lot of visitors cum residents tend to have fled an oppressive regime, it's not unfair to characterise them, in my opinion, as refugees. The problem is that, after they apply for residency, it takes two years to get them to do anything useful. Essentially, for two full years they just hang around your fortress eating food, drinking and using resources that could go to another, more productive and dwarven, member of society. This mirrors right-wing rhetoric that refugees are nothing more than burdens on a productive society.
In addition, certain civilisations can have different ideological viewpoints to dwarven civilisation. The main problem here is that you can have goblins who are hyper violent. This is actually what motivated my complaint as, today, I found a goblin citizen murdered (for no reason) a visitor. Again, this is mirroring right-wing rhetoric that migrants / refugees are violent murderers (and worse).
Also, citizens / residents side with their parent civilisation if they get invaded by you. This is unrealistic and a very negative idea that these people haven't integrated into dwarven society at all. Again, mirroring right-wing rhetoric.
Altogether, this paints a very negative picture of migrants and refugees. Whilst I have no doubt that Toady didn't intend for this to happen, I feel it's a problem in terms of representation of migrants and refugees in popular media.
In the interests of fixing this, I recommend:
- Visitors automatically take on dwarven viewpoints and cultural opinions as soon as they apply for residency.
- Residents do not side with their original civilisation.
- Residents do not kill people randomly.
- Residents can work as soon as they apply for residency.
- Residents get an experience learning boost (the "Migrant Economic Effect") as soon as they apply.
In the early game migrants literally are useless, there is hardly anything that needs hauling in my forts early on because the miners and crafters are low skilled, so everything takes much longer. You get swamped with massive migration waves whilst still trying to set up a basic fortress. If migration waves were much smaller, or started happening later in the fortress' life, this angst probably wouldn't exist in the forum. To suggest that players frustrated by this game mechanic are racists is naive, or you are simply a troll (an internet troll, not a DF troll).
Honestly, this isn't some sort of ethical simulation of real life. A fortress can't run without migrants, and residents do exactly what they're coming to do. They're not migrating, they're just working abroad.
I find it odd you complain about this, yet not about the actual unspeakable horrors hardcoded within the game, such as oppression, genocide and slavery, let alone the unspeakable horrors the players can inflict themselves.
The residency mechanic could indeed use some tweaking, but on purely mechanical grounds, not because it doesn't suit the political or ethical views of people. A lot of things in the game are as far from my political views as they could be, yet I still enjoy it greatly.
To be honest I find this thread odd, it seems to have been written by a person who either has only the most rudimentary understanding of the game or is just being a troll.
The game mechanics do not actually exist, so nobody is complaining about them. Nothing stops you from doing more stuff resulting in more for your migrants to do, they are only useless because you do not do anything with them.
The game mechanics do not actually exist, so nobody is complaining about them. Nothing stops you from doing more stuff resulting in more for your migrants to do, they are only useless because you do not do anything with them.
Massive migration waves don't exist? I only make goods the fortress requires, any additional items bring me closer to FPS death. But I need 80 dwarfs to get goblins to attack, so most migrants are indeed useless, I don't need that many but the game mechanics require that I must have them. And don't say game mechanics don't exist, migration waves and minimum population size to access game features are game mechanics.
Massive migration waves don't exist? I only make goods the fortress requires, any additional items bring me closer to FPS death. But I need 80 dwarfs to get goblins to attack, so most migrants are indeed useless, I don't need that many but the game mechanics require that I must have them. And don't say game mechanics don't exist, migration waves and minimum population size to access game features are game mechanics.
DF is its own world, created by Tarn and Adam. Political effects desired for our own world should not be forced onto a world where they are extraneous, merely for the sake of reinforcing them in the minds of DF players. DF should remain inviolate.
I am interested in what you mean by 'needing that many'. If you want to play with a smaller ending fortress you reduce the population cap, if you want to access features that are population locked you mod the entity files or world-gen settings that control those things but still he says they are depicted badly. How can they be depicted badly when unless you have been playing the game for a very long time everyone in the game is a migrant?
Massive migration waves don't cause any problems is what I was saying. This is why I think the OP is a troll, since the migrants in the game are depicted the same as everyone else (who in most cases is also a migrant).
I didn't know that population required for sieges could be changed. I do change the pop cap. I played the game about 5 years ago (0.31/0.34), I only just started again with the release of 0.44. Back then there was a lot of angst on the forums about the size of migration waves, it wasn't uncommon to receive more than 40 dwarfs at a time. I thought the negative representation OP was on about was from the forum.
As for not needing that many dwarfs, the more there are the lower the FPS, usually. So that it why massive migration waves cause problems, along with assigning labours for them all. In previous versions large populations would also lead to epic tantrum spirals, but this doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
Joke------------------>Jokes were outlawed three years ago.
you
At least I hope it is a joke.
For what it's worth, re: keeping things apolitical -
A couple days ago after many go-arounds over several days about inserting politics into DF migrant discussions, which seems to be GoblinCookie's passion, I caught, quoted, and commented strongly on a blindingly hypocritical post of his which was absolutely bleeding with hatred and judgmentalism against people who have different political views than his. The things he wrote were really quite hideous, to be honest.
The next day the entire set of quotes and replies was gone, deleted from the boards. And now he's back, baiting more people with garbage political nonsense that has no place in a DF discussion.
Don't bother getting baited by his trashy replies. If you are ever able to find his hypocrisies and illustrate them using his own words, he'll simply complain to the admins and get the discussion memory-holed.
And then he'll come right back and continue flinging feces around the room.
If you are ever able to find his hypocrisies and illustrate them using his own words, he'll simply complain to the admins and get the discussion memory-holed.If things get too politically messy, toady tends to remove them himself, and usually warns the person/people causing them. He likes keeping the controversy of the forum to a minimum, and I'm glad he does because if things gets too messy, no one (but the trolls) get happy.
The only two reasons I can think of to inject politics in to DF is to troll or if someone suffers from an uncontrollable compulsion and has to inject politics in to every aspect of their lives.
For what it's worth, re: keeping things apolitical -
A couple days ago after many go-arounds over several days about inserting politics into DF migrant discussions, which seems to be GoblinCookie's passion, I caught, quoted, and commented strongly on a blindingly hypocritical post of his which was absolutely bleeding with hatred and judgmentalism against people who have different political views than his. The things he wrote were really quite hideous, to be honest.
The next day the entire set of quotes and replies was gone, deleted from the boards. And now he's back, baiting more people with garbage political nonsense that has no place in a DF discussion.
Don't bother getting baited by his trashy replies. If you are ever able to find his hypocrisies and illustrate them using his own words, he'll simply complain to the admins and get the discussion memory-holed.
And then he'll come right back and continue flinging feces around the room.
Has there always been gay dwarves? I'm wondering if gay dwarves were added to help curb the number of children in fortresses.Child cap existed long before gay dwarves. Dwarven sexual revolution occurred somewhat recently, around 2014. The wiki page for d_init.txt, created back in 2010, shows a child cap.
Maybe he made some dwarves gay to reduce the number of children, but there were still too many children, so then he made some dwarves uninterested in relationships, but it still wasn't enough. So he gave up and made a setting for max children.
Goodness, who left this flaming bag of poo on the porch?
Dwarf fortress is what you make of it-- nothing more, nothing less. It's good to get out of the respective echo chambers every now and again. Also, need I remind that it has been consistently shown that videogame violence does (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170308081057.htm) not (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180116131317.htm) translate (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/violent-video-games-dont-cause-later-aggression_us_5962389fe4b08f5c97d06a7f) into real world violence, and so railing against a video game depiction of some slight or other is absolute absurdity from the get go? No?
Ok then.
For what it's worth, re: keeping things apolitical -
A couple days ago after many go-arounds over several days about inserting politics into DF migrant discussions, which seems to be GoblinCookie's passion, I caught, quoted, and commented strongly on a blindingly hypocritical post of his which was absolutely bleeding with hatred and judgmentalism against people who have different political views than his. The things he wrote were really quite hideous, to be honest.
The next day the entire set of quotes and replies was gone, deleted from the boards. And now he's back, baiting more people with garbage political nonsense that has no place in a DF discussion.
Don't bother getting baited by his trashy replies. If you are ever able to find his hypocrisies and illustrate them using his own words, he'll simply complain to the admins and get the discussion memory-holed.
And then he'll come right back and continue flinging feces around the room.
Oh yes, I direct personal attack on me. I have now reported you.
There is no such thing as the apolitical; the apolitical is just covert politics.
For example, to me, your behavior is childish, embarrassing, pathetic, lame, laughable, poorly thought out, and narrow-minded. Notice that I am not calling YOU those things, but instead your BEHAVIOR. If someone else is behaving in a way I find abhorrent, I reserve absolutely every single right in the world to call out that other person's behavior in the clearest possible terms, without being accused of ad-hominem attacks or direct personal attacks, because I am NOT in ANY WAY directly attacking your personhood in the least.
Embarrassing. If you read what I wrote with any level of care, you will find a very important distinction between what you and I write. I am labeling your BEHAVIOR, whereas you label the IDENTITIES of other people.
For example, to me, your behavior is childish, embarrassing, pathetic, lame, laughable, poorly thought out, and narrow-minded. Notice that I am not calling YOU those things, but instead your BEHAVIOR. If someone else is behaving in a way I find abhorrent, I reserve absolutely every single right in the world to call out that other person's behavior in the clearest possible terms, without being accused of ad-hominem attacks or direct personal attacks, because I am NOT in ANY WAY directly attacking your personhood in the least.
On the other hand, through the course of our interactions on here, you have directly called ME, not my behavior, "stupid", "idiotic", and many other things, including your direct accusation that I myself am "a fascist", which could not be further from the truth. These are all directly quoted words from your own keyboard. In fact, in your since-deleted post which I referred to above, I excerpted at least five or six distinct lines which were undeniably direct personal attacks against those with whom you disagree. Without being able to recall the exact words you used in the memory-holed post, I recall something along the lines of "unsophisticated redneck farmers" as well.
Your behavior is cringe-inducing. Literally every other person on this forum appears to think so as well.
I'm done with this nonsense. I sincerely hope, and trust, that Toady or whoever reads over the forum reports can differentiate between your unbelievably poor behavior, and the behavior of those who would call you out on your childish actions.