Bay 12 Games Forum

Dwarf Fortress => DF Modding => Topic started by: Asin on January 12, 2019, 11:38:50 pm

Title: Ideas for Native American style civilizations, anyone?
Post by: Asin on January 12, 2019, 11:38:50 pm
I'm planning on making some Native American-esque civs for a modding project of mine. If any of you have ideas for tribe equivalents (like what tribe would be represented by what), ethics, weapons, et cetera, please put them here in this thread.
Title: Re: Ideas for Native American style civilizations, anyone?
Post by: FantasticDorf on January 13, 2019, 03:10:48 pm
Tricky subject i guess, you could take some of the flint worthy weapons and ideas from Kobold Camp as a basis to gamestyle.

I sort of cheat elves into easily accessible obsidian, handwaved off with 'Its Magic' traded for logs for wood tech level without metal, so i can forsee something similar for your primitive civ's efforts (also works for obsidian picks)

But i suppose you could go the way of Kobold camp with a salvage/knappers pit in order to give you some basic equipment that the carpenters can't, else without exceptionally sharpening wood with a forced edge (say if the knapper simply sharpened spears instead of crafted a entire solid stone obsidian one or craftdwarf a generic obsidian sword) though you could make a entirely seperate foriegn weapon with a 'Tribal' adjective that wont appear in sieges like the enclosed example.




Your tribe would have to live in caves probably, (if you have the advanced map setting on also, they shouldnt be invisible, [SKULKING] conceals map populations on 'c' screen but you need visible caves to actually see civs highlighted in the holdings & occupation legend) as to keep them off a pernament civilized settlement because there aren't any camps.

Sorry if this has been more of a technical feedback input than a creative one, I look forward to what you produce.
Title: Re: Ideas for Native American style civilizations, anyone?
Post by: that_eye on January 13, 2019, 03:45:13 pm
I disagree with FantisticDorf on a few points, first and foremost that I don't know of any native american tribes who lived in caves.

I am Chickasaw, so I will relate to you my specific tribal knowledge - there are so many tribes and each one is unique, so a blend of styles and tropes is most likely to be what you end up with.

Many Plains tribes are nomadic, which means that they hunt bison, following their herd as they travel and migrate around, making no permanent homes, and using teepees and wigwams as shelters. I'm not familiar with a DF civilization type that can emulate this easily.

My people are known are part of a group known as southeastern mounds builders. We built mounds on top of which our cities were located. Typically most families had two simple one-room homes - a round hut that we lived in during the winters, and a square lodge that we lived i during the summers. I think that the closest DF can get to this are forest retreats, and your best bet for a race are elves.

We played a game called stick-ball that the french took and made into Lacrosse. The difference in the native american sport is that we referred to it as "the little brother of war" and we tried to resolve conflicts with neighboring tribes using a game of this. The rules were to use two sticks with small nets on the end to throw a small leather ball at a goal post, one on either end of the field. Any additional rules needed to be agreed upon before the individual game. A lot of times, one or more people would die during the game, because it is so brutal. In addition to the wartime games, we have a yearly game against our cousins, the Choctaw tribe. This yearly game continues to this day.

Might be worth pointing out that America has no native horse species. They were brought by the europeans, so depending on your period-preference, you may or may not want to include them. And while we did keep some herd animals and milk them, we did not make cheese or alcohol. Tobacco was used by tribal medicine men or Minko.

Our political leaders were elected officials known as Minko. The closest translation is governor.

FantasticDorf is spot-on with the obsidian weapons, I think. Spears, Daggers, and Axes would be the primary weapons of choice.

I think that if you are doing multiple tribes, you should probably make like two or three and be comfortable with them each being portmanteu of several different tribes, rather than trying to simulate several specific real-world tribes.
Title: Re: Ideas for Native American style civilizations, anyone?
Post by: FantasticDorf on January 13, 2019, 04:39:50 pm
My observations were more towards what was practical modding wise than any kind of concrete creative discretion or discussion on native american culture, There is no open plains esque camp site actually availible or accessible through the game, so using the cave site would be the best way to not settle into a organised town, fortress/goblin dark fortress or treetop elf retreat. Which are the ONLY other options granted.
Obsidian works best for being cheap and also nessecarily sharp enough to cut wood, as wood training axes don't posess a edge and wouldn't be sharp enough. Limitations that DF places upon modders being like that until its opened up later on when Toady updates the game with more content or reworks some key areas.


Practically speaking also, a seperate language file might need to be made with words accounted for for immersive. So if you made a seperate sheet, you can have Navajho words like K'é (Translated as 'Horse') etc appear as valid nouns in the civ's wording structure and also personal names.
Title: Re: Ideas for Native American style civilizations, anyone?
Post by: Asin on January 13, 2019, 08:06:46 pm
Tricky subject i guess, you could take some of the flint worthy weapons and ideas from Kobold Camp as a basis to gamestyle.

I sort of cheat elves into easily accessible obsidian, handwaved off with 'Its Magic' traded for logs for wood tech level without metal, so i can forsee something similar for your primitive civ's efforts (also works for obsidian picks)

But i suppose you could go the way of Kobold camp with a salvage/knappers pit in order to give you some basic equipment that the carpenters can't, else without exceptionally sharpening wood with a forced edge (say if the knapper simply sharpened spears instead of crafted a entire solid stone obsidian one or craftdwarf a generic obsidian sword) though you could make a entirely seperate foriegn weapon with a 'Tribal' adjective that wont appear in sieges like the enclosed example.




Your tribe would have to live in caves probably, (if you have the advanced map setting on also, they shouldnt be invisible, [SKULKING] conceals map populations on 'c' screen but you need visible caves to actually see civs highlighted in the holdings & occupation legend) as to keep them off a pernament civilized settlement because there aren't any camps.

Sorry if this has been more of a technical feedback input than a creative one, I look forward to what you produce.

Hm, thank you for the ideas. I'll see if Kobold Kamp has something I could borrow and edit a smidge to work for what I need. But if it does't fully work out, I can just limit the metals to the non-alloys and stuff. This game is a fantasy game, after all, and I can take liberties (granted, pretty big liberties, but still liberties) with the cultures kinda.

I disagree with FantisticDorf on a few points, first and foremost that I don't know of any native american tribes who lived in caves.

I am Chickasaw, so I will relate to you my specific tribal knowledge - there are so many tribes and each one is unique, so a blend of styles and tropes is most likely to be what you end up with.

Many Plains tribes are nomadic, which means that they hunt bison, following their herd as they travel and migrate around, making no permanent homes, and using teepees and wigwams as shelters. I'm not familiar with a DF civilization type that can emulate this easily.

My people are known are part of a group known as southeastern mounds builders. We built mounds on top of which our cities were located. Typically most families had two simple one-room homes - a round hut that we lived in during the winters, and a square lodge that we lived i during the summers. I think that the closest DF can get to this are forest retreats, and your best bet for a race are elves.

We played a game called stick-ball that the french took and made into Lacrosse. The difference in the native american sport is that we referred to it as "the little brother of war" and we tried to resolve conflicts with neighboring tribes using a game of this. The rules were to use two sticks with small nets on the end to throw a small leather ball at a goal post, one on either end of the field. Any additional rules needed to be agreed upon before the individual game. A lot of times, one or more people would die during the game, because it is so brutal. In addition to the wartime games, we have a yearly game against our cousins, the Choctaw tribe. This yearly game continues to this day.

Might be worth pointing out that America has no native horse species. They were brought by the europeans, so depending on your period-preference, you may or may not want to include them. And while we did keep some herd animals and milk them, we did not make cheese or alcohol. Tobacco was used by tribal medicine men or Minko.

Our political leaders were elected officials known as Minko. The closest translation is governor.

FantasticDorf is spot-on with the obsidian weapons, I think. Spears, Daggers, and Axes would be the primary weapons of choice.

I think that if you are doing multiple tribes, you should probably make like two or three and be comfortable with them each being portmanteaus of several different tribes, rather than trying to simulate several specific real-world tribes.

I particularly enjoy the knowledge you've given me, that_eye. This will also be quite useful knowledge for Native American-style civs. The stuff I bolded is actually what I've been planning for this project. Basically, the civs I have planned would be blends (or at least civs with the "flavor") of various tribal cultures from the Americas (as best as DF can make them), just given a fantasy twist.
Title: Re: Ideas for Native American style civilizations, anyone?
Post by: Pillbo on January 14, 2019, 02:15:52 pm
It's probably worth pointing out that Native Americans (as in people native to North/Central/South America) did practice Metallurgy to various degrees, mainly in south and central America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_America
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_Mesoamerica

For what it's worth I think it would be cool to incorporate more nomadic civ behaviors, I'd like that for Beast People.
Title: Re: Ideas for Native American style civilizations, anyone?
Post by: Asin on January 14, 2019, 09:59:36 pm
It's probably worth pointing out that Native Americans (as in people native to North/Central/South America) did practice Metallurgy to various degrees, mainly in south and central America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_America
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_Mesoamerica

For what it's worth I think it would be cool to incorporate more nomadic civ behaviors, I'd like that for Beast People.
Well, nomadic stuff can't exactly happen in DF... so...
Title: Re: Ideas for Native American style civilizations, anyone?
Post by: delphonso on January 14, 2019, 11:51:02 pm
Definitely not an authority, but I spent a lot of time with the Oneida - a branch of the Iroquois confederacy.

I would recommend looking at farming and trying to expand/specialize in that. Perhaps growing plenty and expensive crops would be the main resource for a First Nations game. I'm sure you've heard of Three Sisters farming - being able to pull three crops from one square would be invaluable (I have no idea if that's possible.)
Additional crafting resources like using corn husks would be in keeping with reality.
Values like family and music also make sense.
Title: Re: Ideas for Native American style civilizations, anyone?
Post by: FantasticDorf on January 15, 2019, 06:41:38 am
Definitely not an authority, but I spent a lot of time with the Oneida - a branch of the Iroquois confederacy.

I would recommend looking at farming and trying to expand/specialize in that. Perhaps growing plenty and expensive crops would be the main resource for a First Nations game. I'm sure you've heard of Three Sisters farming - being able to pull three crops from one square would be invaluable (I have no idea if that's possible.)
Additional crafting resources like using corn husks would be in keeping with reality.
Values like family and music also make sense.

Nope, but you can pull out five with a proficient grower, so i think your other idea of reworked or unique crops (can be done by creating seeds with reactions that have no core biome) to the civilization. The rest should be easy to sort.
Title: Re: Ideas for Native American style civilizations, anyone?
Post by: IndigoFenix on January 15, 2019, 11:43:48 am
Those "mounds" sound very similar to the hillock sites dwarves build. You can make a civ build these by making the civ's site type CAVE_DETAILED and making them settle anywhere besides mountains. (This site type automatically creates mountain halls on mountains and hillocks anywhere else.)

Sadly there isn't any support for true nomadic civs in DF, but you can give sites a more "tribal" feel by restricting the civ's max population size, causing them to set up more sites with fewer people per site.
Title: Re: Ideas for Native American style civilizations, anyone?
Post by: Dunmeris on January 16, 2019, 08:03:18 pm
How about bronze-using pseudo-Andeans?
Title: Re: Ideas for Native American style civilizations, anyone?
Post by: scourge728 on January 25, 2019, 03:47:24 pm

Might be worth pointing out that America has no native horse species.
Pedantry here but horses are native to North America, along with camels... they just kinda died off before humans got there....