Bay 12 Games Forum

Is it possible to make a specific megabeast attack with triggers other than wealth/trade/population? Also, is it possible to make a megabeast friendly to certain civs?

I'm specifically thinking of a sort of 'nature guardian'-type beast that would attack depending on trees cut or beasts slain; this would obviously be friendly to the elves. Another idea would be an evil beast that doesn't attack goblins.

I'm thinking the way to do this could possibly be a custom entity with a per-site population limit of 1, though I have a feeling they'd die out very quickly no matter how powerful they would be.

Inspired by the success and popularity of the spermaceti thread, the idea came to me for another high value marine animal product - the colour of the Caesars - Tyrian purple!

Also known as imperial purple (which would likely be the in game name to avoid real-life location names) it was an extremely valuable reddish-purple dye used by ancient cultures around the Mediterranean Near East and Mexico. It was extracted from the murex snail in a messy, dangerous and frankly disgusting process, which to me sounds extremely dwarfy. Here's the process according to Pliny the Elder:

The most favourable season for taking these fish [i.e., shellfish] is after the rising of the Dog-star, or else before spring; for when they have once discharged their waxy secretion, their juices have no consistency: this, however, is a fact unknown in the dyers' workshops, although it is a point of primary importance. After it is taken, the vein [i.e., hypobranchial gland] is extracted, which we have previously spoken of, to which it is requisite to add salt, a sextarius [about 20 fl. oz.] about to every hundred pounds of juice. It is sufficient to leave them to steep for a period of three days, and no more, for the fresher they are, the greater virtue there is in the liquor. It is then set to boil in vessels of tin [or lead], and every hundred amphorę ought to be boiled down to five hundred pounds of dye, by the application of a moderate heat; for which purpose the vessel is placed at the end of a long funnel, which communicates with the furnace; while thus boiling, the liquor is skimmed from time to time, and with it the flesh, which necessarily adheres to the veins. About the tenth day, generally, the whole contents of the cauldron are in a liquefied state, upon which a fleece, from which the grease has been cleansed, is plunged into it by way of making trial; but until such time as the colour is found to satisfy the wishes of those preparing it, the liquor is still kept on the boil. The tint that inclines to red is looked upon as inferior to that which is of a blackish hue. The wool is left to lie in soak for five hours, and then, after carding it, it is thrown in again, until it has fully imbibed the colour.

The process goes quite indepth, so I'll try to sum it up in simpler, dwarfier terms:

1. Obtain murex snails, living or dead. Obviously if you want a renewable industry, you'll want live ones, otherwise eventually you'll fish them to extinction.

2. The live snail is prodded/goaded into releasing raw murex extract as a self-defense mechanism; this could be done through the milking labor. There may be problems with milking an aquatic creature, though. If it's an insurmountable challenge, we can simply skip this step and go to step 3.

3. The extract is boiled, whether the milked fluid on its own or the entire still alive snail, in a great tank of water, with the addition of salt, and then left to decompose. If the latter option is chosen, the snail obviously dies and cannot be reused.  This would require fuel and some sort of salt analog, and would be performed at a dyer's shop if that's at all possible. This would also create miasma, so whichever workshop this reaction uses would have to be isolated from the rest of your fort, and the dyer should definitely get some really nice furniture in their room to make up for having to work in the stench.

4. We could consider the dye finished at that point, but the excerpt mentions "inferior red dye"; it could be set up so the first boiling reaction gives us red murex dye, which while moderately valuable would not be worth leaving at that stage. It would have to be processed once more to give us imperial purple dye.

To summarise the reactions required would be:

1. (Optional) Milk murex snail >> raw murex extract.
2a. Raw murex extract + coal + salt? >> red murex dye.
or
2b. Raw murex snail + coal +salt? >> red murex dye.
3. Red murex dye + coal >> imperial purple dye.

Now the question is, is any of this even remotely possible? Can one even obtain dye from an animal, seeing as all dye sources in the vanilla game are plants? Could these extra reactions be added on to the dyer's shop, or would a new workshop be needed? I'm not experienced in reaction raws but I'm willing to give it a shot once I get an idea of what people think.

Just out of curiosity, what happens when an entity is set to be made up of non sapient creatures, ie. ones without either CAN_SPEAK or CAN_LEARN or both? I know a lack of CAN_LEARN leads to being unable to level up skills in adventure mode, but apart from that, is there any bizarre behaviour, in either adventure or fortress mode?

For context, I'm making a generic animalfolk mod, so all those moose men and coati women actually do something other than mill around your fort aimlessly.

So, I got invaded by a Cyclops, and at the time lacking any sort of military due to a lack of metal decided to edit the raws and make it tameable/trainable. So far so good. The cyclops was trained for war and would wander around my fort, occasionally drinking/eating but otherwise causing to trouble at all. Now, when I designate my first squad and tell them to train, they go straight for my poor cyclops instead of going up to the barracks I designated for them! I'm trying to get them out of there, before they kill or seriously injure it, as it's a good boost to my defenses; how do I get them to go train normally? WHy are they attacking their own war creatures! I even tried assigning it to the dwarves and even then their bloodlust cannot be sated!



UPDATE: Disbanded the squad, everyone sort of pottered away immediately, except for one siege operator who's unconcious. How do I make sure this doesn't happen again? Or do I simply not bother with a military for the time being?

UPDATE 2: Unconcious siege operator no longer unconcious, now chasing the cyclops around. He is crying. The cyclops is overcome with terror. Why is this happening?