Bay 12 Games Forum

Just make a SKELETAL bodypart and attach it to the limb. You might even be able to give the protected parts INTERNAL - I never really got round to testing whether or not internal limbs worked, but I assume they do.

Obviously this'll all be broken by the next version, but still.

The reason they're not showing up right is because TILE: isn't formatted correctly - it should read TILE:'m' as opposed to TILE:m. The way tile designations work is that a number (0-255) alone will be grabbed from the tile it pertains to in the tileset the game's currently using, whereas an extended ascii character in inverted commas will come out just the way you put it in (this is why, for example, dwarfs show up as they do).

Lots of things could act as potential improvements here; most are just minor. (Alternatively, avoid listenting to my wittering and check out creature tokens, entity tokens and spheres)

First, in the creature entry:

SPEECH:dwarf.txt - this tells the game which file it should grab taunts from when a creature encountered in Adventurer mode gloats about its previous kills. The files are in plain text format in ~\data\speech, and you just create a new file if you want specialised taunts for your civ.

DIURNAL - Creatures with this tag will be active in daylight; there are also NOCTURNAL, MATUTINAL (dawn), VESPERTINE (evening), CREPUSCULAR (twilight in general), and ALL_ACTIVE (all the time). Considering the time compression involved in Fortress mode, this doesn't get any use there at the moment, but it has a subtle effect in Adventurer.

BENIGN - As opposed to SAVAGE; BENIGN creatures will settle in low-savagery areas and will generally be less aggressive; SAVAGE creatures will settle in high-savagery areas and will generally be more aggressive.

GOOD/EVIL - Yes, you can add both. A BENIGN+SAVAGE+GOOD+EVIL creature will probably be able to settle almost anywhere, though the two former tags might cancel each other out, I'm really not sure.

PERSONALITY: - Now it gets interesting. Most of these have some subtle effect on gameplay (angrier creatures will berserk more easily). Values are min/median/max.

And the entity entry:

Languages: There are a few tools out there to help you generate languages - personally I'm still using WordGen, but DFLang seems to be the most recent one. They should be listed in the mods/utilities sticky, somewhere...

Symbols: This is probably what you'll be wanting to look at primarily. Of the ones currently in the file: you have SELECT_SYMBOL:WAR (designates which word pool to use to find words to name wars), BATTLE (battles), SIEGE (sieges), etc., etc.. CULL_SYMBOL tells the civ to never select words from that symbol under any circumstances, while SELECT_SYMBOL:REMAINING tells the civ to select words from whatever symbols for things you haven't otherwise designated (in the case of this file, mainly town names). The names of individuals are derived from the symbols you've chosen. You can see the full list of words under each symbol in the LANGUAGE_SYM file, but ones I'd suggest you start with are MAGIC, VIOLENT, and possibly MYTHIC, while you'll obviously want to cull the less applicable ones (DOMESTIC, ROMANTIC, FLOWERY, PEACE, etc.).

DEFAULT_SITE_TYPE: Note that this might not work at the moment as you've set the START_BIOME to MOUNTAIN. Certain sites are affliated with certain biomes (mainly cities but especially tree cities) in the sense that they can only be built on certain biomes.

LEADER_TYPE: This isn't just a string, despite how it looks - it must be a valid profession to work correctly. Yes, this does mean you can get a fish cleaner instead of a king if you set things up that way.

RELIGION:PANTHEON: Setting this to REGIONAL_FORCE basically turns them into elves (I don't think there's enough scope in this version for the force's features to be anything other than rivers, trees, nature etc.; consider later versions wherein we have spheres affliated with geography and this'll get a lot more interesting), and setting it to ANY_APPROPRIATE_POWER basically turns them into goblins (they'll worship the nearest impressive thing that comes by, which in vanilla is currently only the Demon).

SPHERE: Don't think it shows up there but it's mildly important; more important to religions (see below) than anything else. Still, worth adding. Spheres decide the general idealistic basic of your civ.

RELIGION_SPHERE: The general focus of the god(s). If the civ worships ANY_APPROPRIATE_POWER, they'll try to worship a power that's involved with these spheres, but if they can't they'll just use something random. You won't ever be able to totally guarantee what results you get no matter how heavily you weight the values, mind, and this applies to both powers and pantheons.

PERMITTED_JOB: These can be removed, of course.

ETHIC: Not immensely important, but important for flavour. Ethics control the potential outcomes of a few historical events, but generally have extremely little effect on gameplay (if any at all). They are also a primary factor in deciding who wars with who. There are some details on the ethics wiki page. Toady posted the war-deciding details quite a long while ago, as as far as I could see the handling of each act has very individual consequences when deciding relations with another civ, so it'll take some doing (it's quite impossible to have a civ at war with every other civ, unless those civs are all virtually identikit and you're lucky).

Finally, if you're desperate for conflict, you could always add the ITEM_THIEF or BABYSNATCHER tag to the entity file. This won't cause wars as such, but it will cause the global hostility that goblins suffer from, and you will end up getting sieged by every other capable civ out there.

/textwall

There are two tags: the creature has to have the POWER tag, and the entity has to have the RELIGION:ANY_APPROPRIATE_POWER religion tag. The idea is that they worship whatever comes by and looks tough, but at the moment the leader creatures are just plonked down as the leaders of the civ at year 1.

This'll change next version - now the creatures actually have to find and impress/infiltrate the civs, and it's not just civs seeking a demigod which can get POWER-class leaders - what with procedural culture coming soon and such, pretty much any civ can be lead by anything so long as it's in the right place at the right time.

Damn, it was you all along.

No. I refuse to stoop that close to this forum's mildly bizarre excuse for a community.

Oh, go on then. Yeah, hi and such.

Also, orcs being close to altmer?? I've never heard about it, it's not Tolkien, but I am gonna check anyway.

It's in one of the books in the more recent games... I'll look it up, gimmie a sec.

Yeah, here we are.

you do realise that [INTELLEGENT] does not give said race legendary community skills right off the bat? you require [CAN_LEARN]

INTELLIGENT appears to be a tag that combines CAN_SPEAK, CAN_LEARN and CAN_CIV, and may possibly have a couple of additional minor effects.

So if the game didn't handle duplicate effects as well as it does, it'd be a bad idea to add any of those tags if the creature in question has INTELLIGENT. As it is, doing so is simply redundant.