Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: smjjames on November 08, 2009, 11:23:29 am

Are Kobolds tailless though?

Edit: yea they're tailless. I tend to imagine them as having tails sometimes.

...*hides tail under cloak protectively*

Tails would be interesting as a genetic trait for Kobolds.

The kobold language is based entirely on how we used to talk to our cats growing up.  The nonsense words would have a roughly consistent meaning for days at a time, but it was very fluid overall, and it's not really about communicating novel ideas to people, especially those that weren't around when a given word became attached to a given object.

So, do kobolds not have the capacity to learn other languages, period? I'm asking from a world perspective, not the effect-of-[UTTERANCES] perspective.

The way I interpret this is that the Kobold's language has a culture of change. So a Kobold would forget a language quite quickly until it realises how its language differs from 'normal' languages. Given that Kobolds don't naturally communicate ideas, this makes a very steep inital learning curve, but it shouldn't be impossible for a Kobold to learn a 'normal' language.

Assuming Toady one has implemented proper Kobolds, I wouldn't expect to see Kobold liasons or diplomats except under unusual worldgen conditions.

Traders might be likely, since accepting or declining a deal can be easily communicated with gestures. Though Kobolds might bring pet Rhesus macaques or something taught to steal like NetHack kittens. Which would be amusing and frustrating.

Aren't there plans to one day add more potential for diplomacy?  In that case, there could perhaps be a raw [DIPLOMATIC] with a percentage indicating chance to be persuaded.  0 means it's totally impossible to reason with them, 100 means it's very easy to get your way with them.  Through this, we might see through world gens or events that happen through actual gameplay civs that, while normally opposed to each other, learn to get along.  For example, due to an insane critical success on a diplomacy check, elves and dwarves coexist just fine despite the fact that dwarves continue to chop down their trees.

Maybe it's not sufficient to lump this into one category - maybe categorize war-potential behaviors into different difficulties of persuasion, because some civs may feel more strongly about their ethics than they do about getting screwed over at the trade depot.

Some of this sounds a lot like the persuader social skill, I wouldn't be suprised if it's already being used in diplomacy in dwarf mode. It would be good to see it extended into legends mode, where diplomats learn and use the skill (they might do to some extent already). The last time I looked at a liason in Dwarf Therapist, he was about proficient in all his social skills so he was practicing them at least.
Perhaps you're thinking of something like an inital bonus to a skill such that all dwarfs from the Basement of Beards start life as a 'skilled persuader'.

Just donate the elves a tower cap log. That's usually enough to make them pissy

Yes, you get military immigrants once you've made one of those weapons at a forge. If memory serves, and the wiki is correct.

For the next wave of immigrants, metalworker/amoursmith/weaponsmith OCD, obsessed with cleaning and polishing of shiny objects.

What I'd like to see in later versions of DF is a way to better control how civilisations interact with each other and the player. Currently war is achieved in DF with entity_default tags by including [ITEM_THIEF],  [BABYSNATCHER] and, if memory serves, editing creature_standard.txt to have [CAN_CIV][CAN_LEARN] in favor of [INTELLIGENT].

I think some of these effects could be moved into personality giving modders more control over how civilisations interact.
Goblins could have [PERSONALITY:WARMONGER:50:85:100], which means their leaders will be more likely to send regular sieges and reject peace offers
And something like [PERSONALITY:EXPANIONIST:50:85:100], would make civs branch out and try to claim more land even if it means going to war.
Another personality tag could be THEIF, where a value >75% means individuals will venture into other societies and steal things, a value >90% would cause leaders to send raiding parties and individuals to steal from their own society (It'd be pretty funny to see a dwarf stealing black bronze items from the hammerer). On the other end of the scale, a trader with <25% may make donations to your fort.

I'm sure there's other personality tags and effects which could be implemented, this thread is for your ideas.

This mod was pretty good, though a few things seemed a bit odd

mostly [CHILD:2][BABY:1][liTTERSIZE:2:6]
3 years to adulthood seems fast. The litter size is a bit large too I think.

Oh well I've already changed it.

I got through this thread as quicky as possible, 3 days.
I'm disappointed at not seeing it end yet.

I look forward to the finish!