Bay 12 Games Forum

Nay, sorry.

Nice to have closure.

Everybody move up, quietlike, see? Crossbows ready, shortswords easy to be drawn. Lets take a look in the shed...

+1

Just put in two armies like before. It's not hard.

I'd prefer not to if I didn't have to.

Guys...my action this turn depends heavily on the result of this measure.

Head to town. Try not to look like a bandit.

I'd like to know my team so I know how big to make my army.

Oh I agree, but you also have to accept that any model chosen will have to, by necessity, not be perfect, and have its generalizations.  The alignments of races in particular, for instance.  It isn't something that can be consistent to get goblins to be green skinned terrorists, if you permit deviation from their ethnic alignment en masse, for instance.  You would end up with a world that doesn't follow the fantasy trope that is artificially assigned, which is very clearly what toady intends. You would end up wit pacifist goblins, geocidal elves, and the whole gamut of possible interaction, essentially negating any ethnic idenities of those races.

Why is this a problem?

Remember when goblins were pacifists during the early .31 builds, and all the complaints about it? Opening that pandora's box would make a lot of players very mad, just to suit a PC foible you are fostering about racism, and there would be no simple fix for it either.

I kinda don't see the problem. (I'm assuming Toady won't "ship" a product where everything's 100% random--goblins will still have murderous tendencies, elves hippyish ones, etc.)

Implementing this feature in a fashion that won't break expected gameplay, and only enhance it, requires some level of racism.  It cant be helped.

Why?

Neonivek:
The psychopathy inherent in economics in regard to cultural value is precisely the reason why I provided the link above. Every culture views itself as superior in some fashion, and acts in varying levels of psychopathic tendencies to the ideas and knowledge of other cultural groups. Take for instance, dwarves considering elves to be rediculous about worshiping trees. The dwarves are VERY opinionated on the matter, but then again, so are the elves!  The relationships between cultures are NEVER 1:1 value exchanges. They are *always* perversions, colored by the recipient culture's biases.

There's also the fact that he seems to be strawmanning economics.

No, that's not what I'm talking about, either.
I'm saying that you can't just say "economics" and act like it explains anything.
"Why is China rising to prominence as an economic superpower?" "Economics!"
"Why is Europe falling behind?" "Economics!"
"What is the cause of Detroit once being a massive engine of economic power, but now being a destitute wasteland of unemployment?" "Economics!"
Economics is a broad and very complex topic, and just saying the word doesn't explain jack shit.
Once again, Africa has cheap labor, just like Southeast Asia.  Can you explain the Economics! of why that doesn't mean Africa is a superpower in high technology?
The problem is that we're trying to talk about the hows and whys of the rise and fall of civilization, and simply saying "Asians make things because economics!" is incredibly unhelpful and frustrating because we're just reducing the whole conversation to spouting jargon and buzzwords.
If you aren't conveying meaning when you are talking about something, helping someone to get to a deeper understanding of the subject matter, you're doing nothing but spouting noise.  Nothing of value gets discussed at that level.

The worst part? Due to how broad economics it, those people are technically right. (In the sense that someone saying that your grandfather died due to biological causes is technically right.)

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We're talking about ways to make culture change procedurally. Making race the sole determinant of culture is inherently contrary to the goals of this thread.  You're trying to talk about culture while at the same time trying to bind it entirely with race. 

And YOU are trying to negate any and all implication that racial identity would have on culture, by saying it is too general! Under your paradigm, elves are just humans with pointy ears!

No, s/he is not. Kohaku is basically saying that race shouldn't be a staightjacket for culture.

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Definitionally, in order for procedural cultural changes to take place, it means that the binding of all dwarves being the same has to be loosened.  Some dwarves are going to have to specialize in skills and arts that are totally different from other dwarves.  Otherwise, there's no point.

And without hard setting racial influences on dwarves, you again make them no different from any other species, again betraying your intrinsic bias. Again. I am not saying all dwarves should end up the same. I am saying that dwarves are different from humans, fundementally, and should react to situations and stimuli differently.

Those are not incompatible viewpoints.

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Not only does this mean that there might be pacifist goblins, but they still exist in the game.  Just create a world where goblins are assimilated into a human culture right now - there's going to be tons of them in the human civilization, and they're going to be thriving.

Yes, and they will be a minority, constantly fighting their innate nature. Eg, anomalies.

What makes you think they won't be in the new system?

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Strictly enforcing Planet of the Hats race stereotypes undermines the whole capacity of the game to actually simulate cause and effect as it pertains to culture or technology or ideas, and that's one of the game's greatest strengths.

And again, making them all McHumans, Now with BEARDS!(tm) and Pointy-Ears!(tm), by making all the different races share the same mechanic, makes then fundementally boring.

Why do you think Kohaku wants that?

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You can't look at late Medieval European history as something totally separate and distinct from the Muslim world, there's changes brought about by the influence of other cultures, and if you want to make a simulation, you have to recognize these things.

But in all instances of extant human civs, all the civs were humans, and shared human ambitions, and followed decidedly human qualities. Leaders rose to power, people fought over resources, and sought out ways to become the strong man. While the specifics of the cultures are different, they are all decidedly HUMAN cultures. What you seem unable to comprehend is that the paths elven cultures would go down would be INSANELY different from ANY human civ! I am not saying all humas have to be McHumanCiv. I am saying human civs should be HUMAN civs. VERY different beast! At this point I am beginning to question your objectivity and reading skills...

The differences between dwarven and human biology aren't that severe.

-snip-
The reason is that the instability of the region makes the investment of infrastructure hazardous,

Point missed.

and I have a counter example to yours.
The city of Gabarone, the capital of Botswana.
The city of Gabarone is experiencing fantastical economic and financial growth, as many major tech firms seek to capitalize on its relative political stability and low cost of employment. Many noteworthy firms, like seimens, cisco, microsoft, and pals have HEAVILY invested into the city's development.
So again, yes, 'economics!'
Specifically, the arbitrary association of value with a commodity or service, based on scarcity, and in this case, the subset of that discipline known as globalism, itself characterized by the efficient employment of trade networks for the benefit of the trading partners, as a means of increasing the standard of living by overcoming scarcity.
Eg, why you can buy strawberries out of season, and do so affordably.

Still missing the point.

In the specific light of the arguments that started this derailment:
-snip-

You're missing Kohaku's point. She's not saying that trade relations like that should never happen, just that they shouldn't always happen.

And about elves: I see them as semimortal variants of fey people, and therefore a bit less comprehensible than humans or dwarves, or even goblins or kobolds. I imagine that while they don't want to kill anything not trying to kill them, they don't see any problem in using a formerly living anything which has died.

Seems neat, but I suspect it would take up tons of memory and get VERY repetitive.