Bay 12 Games Forum

Why are you wasting those great art skills on making fun of others' art rather than wasting it on making your own?
...I think that came out wrong...

I wrote a letter you you requesting some land and hunting rights.

I'd assume you could bring us in for a meeting, but you would decide on the final divisions of land.

Go in the opposite direction. VIVA LA REVOLUTION The further from humanity, the more is the chance of encountering wild edible stuff.

+1

There's an issue appearing.

I'm going to modify the map some when you guys are done, because the perfect hexes look ugly to me and yeah there should probably be some more features.

I'm regretting those words.
See that? The northern bit looks pretty, doesn't it?
It's also tedious.

Would anyone mind if I left it like this and just went to adding your features to the map, or would you rather I finished smoothing it?

ANTI-DERM EVERYTHING!

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on January 03, 2013, 09:34:20 am

I thought corpses granted extra resources?

Why would they? So we would gain resources from nothing?

...True.
Only one way to find out!

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on January 03, 2013, 09:34:20 am

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They have far too many far too non-yellow-on-black eyes to qualify as The Armada.

Huh?

...For some reason I thought people would recognize the reference. I referred to Artisian Armada from Dex's other works.

Oh.

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B. S. Every creature has to meet with others of its kind eventually (at least to mate and be given birth to and raised), and most of the really intelligent animals are, in fact, gregarious

You cannot apply real life animals to fantasy ones entirely.

And why not? You are, and Toady makes sure that DF follows real-world natural laws when possible.

Yes indeed in real life intelligence is so strongly linked to social ability that ONLY social animals have ever developed as much as subhuman or outright human intelligence.
In fantasy however this isn't the case and many highly intelligent or super intelligent creatures life almost entirely solitary lives.

Almost.

Also yes solitary creatures do meet to mate but it is hardly a "social" experience so to speak.

You claimed that "[t]here are many types of animal formations and Semimegabeasts are populated almost entirely by intelligent creatures who are solitary creatures, or ones who tend to wish to be entirely alone and who could be happy never meeting another of their kind." Emphasis on the never.

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Ogres are shown IN THE RAWS to be perfectly fine in groups. This is without much of any real authority, past perhaps familial ties like wolves or strength. In the latter case, semi/megabeasts have a huge advantage in gaining ogre minions; in the former, a clever minotaur could either find (or perhaps make) some orphaned ogres, find some way to be a parental substitute, or just bully the ogres.

I hope that Ogre is a type of semimegabeast as I cannot look at the raws right now. If they arn't just switch that word for another. Also the "RAWS" don't show their difficulty with groups because that aspect is not defined for semimegabeasts. Who knows how well they are with groups.

It isn't. And yes, that is a bit of a problem with semimegabeasts, but is it fair to assume that semimegabeasts shun all contact on principle? If so, it's equally fair to assume that goblins are mindless idiots who siege dwarven fortresses in increasing numbers no matter what happens.

Anyhow raising Ogre babies from birth, if they are solitary animals they will still wander or walk off. As well bullying will only work so long. You are not going to get long term familial bonds.

Obviously you won't get long-term familial bonds from bullying, but making the assumption that the humanoid ogres are descended from apes or other primates, they probably rear their children for a significant amount of time. Heck, all mammals do. They're not going to "wander or walk off." Wolf pups don't. Bear cubs don't. Monkey babies don't. Why would ogre children?

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They don't form civilizations because they don't form civilizations. Your evidence is equal in strength to an argument that Australian Abigorigenes (sp?) can't get along in large groups. The only difference is that ogres are different species, but my point is that your evidence is inadequate

A civilisation is any group in this case. If they formed a single tribe they are a civilisation as far as this conversation is concerned.

In the game right now, civilizations are ALWAYS sedentary. Give wandering animalmen dogs and spears, and they're right at the level of Australian Abigorigenes.

Also no this isn't the same thing because I am not speaking of the game as it currently is but rather of what I am refering to in terms of semimegabeasts and how Toady made them rather solitary to the extent that they only work together for the short term, and intellectual survival tool but not a civilisation or a real group.

Again, semimegabeasts aren't fully implemented yet. Nothing is. The game is still freaking Alpha.

Also the Australian Aboriginies didn't form large groups because they couldn't because they were limited by food supply.

Irrelevant. They didn't form large groups. That was reason enough for you to assume that ogres could not form large groups. If your logic is valid, Aborigines cannot form large groups.
Ogres probably have as bad or worse a food supply problem. Sure, they live in plain, but evil plains (where the vegetation is often dead, animals aren't always edible, and it can't be assumed to rain water), and they're freaking huge.

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Well, intelligence doesn't spontaneously develop leaving all other psychological trait untouched.

It does in fantasy.

Depends on the fantasy.

It helps that the source of a creature doesn't have to come from evolution but rather outright creation. A created creature certainly could have intelligence but lack the social aspect that most intelligent creatures have.

And what Creator would create a race that can't ever get along with itself?

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Assuming similar forces in act with other species, and intelligent species do, in fact, have a much higher chance of becoming gregarious, and vice versa. And that's assuming that ogres, minotaurs, etc, didn't come from the exact same (gregarious) roots as humans. That would drastically increase how gregarious ogres, minotaurs, etc are.

Which they very well may not, or they could have evolved out of it, or magic, or creation, or just an entirely different form of evolution.

1. "Very well may not?" In theory. Social systems stimulate and are stimulated by intelligence, though, so it seems improbable for several intelligent species to develop without any possibility of a social structure in them.
2. I hate it when people use the "Magic!" argument. That can solve anything. Don't use magic as Spackle to fill your plot holes, kids. Creation is about the same.
3. Evolution is evolution. If something is copied imperfectly, and the imperfections affect survival/reproduction/etc, and they are inheritable, evolution works exactly the same.

I do think that creatures should be as logical as possible, but you have to at least accept their fundementals.

If you can show that they are fundamental.
You haven't, any more than goblins making Leeroy Jenkins look reasonable is "fundamental" to their character.