Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1] 2 3

Author Topic: Undead civilization?  (Read 4700 times)

Anarchid

  • Escaped Lunatic
    • View Profile
Undead civilization?
« on: July 18, 2014, 10:38:40 am »

In the newly released dwarf fortress, it is a fairly common sight for necromancers to establish a single tower, and then go amok expanding everywhere, creating continent-sprawling networks of towers, whole landside crawling with the undead and forts built there subject to round the year necro sieges.

When other causes produce this kind of massive large-scale construction of sites and projection of military might, that's called civilization.

So... would be cool if the necromancers could found federations of their towers.
Logged
"Look! I can make non-eldritch non-blood non-crystal things!"
"You are not the real Anarchid"

pisskop

  • Bay Watcher
  • Too old and stubborn to get a new avatar
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2014, 10:50:08 am »

They can in masterwork.  At least, I think that is the story of Warlocks.
Logged
Pisskop's Reblancing Mod - A C:DDA Mod to make life a little (lot) more brutal!
drealmerz7 - pk was supreme pick for traitor too I think, and because of how it all is and pk is he is just feeding into the trollfucking so well.
PKs DF Mod!

Adrian

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2014, 11:53:04 am »

This is not World of Warcraft. The undead are mindless slaves to their necromancer master and as such are completely useless for anything other than attacking people.
The Necromancers themselves apparently have some kind of teacher<->apprentice thing going on, so any kind of necromancer "civilization" would be more like a loose cooperation between towers.
Logged

Anarchid

  • Escaped Lunatic
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2014, 12:58:54 pm »

Quote
The Necromancers themselves apparently have some kind of teacher<->apprentice thing going on, so any kind of necromancer "civilization" would be more like a loose cooperation between towers.
Call it confederation then. If they are capable of, and are in fact controlling entire continents, they should have that (imo).

Dunno where you got that world of warcraft idea.
Logged
"Look! I can make non-eldritch non-blood non-crystal things!"
"You are not the real Anarchid"

Euld

  • Bay Watcher
  • There's coffee in that nebula ಠ_ರೃ
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #4 on: July 18, 2014, 04:27:21 pm »

I suspect he's snippy because you are still ranked as an "escaped lunatic" and because WoW has an undead faction.  But honestly, WoW didn't invent the concept of an undead nation/facton/confederation.  Perhaps civilizations could have a sort of random generation of their own, allowing for civilizations of mixed races or unusual races such as undead.

newjrmint21

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #5 on: July 18, 2014, 08:18:04 pm »

the undead aren't a race. they are corpses reanimated through dark magic.
and as has already been said, they are mindless killing machines.
Logged

pisskop

  • Bay Watcher
  • Too old and stubborn to get a new avatar
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #6 on: July 18, 2014, 08:23:09 pm »

the undead aren't a race. they are corpses reanimated through dark magic.
and as has already been said, they are mindless killing machines.


You can add the tags to a caste or the who species to make them friendly to undead/night creatures but hostile to all life.  This of course includes their own civ, but I rather doubt that worldgen will care.

I might try out of curiosity.  Im almost sure adding the tag to the whole civ would make them sterile.  However, adding to a section of the population might make worldgen ignore it until the PC interacts with them (read the game loads them).

I speculate that adding it to a caste would make worldgen ignore it.  If you let the opposed creatures also raise their own dead (fit for resurrection) they should actually be viable in most worlds.

hmmm  It could be done, I think.  Give it a try.

Quote
they are mindless killing machines.

Are they?  If we can get worldgen to accept them, I bet you could get [opposed_to_life] creatures to have and hold jobs.
Logged
Pisskop's Reblancing Mod - A C:DDA Mod to make life a little (lot) more brutal!
drealmerz7 - pk was supreme pick for traitor too I think, and because of how it all is and pk is he is just feeding into the trollfucking so well.
PKs DF Mod!

Vgray

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #7 on: July 18, 2014, 08:24:36 pm »

I don't even see how you can call the Undead Scourge a civilization...
Logged

pisskop

  • Bay Watcher
  • Too old and stubborn to get a new avatar
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #8 on: July 18, 2014, 08:31:31 pm »

I don't even see how you can call the Undead Scourge a civilization...
I dont play it.

Making female dwarves opposed to life makes worldgen gen as usual, but embarking makes the npcs, and hostile.  I had 5/7 of the as female.

So yes, you can have them, they would gen, and they will be able to learn.
Logged
Pisskop's Reblancing Mod - A C:DDA Mod to make life a little (lot) more brutal!
drealmerz7 - pk was supreme pick for traitor too I think, and because of how it all is and pk is he is just feeding into the trollfucking so well.
PKs DF Mod!

Vgray

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #9 on: July 18, 2014, 08:37:07 pm »

Anyway, the real question is, how will rival towers interact with each other?
Logged

Jacob/Lee

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #10 on: July 18, 2014, 08:40:47 pm »

Necromancers holding living slaves/workers would be interesting, as mindless zombies are only so useful. They can apparently be controlled with such skill as to make them build a tower, and of course can turn into rabid killing machines at any moment. I would imagine that a few other necromancers and a zombie horde would make poor conversation after a few centuries.

dudlol

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #11 on: July 18, 2014, 08:49:32 pm »

The addition of city state type sites would facilitate this well. Randomly generated civilizations with just one (rarely more as vassals). Bonus points for then you'd have living singers who only attack if you are near them, for player controlled fun injections.
Logged

newjrmint21

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #12 on: July 20, 2014, 01:09:13 am »

the undead aren't a race. they are corpses reanimated through dark magic.
and as has already been said, they are mindless killing machines.


You can add the tags to a caste or the who species to make them friendly to undead/night creatures but hostile to all life.  This of course includes their own civ, but I rather doubt that worldgen will care.

I might try out of curiosity.  Im almost sure adding the tag to the whole civ would make them sterile.  However, adding to a section of the population might make worldgen ignore it until the PC interacts with them (read the game loads them).

I speculate that adding it to a caste would make worldgen ignore it.  If you let the opposed creatures also raise their own dead (fit for resurrection) they should actually be viable in most worlds.

hmmm  It could be done, I think.  Give it a try.

Quote
they are mindless killing machines.

Are they?  If we can get worldgen to accept them, I bet you could get [opposed_to_life] creatures to have and hold jobs.



>.> this is a suggestion page, not a modding page. i'm not arguing anyone's ability to mod the game.
yes, zombies are mindless killing machines. therefore i argue against the idea of adding intelligent, job holding zombies to the game.
Logged

AutoBahn

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #13 on: July 20, 2014, 07:28:15 pm »

>.> this is a suggestion page, not a modding page. i'm not arguing anyone's ability to mod the game.
yes, zombies are mindless killing machines. therefore i argue against the idea of adding intelligent, job holding zombies to the game.
Who says it has to be just zombies? Don't night creatures such as vampires and suchlike technically count as being friendly to other undead such as necromancers and zombies, IIRC? You could have an interesting civ group if you made it out of bogeymen, necromancers, vampires and zombies(and whatever else), as far as I can tell. Randomly generated castes(bogeymen) would be really cool to have, actually, since you would have to work with what you're given for each and every world you gen(since bogeymen and vampires as well as some night creatures seem to be randomly genned[i think? I need to go look at advanced worldgen options again...]). Mixing it up a little, basically. It'd give night creatures more of a purpose as well, actually, past the normal "ambush people at night and/or steal their blood and corpses for your nefarious plans" sort of role they have now.
Logged

Anarchid

  • Escaped Lunatic
    • View Profile
Re: Undead civilization?
« Reply #14 on: July 21, 2014, 03:41:13 am »

Quote
yes, zombies are mindless killing machines. therefore i argue against the idea of adding intelligent, job holding zombies to the game.
Just for clarity, i wasn't explicitly suggesting intelligent, job holding zombies. For what i care, they can still be simply necro-robots serving their masters.

Necromancers themselves, however, do form communities (there are almost always multiple necros at a tower), project immense power, are sapient, and can even give you quests (and could back in 2012, too).

I'm arguing for necromancers having a proper scale political entity, not zombies being given sapience rights. And by "proper scale political entities" i mean "can declare war and occupy sites" at least. Because that's what they essentially already do to player forts!

Conversely, if necromancers are not to have confederations and such, they shouldn't sprawl that much.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2014, 03:50:12 am by Anarchid »
Logged
"Look! I can make non-eldritch non-blood non-crystal things!"
"You are not the real Anarchid"
Pages: [1] 2 3