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[Starmantis]

I was wondering how difficult and wanted it would be to have individual civs of the same race have slightly different ethics (and other stuff too, but for now im focusing on ethics) rather than stuff like "ACCEPTABLE" "UNTHINKABLE" etc, I think we should have it be more variable like personality traits for dwarves, so it could go something like this.

[ETHIC:JAYWALKING:0:500:1000:3000] or something like that, higher numbers representing it being more acceptable (or the other way around I dunno)

[LordBaal]

I could see how a civ under a demon could end up on the bad side of the law (chaos dwarf anyone?) I quite like the idea, kind of like warhammer where everyone has an evil (or more evil) twin.

[Timeless Bob]

Having each case be a numerical range rather than a specific setting for each specific civ would allow the civilization to also slowly change its ethical structure due to surrounding events as well.  Dwarves allied to Elves would work to increase that elvish culture's tolerance for wood-cutting while at the same time increasing the sensitivity of that Dwarven civilization to wood being cut.  I imagine the various civ's wars would be started over variables that are more than a threshold's value in these traits and average out the values over a span of battles until peace is made with a compromise because one or the other civ has changed enough to have their ethical differences be below a specific threshold of difference. 

Obviously, those that win the battles would change the cultural values of those who lost them, so that one culture could eventually have a disproportionate effect on the world.

Other mechanisms than wars could change a civ's cultural values as well, such as children becoming more or less precious depending on how many exist in relation to the adults and the total available food at the time they're checked - likewise, the creation of artifacts might be increased or decreased depending on the ratio of civ members to available food at the time they're checked.  (The idea is that surplus food gives people the time to indulge in "The Arts", while a scarcity of food decreases the chance that people will think about great works of art over trying not to starve/keep their families from starving.)

What's really interesting about this concept is that a Player's play-style in Fortress Mode could directly impact the reactions of the Fortresses parent civilization to it, either holding it up as the shining example of dwarven culture by making it the new capitol or breaking off all relations, sending no more migrants/caravans, or even sending an army to conquer it if the Player's actions cause the Fortress culture to pass the tolerance threshold far enough.

The fact that play-style would seem to be coupled with an exterior world would increase its sense of immersion considerably.

[AlexanderTheIncompetant]

 I think it would be awesome if this worked with deities, similar to how is real life ancient civs morals are tough through mythology and stories.

[Bumber]

Planned, already partially implemented:

Rainseeker:   Is it going to be possible for us to get civilizations like goblin civilizations that go in unexpected directions like maybe they get a leader somehow from an elven civilization who enforces their beliefs on the goblins or something?

Toady:   I only put in little teeny baby steps in that direction back when I set up those ethics; looking in that direction I made it so that the ethics sit inside the civilization so that they're mutable; it doesn't just look at the definition that you put in the raw files, but within each civilization they're mutable; but they don't actually change yet. But that kind of thing is what will allow certain individuals and even sub movements ... this is the kind of thing where say in dwarf mode if you have a philosophical movement spring up and enough of your dwarves adhere to it it should start changing the actual fortress civilization in terms of how it thinks, and whether that's happening because the actual fortress ethics are changing or just because a majority of the people follow the ethics of this movement ... it's kind of one leads to the other, or it should anyway. So we're thinking about those things, we're definitely not ignoring that kind of stuff, but it's just a matter of getting it done and that always takes a long time.

The ethics are set up to be capable of changing in-game. They just don't yet.