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Author Topic: Goblins - Suggestions  (Read 44720 times)

Rydel

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #30 on: June 30, 2016, 07:31:02 am »

Goblins seem to pay the iron price for their food... they do not sow.

I like the sound of this.  A playable race that isn't drowning in food and actually has to work for it through hunting and possibly some form of raiding.

fasquardon

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #31 on: June 30, 2016, 08:40:09 am »

I have to say, I am underwhelmed by most the ideas in this thread so far, particularly the overly ornate arena.  For one thing, it feels too much like the arenas that other races get.  For another, I don't like the idea of goblins just being able to summon giant murder-demons, even if said murder-demons are at the end of a 19 level grind...

I think it is more interesting to have the goblins summoning demons with high social skills and maybe some sort of "sorcery", but otherwise not much better than a goblin.  So Sauron (Numenorian edition), not the Balrog.  This isn't so much because giant murder demons aren't "gobliny", but more because giant murder beasts of different varieties are kinda common in Masterwork, and it would be nice for Goblins to be different.

The other thing I am really not keen on is the idea of Goblins being a sadistic slaveocracy.  Again, not because the above isn't "gobliny", but rather because sadistic slaveocracies are depressingly common and popular in dwarf fortress.  I'd find it more distinctive and interesting to see a goblin mode with a more nuanced presentation of goblins.  So for example, giving the goblins ways to make prisoners and captured babies full members of the tribe, rather than making every member of a non-goblin race more oppressed than the ordinary goblins themselves.

(It was the impossibility of making an implementation of a multi-race fortress which satisfied my perfectionism that discouraged my own attempts at making a goblin mod.)

It would be rather fun to play a "goblin liberator fortress", where the focus was on saving dwarf babies from lives as oppressed slaves of Armok and raising them as free members of the goblin tribe...

Anything that has to do with farming animals or plants is out

Pretty sure they can still weave, else what are they shearing their trolls for?

Would it be possible for goblins to learn any of that list of skills through a modded version of the necromantic secret system?  It would be cool to have a succession game where fortresses and adventurers would start on year 1 of the world with stone-age knowledge, and for each player to add to the race's knowledge with their fortress or adventurer play-through...

And I'd love to see goblins stealing the secrets of steel from the dwarfs.

For other ideas for a goblin mod:

Cattle raids.  Because I like the idea of sending goblins out to raid the domestic animals of other civs, and maybe bring back some orcish mammuks or dwarf drakes to help me establish a breeding population of those animals in my own fortress.  (Or simply to get food if I'm in a tight spot.)

Most of the ideas in this thread: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=138248.0

And here are some of my working notes for my own stab at a goblin mod:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In general, the theme is that all members of the tribe would be equal as a slave to the demon lords, non-tribe members would have limited use, but could be armored like dwarfs can armour animals in Masterwork, to produce Janissaries, and two non-tribe members could be sent to fight in the "arena", which, through DFhack would have resulted in the annihilation of those slaves and the creation of a single goblin (who in-game would be the slave who'd won the fight in the arena, now raised up to full goblin status and given a new goblin name).

I had a whole bunch of ideas for fun caste types.  My favorite was the alternate version of the snagas from Smake's Orc Fortress.

One of the big things is I wanted to do was to hamstring the goblin metallurgy.

fasquardon
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Nidhoggur

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #32 on: June 30, 2016, 09:26:28 am »

How's this for an idea: goblins learn some skills very slowly or not at all, but could use books/teachers to get xp/levels in skills; and those books/teachers could only come from other civs: stolen dwarf book on mining, captured human "coerced" to give up some farming secrets and so on.
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FantasticDorf

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #33 on: June 30, 2016, 10:08:23 am »


But I can't figure out how to make goblins interesting. All I can come up with is a mix of kobolds, succubi and orcs:
- Mass-production of low-quality gear.
- Large amount of goblin units.
- Lots of infighting, combat training due to fights, etc.
- Kidnapping other civ-units for slavery.
- Torture room for positive toughts.
- Demon-summoning.
- Slave auction to sell kidnapped civ-units.
- Troll pet system with upgrades.
- Poisons
- Lots of obsidian/magma for that dark-tower feel.
- Sacrificial pit
- food production through farming vermin/hives
- Barghest/Beak dog/warg pets.
- mercenary workshop that hires ettins, ogres, minotaurs, giants, etc.

So more or less this is out of the list, most of the stuff that has been untouched by the discussion so far.

Torture rooms - Would this be in the same vein as succubi? Otherwise its just a 'torture fetish' workshop (to be crude about it) some more details & thoughts would be appreciated.

Slave auction - Sounds good, but requires cage traps/trapping in order to catch slaves (unless its a economy thing where you buy, manage & breed slaves) and a economical basis of bartering to buy slaves and receive something in return to sell slaves.

Troll pet system - What kind of upgrades are we going for when we speak of trolls, its not exactly pokemon evolution stone reactions for the worlds ugliest and most buff Evie (unless it totally is). Trolls can already enlist into the military and train under the supervision of at-least 1 (worth noting from my own vanilla experiences pet trolls are sloppily implemented, they arrive in trade wagons with randomized professions and are generally broken, using create-unit for 'LOCAL' fortress trolls would probably meld much better since they aren't necessarily pets but can still be interacted with without the tags as long as they are local and not citizens) citizen.

Goblins also attract any kind of evil semi sapient, so icemen (& anything else) would probably have to be accounted for.

Goblin pets - From my own experiences, beak dogs are very reliable creatures as long as they have nest boxes & additional tags supplied (using a alternative creature for trading wagons might be preferable if you don't want beak caravans to get engaged with combat, since they are very prone to doing that when pulling wagons), pinning armour onto them will just make them twice as good and their entrail stones make excellent jewellery for engraving and selling in bulk.

Food production & vermin hives - Given goblins don't eat or drink, this is probably not going to be very useful for goblins personally, but trolls & mercenaries require sustenance, perhaps supplying vermin that tick both boxes in being edible and brewable? (much like mog-hopper booze or some variant)

Sacrificial pit - Sacrificing to who? and why? This might end up being your demon summoning/worship religious centre if you need one.
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Meph

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #34 on: June 30, 2016, 10:15:51 am »

Quote
Given goblins don't eat or drink

I'm not sure if I can leave them like that... it might be very difficult to make the goblins challenging if you can just wall them in and do nothing.
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FantasticDorf

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #35 on: June 30, 2016, 10:48:02 am »

Quote
Given goblins don't eat or drink

I'm not sure if I can leave them like that... it might be very difficult to make the goblins challenging if you can just wall them in and do nothing.

Well they do drink in taverns. Thats the only real way of getting around that (given violence lends itself to alcohol dependencies), not that taverns are very peaceful places anyway when goblins and trolls are both milling around looking into their cups and occasionally decapitating each other with swipes of the fist/sword.
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Meph

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #36 on: June 30, 2016, 11:02:53 am »

Quote
Thats the only real way of getting around that
Removing the NOEAT and NODRINK tags would get around that.
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FantasticDorf

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #37 on: June 30, 2016, 11:07:53 am »

Quote
Thats the only real way of getting around that
Removing the NOEAT and NODRINK tags would get around that.

True but then you'd have to introduce farming/hunting priority on top of your vermin production. Most of the other jobs for food are not usable, so to upkeep such large numbers you'd have to dedicate a lot of goblins/slaves to it.
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Boltgun

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #38 on: June 30, 2016, 11:50:59 am »

Basically, you could have a lot of poor fighters that keep fighting everything and most of them die in weird circumstances.

They would get a lot of fighters with bad equipment, the best stuff is made out of loot from sieges. So no steel or better metals allowed. Instead you can produce other kind of armors quickly in low quality levels. They can have starting natural skills too, but lower learning.

Also removing most traps and drawbridges will prevent the player from avoid the fight.

If they do not please their master demon, they will incur its wrath. Pleasing implies having death on the map, even if you have to stage your own people death. You'll be hard pressed to open the caverns and kill anything that approaches or setting a temple and sacrifice the visitors. Otherwise you get a bunch of pretas or some terrible stuff like that.

If their master is dead and replaced with a mortal... I'm out of ideas. Perhaps plot its return?

If you do well enough, we skip the whole barony stuff all the way to mountainhome and the master get in your fort. Give him armor made of looted steel and enjoy the carnage.

On the other hand, you can snatch the young of other races, or simply call for reinforcements. The point would be to raise the population quickly to get sieges.

Their missing labor also add challenge, good luck avoiding infection without any way to make soap.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2016, 11:53:16 am by Boltgun »
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zakhad

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #39 on: June 30, 2016, 12:36:10 pm »

Honestly I would love to see a goblins as a civ that could be invaded by there own civ and if they win they combined / take over the fortress and all the original goblins that are spared/survived could be thrown into a lower caste or slaves which does all the menial labour, but could plot a slave riot to overthrow the invaders, a lot of infighting essentially, or they could prove there worthiness by fighting in the arena and removing the lower/slave caste from there status returning them to normal goblin shenanigans.

Or making goblins almost useless without slaves e.g. can't dig without dwarves/humans can't farm* (effectively) without elves/humans etc.

Edit: Goblin mounts?
« Last Edit: June 30, 2016, 12:49:21 pm by zakhad »
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ProofofconcepT

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #40 on: July 02, 2016, 09:29:43 am »

Perhaps instead of an arena you could have a similar progression system that calls in 'sieges'. They would spawn hostile members of a faction on the border of the map. To prevent people from just waiting the siege out, you could make it so the workshop associated with it must be wagon accessible. If it ever becomes inaccessible, the workshop gets deconstructed and you lose all your progress. Also, the hostile faction members would path towards the workshop and if they reached it, it would also deconstruct. Initial sieges may have a few bandits, and higher end sieges would summon necromancer armies and demons. This would create completely different tactics than normal dwarf fortress sieges, you would have to create a huge army and put your entire fortress at risk in order to progress. You could positioin workshop so that the siegers have to get through all your goblins, including citizens before you lose your progress, or you could set up a ballista trap with archers shooting down on the invaders. Another option would be to simply require goblins to kill a certain amount of humans, dwarves, elves, necromancers etc in order to progress. They would still be able to call sieges, but they would have more ways to kill them.

Also, you could add an arena zone/location where your own goblins fight against each other. Goblins would normally have very slow learning rates for combat, but if they are assigned to the arena they can easily become legendary in combat. However, when fighting in the arena the soldiers actually try to kill each other, causing severe injuries and putting your soldiers at risk. Of course, you could choose one goblin, give him armor and feed him lesser goblins to level him up. Perhaps watching a goblin get killed by another goblin also generates happy thoughts for your goblins, so you could set up a colloseum for them.
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burrito25man

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #41 on: July 03, 2016, 05:02:57 am »

Something that would be interesting is to explain why exactly goblins don't need to eat or drink. The way I figured was due to some kind of blessing from their demon king. A way to implement this is to have them provide a semi valuable sacrifice, in exchange for no eat or drink for every goblin (or eligible candidate with the correct tokens) for a certain duration of time. Say every six months, offer something that is hard to come by, and don't need to worry to feed most of the fortress. And in the endgame, the presence of their demon king would remove those needs entirely.
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Gwolfski

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #42 on: July 03, 2016, 07:18:45 am »



I think the no_eat and no_drink tags should be removed entirely
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Meph

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #43 on: July 03, 2016, 07:21:56 am »



I think the no_eat and no_drink tags should be removed entirely
Same here.

I just cant see how it would benefit the player if his units can just be walled in and ignored. Its why I wrote that entire pylon system for warlocks, just to make sure they dont just wall in a few undead as a backup.

Although it would be a cool trap. Make a hallway with 25 alcoves on each side, wall in skeleton army. Wait for enemy army to enter hallway, order skeletons to tear down the walls and attack. :D
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Rydel

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Re: Goblins - Suggestions
« Reply #44 on: July 03, 2016, 07:28:19 am »

I like the idea of removing the tags, not letting them farm, and forcing them to kill for their food.  Seems rather... goblin-y.
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