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Author Topic: ¿Can I know how a historical figure -looked like-?  (Read 1562 times)

pamelrabo

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¿Can I know how a historical figure -looked like-?
« on: December 14, 2018, 07:17:39 am »

I realized my sculptors and engravers know how a dead king looked like, but I don't. That buggers me, because I've been thinking of doing some art project regarding the tragic tale of my queen's ancestors. But then, I don't know how she, or her ancestors, looked like, or their personality traits.

¿Does the game generate descriptions of historical figures long dead, or they pop up into existence when a character shows up? I've tried Legends Viewer but I can't find a physical description, just their skils and goals in life.
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GPeter

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Re: ¿Can I know how a historical figure -looked like-?
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2018, 09:37:24 am »

PTW

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Grand Sage

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Re: ¿Can I know how a historical figure -looked like-?
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2018, 12:38:03 pm »

well, the engraver doesn't necessarily know what they looked like. IIRC it just says that the engraving depicts the dwarf so-and-so, but its probably just the artists rendition.

To answere your question: no, i dont think that there are complete descriptions of hist figs, which is probably for the best memory wise.
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pamelrabo

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Re: ¿Can I know how a historical figure -looked like-?
« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2018, 05:51:48 am »

Aaw, that's a pity. ¿Not even simple ones? The game pops up a brief "short, big ears, deep voice" for each of the invaders I have in every siege. I would think there is a similar one for historical figures. Or Forgotten beasts, now that I say.

Half of my queen's siblings were devoured by two different forgotten beasts and I'd like to have their description to sketch them, too.

I'll try to generate a very short small world and search the .xml, just in case, but I'll take your word about it. ¡The world doesn't think about we artists in a strange mood! ¡No wonder I'm stricken with melancholy now!
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PatrikLundell

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Re: ¿Can I know how a historical figure -looked like-?
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2018, 09:33:16 am »

As far as I can see there's no such info in the mapped part of the hist fig info, but there is such info in the unit info. However, unit info is probably generated only for hist figs that appear on the local map, and to make it more complicated, they're offloaded into files at least when a save is made, and only the ones relevant are loaded when a save is loaded. Looking at the XML files is probably futile: DFHack is probably needed as a minimum, and you'd probably have to be able to interpret the data in the files units are offloaded to (and I haven't seen anything indicating that the format of those files is known) to get at the data you want.

Thus, in order for the artist to get something to work with, the inner scientist will have to be put to work to find that something.

Also note that the info you see on invaders is unit info, not hist fig info (and those units are on the map as well).
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pamelrabo

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Re: ¿Can I know how a historical figure -looked like-?
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2018, 06:23:18 pm »

Oh, wow, that's a whole detailed and coherent explanation there. ¡Thanks for the clarifications!

I suspected something like that, historic figs being totally abstract entities until they have some kind of role in your fortress / adventure. I suspect the game calculates the raids result the moment your squads arrive home, not the moment it was supposed to happen, and so on. (So you can re-roll a raid by DIE on dfhack and reloading).

So, I'll do my own artist rendition of the decessed and the monsters, I guess. Now that I think of it, it's what every histotical movie does, in the end.

Again, thanks for the info. I love this game and I love to understand it better..
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Grand Sage

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Re: ¿Can I know how a historical figure -looked like-?
« Reply #6 on: December 15, 2018, 06:51:52 pm »

On the other hand: Isn't it true that wg decisions like going to war and the upcoming religion and villain stuff will highlig depend on the personality of the hist figs involved? Then it could be reasoned that information like that is saved somewere, but it beats me how you would get to it...
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PatrikLundell

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Re: ¿Can I know how a historical figure -looked like-?
« Reply #7 on: December 16, 2018, 04:57:22 am »

On the other hand: Isn't it true that wg decisions like going to war and the upcoming religion and villain stuff will highlig depend on the personality of the hist figs involved? Then it could be reasoned that information like that is saved somewere, but it beats me how you would get to it...
Skills and personality are part of the hist fig info, as are wounds, but physical descriptions are not. The data stored in the hist figs themselves can be accessed by writing DFHack scripts, and the same goes for units, with the major caveat that many (typically most) units are offloaded into files, and thus not accessible to DFHack (unless someone figures out how to extract the units from the files).
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pamelrabo

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Re: ¿Can I know how a historical figure -looked like-?
« Reply #8 on: December 16, 2018, 04:09:12 pm »

Oh, I just found Forgotten Beasts do have their description in legends mode. Not the deceased hist figs, as you said, but at least I (and anyone else interested in that kind of info) can know what the prince devourer monsters looked like.

Curiously, it doesn't show in Legends Viewer. I'd love to have that feature added at some point, but at least it's findable in-game.
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