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Author Topic: Recruit savages  (Read 1175 times)

neutrino431

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Recruit savages
« on: December 17, 2020, 02:11:43 am »

I think it would be a good addition to be able to recruit the various intelligent beings that pass through the fortress, such as animal people, gorlaks, and plump helmet men. Perhaps in order to recruit them you would have to have some kind of envoy to the tribes in order to communicate with them, or simply just uncage them within a meeting zone. Early history fortresses would benifit from the increase in diversity among the population, and it would make legends more interesting. Making them recruitable would also make them have a use other that cage fillers or target practice.
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FantasticDorf

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Re: Recruit savages
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2020, 09:07:48 pm »

The concept is always appealing, but i dont think it should be too easy or your fortress is going to swell up too quickly. If they're sufficiently motivated maybe for their own reasons for deliberately game designed "attach on" citizens like gremlins (maybe trolls from a different civ perspective) who've recieved very little love by Toady other than making them the centre of lever pull hijinks.

Since sentients tend to enjoy dancing to music in adventuremode as a form of recruitment (most animalmen out in the wild will stop to boogie) why not have them dance within their cages in public places, entertain them enough with 1 on 1 performances for dwarves to watch and get pleasure out of 3 mediums (object, creature, activity) and complimentary alcohol if its acceptable to give it to them and maybe they'll put in a request to speak to the local leader providing they'll behave and have the right temprament to be accepted.

A bunch of dancing gremlins as a attraction does sound like a sufficiently dwarfy thing to do if they're always up for it or can be trained exclusively to do it as a interactive pet-task.
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King Zultan

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Re: Recruit savages
« Reply #2 on: December 20, 2020, 04:27:41 am »

Since sentients tend to enjoy dancing to music in adventuremode as a form of recruitment (most animalmen out in the wild will stop to boogie) why not have them dance within their cages in public places, entertain them enough with 1 on 1 performances for dwarves to watch and get pleasure out of 3 mediums (object, creature, activity) and complimentary alcohol if its acceptable to give it to them
So animalmen strip clubs?
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Eric Blank

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Re: Recruit savages
« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2020, 04:39:08 am »

Stripping requires clothing to strip. Nudist dance parties is more like it.

Although, all the "wild" animalmen already know how to speak. They could just walk in and enjoy the tavern if only there were an agreement, say a setting, to allow them in instead of chasing them off and then, rarely, some would choose to join. Being trapped in a cage when you've lived your whole life in the wilds moving freely would not be conducive to asking to stay permanently, not until Stockholm syndrome sets in anyway.
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Pillbo

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Re: Recruit savages
« Reply #4 on: December 20, 2020, 03:24:45 pm »

Somewhere in the logic for meetings, interrogations, diplomats and liaisons there should be a way to make communicating and deals with them possible. 

I think you ought to be able to send someone to have a meeting with animal people on the map, with various results.

Good - They are enticed to visit the fort as guests and hang around. From there it could branch more ways good or bad. Gifts would help.

Meh - They don't see the point in communicating with you and basically ignore you and continue doing whatever they do

Bad - They attack/threaten/rob the 'diplomat'

If you do get them to stick around and get to know people (assuming a tantrum doesn't drive them to fight or flee) you could then have further meetings to encourage them to become residents, or just allow them to ask on their own like any other guest. Most should probably leave on their own.

Anther cool idea would require some kind of leadership to exist, but you could try to hire them as a team of warriors or entertainers like with a performance troupe.  Assuming they are hanging out and forming good thoughts about the place proposition them to be hired as a mercenary squad to work for the fort. You could possibly use this diplomacy to have them retrieve warriors from back home.
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Recruit savages
« Reply #5 on: December 20, 2020, 11:32:59 pm »

Just so you know, this is a fairly popular topic, and you can go back and dig up some ideas from older threads.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=150545.0
Oh hey look, here's one from me (forgot I made that): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=76487.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=105663.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=85580.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=161145.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=171552.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=163657.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=21189.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=31025.msg427478#msg427478

There's also a Toady quote in the top of those that has him addressing the topic directly:
Quote
05/04/2015
 Some time ago, I mentioned that as part of adding visitors to your fortress inn and tavern, we'd have more animal people running around. I put that in today -- there are now reasonably rare instances of animal people leaving the wilderness and becoming involved with civilizations. Our first was a red panda man that became an herbalist in a human village for some years before taking up a wandering life as a musician. In adventure mode, you can now play as animal people if they are close to a civilization. You can also play an adventurer from any population that has established itself as a regular part of life in a civilized site where you can normally play, so you could play an elf or even a goblin if some already live in a human city, say, but you can't currently select an amphibian person from the sewers. Next up we should have some dev log on fortress visitors!

I took a break from DF for the past 3 years or so, so I'm not up-to-date with it, but the basics of the idea should already be in the game.  (It's still in the wiki that you can recruit them, anyway...) 

Anyway, you can break this down into to different ideas - one is that the tavern-goers can petition, which is already in (I think?), while the other is that you get enough of a single race to make a viable secondary population and that you gain full citizenship control over them all.  The problem with the latter would be more that you need to get an influx of enough animalpeople to have a sustainable population, and they tend to be odd solos.

Also, to pull up something I mentioned in one of those threads, there's also the fact that, outside of role-playing or aesthetics, there isn't really a benefit to diversity.  Animalpeople have no advantages that dwarves do not have outside of maybe size or speed.  (Even if they are capable of flight or swimming, pathfinding does not allow them to use it.)  Granted, this alone makes elephantpeople quite potent, but it's hard to get any animalpeople of the several dozens of types, much less the tiny handful of ones more useful in battle than a standard dwarf.  I'd like to see a focus put back on animals and animalpeople at around the same time to make such creatures unique.  (Again, there's basically no difference between most quadrupeds besides size.  A cow is a more dangerous fighter than a alligator because they have literally the same body, but the cow is 50% larger.)
« Last Edit: December 21, 2020, 02:20:23 am by NW_Kohaku »
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Putnam

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Re: Recruit savages
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2020, 08:08:54 pm »

Yeah, tavern-goers can petition to join as a long-term resident and eventually as a full citizen, and they're not limited by race. The full citizenship is... exactly a well-known feature, I feel? I didn't know that they could do that until my last fort.

NW_Kohaku

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Re: Recruit savages
« Reply #7 on: December 22, 2020, 05:19:09 am »

Well, anyway, you might want to edit this thread's OP so that it reflects how the basics of this request are already in, and instead focus upon getting it more likely for players to recruit such creatures, or else it'll likely just be ignored as "already in" if Toady or Threetoe look it over.

For example, one of the problems I have with the current aboveground animalpeople (which were nearly all dumped on us at once in the massive animal update with little differentiating their base animals, as well) is that they are a bunch of randos that just stand around in the wilderness waiting to get killed by other randos.  Underground animalpeople, while fewer in species, had at least the hint of creating an underground civilization with containers of food and blowpipes and stuff.  Aboveground animalpeople have nothing at all.

One thing that would make it possible to recruit would be having some sort of mission of diplomacy if there are any animalpeople in the region, so that you could invite them to your tavern, and maybe start working on settling them down.  Or just "conquering" them.  Missions right now are just about stealing, killing, or conquering already, though, so having diplomacy would be nice.
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FantasticDorf

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Re: Recruit savages
« Reply #8 on: December 22, 2020, 06:04:08 am »

One thing that would make it possible to recruit would be having some sort of mission of diplomacy if there are any animalpeople in the region, so that you could invite them to your tavern, and maybe start working on settling them down.  Or just "conquering" them.  Missions right now are just about stealing, killing, or conquering already, though, so having diplomacy would be nice.

Underground people (olm men, bat men, lizard men etc) have their own civilization with ethics, likes and whatnot, while the aboveground & some underground -persons (including non civ affiliated gorlaks) are in effect wild animals and have no scope of civilized personality with empty blank heads regarding standings on traditions etc. but have personal facets who define who they are like all living things do. Trying to find a group with no fixed address other than a region with how easily dwarves are prone to get lost wandering might sound like a very taxing thing to do when the surface area might be very large, or other complicated circumstances affecting the journey (losing the rough target you're looking for, distracted by onset of madness, targets no longer exist).

Reasonably if a diplomatic action can be taken, then the player should be able to designate any person to be appproached by a fortress representative scmoohzer, but to take their chances against a large predatory wild-person is kind of inviting trouble.

Yeah, tavern-goers can petition to join as a long-term resident and eventually as a full citizen, and they're not limited by race. The full citizenship is... exactly a well-known feature, I feel? I didn't know that they could do that until my last fort.

Having them survive long enough to contemplate such a thing is a feat within itself, just one of those ardous long term things like a tree farm or having children/immature animals in the fortress that need 10+ years of attentive demanded gametime to mature to usability.
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Pillbo

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Re: Recruit savages
« Reply #9 on: December 22, 2020, 02:50:58 pm »

Well, anyway, you might want to edit this thread's OP so that it reflects how the basics of this request are already in, and instead focus upon getting it more likely for players to recruit such creatures, or else it'll likely just be ignored as "already in" if Toady or Threetoe look it over.

For example, one of the problems I have with the current aboveground animalpeople (which were nearly all dumped on us at once in the massive animal update with little differentiating their base animals, as well) is that they are a bunch of randos that just stand around in the wilderness waiting to get killed by other randos.  Underground animalpeople, while fewer in species, had at least the hint of creating an underground civilization with containers of food and blowpipes and stuff.  Aboveground animalpeople have nothing at all.

This request isn't already in, because the user isn't suggesting that animal people should be able to come as visitors and later petition to join, which can happen. They are suggesting that the fort be able to actively recruit/interact with the 'randos that just stand around in the wilderness waiting to get killed by other randos' and other intelligent creatures that wonder around then wonder off.

Edited the wording cause it sounded gruff but I didn't intend that
« Last Edit: December 22, 2020, 05:33:23 pm by Pillbo »
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Recruit savages
« Reply #10 on: December 22, 2020, 02:59:29 pm »

Underground people (olm men, bat men, lizard men etc) have their own civilization with ethics, likes and whatnot, while the aboveground & some underground -persons (including non civ affiliated gorlaks) are in effect wild animals and have no scope of civilized personality with empty blank heads regarding standings on traditions etc. but have personal facets who define who they are like all living things do. Trying to find a group with no fixed address other than a region with how easily dwarves are prone to get lost wandering might sound like a very taxing thing to do when the surface area might be very large, or other complicated circumstances affecting the journey (losing the rough target you're looking for, distracted by onset of madness, targets no longer exist).

Reasonably if a diplomatic action can be taken, then the player should be able to designate any person to be appproached by a fortress representative scmoohzer, but to take their chances against a large predatory wild-person is kind of inviting trouble.

There are a few possibilities, here:

One is that they're on your map, and you just plain need a button to press to send someone out to talk to them to invite them to your tavern.  (This would especially be useful with the underground tribes, giving you some way to deal with them besides theft and murder.)

Two is they they have been spotted on your map or by some patrol at some point in the past, so you know they're out there, and you need to mount an expedition to find them and use diplomacy with them.

Three is that you don't know what's out there, and you're just sending out a search party into the wilderness to see what they'll find.  This is even more an "expedition", and would presumably be something equivalent to the world generation-level adventurers that go out and find and tame random animals.  You'd basically just set up a group of dwarves to head out into a patch of wilderness nearby and see if they can find something interesting, with options to do things like bring back plant seeds we don't have, animals we don't have, and options on what to do with sentient animal-people, such as diplomacy or spreading rumors or the like.

Having them survive long enough to contemplate such a thing is a feat within itself, just one of those ardous long term things like a tree farm or having children/immature animals in the fortress that need 10+ years of attentive demanded gametime to mature to usability.

Just another reason I think migration needs to be toned WAY down (as in, cut by 98%...), as it means nobody appreciates children, migrants, or passage of time.  A lot of fortresses are abandoned to FPS death within 5 game years.

Besides, if 60 migrants arrive on your first wave, they're a faceless mob.  If 1-2 migrants arrive, they're distinct individuals you can get to know like your Starting Seven...

This request isn't "already in", the user isn't suggesting that animal people should be able to come as visitors and later petition to join, which can happen. They are suggesting that the fort be able to actively recruit/interact with the 'randos that just stand around in the wilderness waiting to get killed by other randos' and other intelligent creatures that wonder around then wonder off.

There's a part of this (especially what it leads off with) that isn't already in, but what it leads off with is, which can lead to someone glancing at this thread thinking it is already in. (Reading the OP straight-up says that there is currently no way to get animalpeople into your fort at all, when there is.)  Hence, it's a good idea to edit the OP for clarity to remove the parts that are, and emphasize that which is not.
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Pillbo

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Re: Recruit savages
« Reply #11 on: December 22, 2020, 05:51:27 pm »

Subject: Recruit savages
I think it would be a good addition to be able to recruit the various intelligent beings that pass through the fortress, such as animal people, gorlaks, and plump helmet men. Perhaps in order to recruit them you would have to have some kind of envoy to the tribes in order to communicate with them, or simply just uncage them within a meeting zone. Early history fortresses would benifit from the increase in diversity among the population, and it would make legends more interesting. Making them recruitable would also make them have a use other that cage fillers or target practice.

OPs asking about recruiting wild intelligent creatures, not visitors. Visitors don't get trapped in cages, wild intelligent creatures and cave civs do, and right now there is no way to convert them or recruit them, they simply exist.  I'm not seeing where OP straight-up says that there is currently no way to get animal people into your fort.  Judging by the original post I don't think that any of this suggestion is currently in the game.
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