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Author Topic: What do people think about dwarves becoming adults at 18 instead of 12 now?  (Read 4989 times)

ArmokGoB

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I think that not being able to put them into squads or assign them meaningful work outweighs their utility as dedicated haulers/planters. I also don't think I've had a fort last 18 years more than once. I'm not a huge fan of this change to be honest.
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dimondmine2

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If they're not useful, you can always change the raws, atom smash them, or banish them from your fortress. The one upside is the chores they do.
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Duuvian

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It works but that is a long wait, it makes sense though since they do chores now. My fort died to undead and the reclaim group was killed by an undead pike elf of some sort. The undead chased my animals around and stumbled over a cage trap (undead can jump a 1 wide channel now or there was an overhanging tree or something, oopsie) and a single survivor was a 7 year old dwarf. I maximized fps and waited a year or two before migrants arrived without running out of drinks, though it was getting close. The survivor was raised by elephants I had brought with embark points in the meantime.

The survivor is now 18 and I'm checking to see if pump operator still gives physical trait increases before I make him a dwarven martial artist and use all the many undead I have caged for training. He doesn't become depressed easily and doesn't care about anything anymore, good social traits but poor military ones, I've been putting off the barony for 11 years to assign it to him eventually, after I get around to reading up on what tasks barons can take to see if I should push it back further until a not quite most interesting dwarf status is achieved.

It felt like a long time because I didn't know it had changed and expected it at 12, and every year I kept an eye on the birth/maturation icon I would normally ignore. I was hatching emu and keas and breeding wolverines and coati so that icon was frequent.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2022, 07:51:28 am by Duuvian »
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jipehog

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Did the devs gave the reason for the change? Has anything else changed mechanically ?

If they're not useful, you can always change the raws, atom smash them, or banish them from your fortress. The one upside is the chores they do.
Yeah, but iirc banishing result in the whole family leaving, killing them is a major stressor, and setting a human trafficking's network for fondling Goblins takes time
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lunaman22

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Kinda stupid. Playing for 12 years already is a long time to not get bored or die, 18 is a massive stretch.
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jipehog

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That depends on how it is done. For example, Rimworld has recently added Children, which go through several development stages from helpless babies (0-2) to adulthood at 18. At young age they have specials needs and activities (including tutoring), and eventually they develop skills, interests and become more productive parts of the community. Something like that could be nice.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2022, 12:02:10 pm by jipehog »
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Bihlbo

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I can understand completely why it was 12 to begin with. That's the average age of the onset of human puberty, which biologically, makes one fertile and therefore as developed as one needs to be to no longer be considered a child.

I can also understand why it was changed to 18, which is (in some places) the age at which humans are said to be mentally developed enough to be fully responsible for their own actions, and as far as their thinking and emotional life is concerned, no longer a child.

If the cutoff point didn't affect the mechanics of the game, it wouldn't matter enough to include it in the raws in the first place, but it does. A child can't be assigned work, can't fight in the military, and can't produce offspring. For each of these 3 effects, it is fully possible for societies to consider a pubescent between the ages of 12 and 18 adult enough to engage in these activities (and you can easily find examples of places where they do, even in 2022). But, here in the US where the game is being made we've decided it's more wise to consider pubescents as not adult until they are 18. So, just guessing here, the Adams brothers decided to force the dwarves to be more American. Maybe they were worried that people would think they were making a statement about the age of consent, which it isn't, but I can understand why they'd be fearful of that.

And honestly, they are dwarves, not humans, so the cutoff could be anything from 6 to 60 and still be justifiable. But as far as gameplay goes, increasing childhood by 50% makes the game less fun, IMO. Just for fun, I increased elves to 26 because I want them to suffer  8)
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Mobbstar

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I dislike this for two reason:
  • Teens playing with toy boats
  • Even more child migrants than in previous versions

(The problem with child migrants is that, in masses, a strange mood is likely to strike a child and thus result in some silly woodcraft artefact.  This can be mitigated by "schooling" the children in a guild hall, but that takes time and attention, and some inevitably bunk off.)

If age of consent is a concern, the valid age gap can be modified.  To my knowledge, it is already very narrow for young dwarves.  Or add a new condition that outright forbids marriage below 18.

jipehog

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Btw this isn't just for Dwarves, but affects all the major races including Humans, Elves, Goblins and Kobolds.

I dislike this because this is going to affect world history (which will be left devoid of RL like rare events where child rulers waged wars) and gameplay wise as children will be useless for MUCH longer.

But, here in the US where the game is being made we've decided it's more wise to consider pubescents as not adult until they are 18. So, just guessing here, the Adams brothers decided to force the dwarves to be more American. Maybe they were worried that people would think they were making a statement about the age of consent, which it isn't, but I can understand why they'd be fearful of that.

Good luck with explaining why the Dwarven legal drinking age is 1 (think this + beard) and child labor.
« Last Edit: December 26, 2022, 09:30:58 am by jipehog »
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doublestrafe

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This is a terrible change unless they've raised the mooding age too.
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Telgin

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Re: What do people think about dwarves becoming adults at 18 instead of 12 now?
« Reply #10 on: December 26, 2022, 04:05:15 pm »

I don't have particularly strong feelings on adulthood being 18 now, but do feel like there needs to be another intermediate stage that separates true children from teenagers.  Teenagers should be able to do more work and effectively be apprentices.  I imagine that's one of the many things that is planned to be done in the long run.
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jipehog

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Re: What do people think about dwarves becoming adults at 18 instead of 12 now?
« Reply #11 on: December 27, 2022, 03:03:00 am »

There have been talk of some sort of master/apprentice relation for years, not sure when or what this mature into, but I have been doing just that with Dwarf Therapist for a long time.

I agree it would be nice to see some more intermediate stages and apprenticeship, this would make things more interesting and work as late game resource sinks. Though right now the only mechanical change I am aware off is the the addition of hauling labor (called chores, presumably for the same reason as for the age change). iirc hauling trains strength and presumably hauling task will reduce the time kids socialize so possibly we will have stronger less social kids.
« Last Edit: December 27, 2022, 03:08:21 am by jipehog »
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FantasticDorf

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Re: What do people think about dwarves becoming adults at 18 instead of 12 now?
« Reply #12 on: December 27, 2022, 03:15:31 am »

It's been put in with something to tide us over, so its perfectly acceptable but the children behaviours are absolutely not in the right place at the minute for the reasons already mentioned for it to make sense, as they are still adjusted for 10 year olds. I think its just a collateral decision of the pace of game development and it'll be tied up with a better system later, players can always set it back.
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Robsoie

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Re: What do people think about dwarves becoming adults at 18 instead of 12 now?
« Reply #13 on: December 27, 2022, 05:10:25 am »

For those who don't know how, you can set it back to 12 like in past DF versions by going in
...\YourDFDirectory\data\vanilla\vanilla_creatures\objects\
Open creature_standard.txt   and change for the Dwarf section
[CHILD:18]
into
[CHILD:12]
So your dwarven child become full fledged adults in body and mind at 12.
Much more interesting for playing a generational fortress.

Not sure why this was changed, fantasy dwarves aren't human , i don't see any problem in them genetically aging and maturing faster than human until adulthood then genetically living longer after that.
« Last Edit: December 27, 2022, 05:12:36 am by Robsoie »
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Criperum

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Re: What do people think about dwarves becoming adults at 18 instead of 12 now?
« Reply #14 on: December 27, 2022, 06:44:20 am »

Taking into account that Kitfox Discord bans for "fantasy racism" just in case. It makes total sence to make dwarves mature at the age of 18 to prevent "fantasy pedo" just in case.
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