That there isn't what I'm saying. I'm saying that they should START with more dwarfy live stock. You shouldn't be ABLE to begin with dogs, cats, etc.etc.
Instead you should have Cave Hoppers (omnivorous cave lizards) in place of cats.
Cave Bears in place of dogs.
Pigs and Goats in place of cows and horses, or other mountain animals.
Purring Maggots should definitely be made to be milkable more often than once every 3 months, and not vermin to be eaten, since they're the source of dwarf milk.
These should be dwarven starting animals.
You should be able to BUY anything later off of other races. But you should never be able to START with non dwarfy things.
Also, cave bears were a species of bears who went extinct, but while they lived their primary habitat was underground.
Cave Bear Cavalry! WOOO!
Sorry.
Anyway, yeah, I can agree to this, mostly...
I... uh... still don't like the notion of making cheese out of... well, WHATEVER you do to get "milk" out of a giant maggot.
You forget that wild birds need to be able to lay eggs too. It's a good placeholder but it must not be a permanent measure.
Wild birds don't lay unfertilized eggs that are easily edible. Chickens, which frequenly lay eggs, even when they are unfertilized are a bit of an anomoly, and are that way because of a great many generations of domesticating chickens specifically for the purpose of laying eggs.
Why would a boar live in a cave?
Because that's where food is. Dwarf Fortress takes place in a magical world where underground plants and fungi grow abundantly, and boars are a scavenger species not terribly afraid of a little digging or rooting around for mushrooms, while being capable of fighting with larger predators.
Moles aren't predatory
So what? They're giant ridable creatures that can dig and have sharp claws. And...
and worms are too stupid to control.
This is a FANTASY WORLD. Were you screaming at Dune for having worms whose skin would not be able to handle acts like respiration because of their sheer size? I use these creatures because they are creatures adapted in general terms for a life of burrowing that could fairly easily be concieved of being tamed. Sure, I could go with "burrowing horses", but a horse isn't in the shape of a burrowing creature, now is it?
As is, there are no good cavey alternatives, hence the hamfisting.
As is, there is little life underground. Are you going to go tell Toady his attempts to make underground mushroom-tree forests must be taken out as a scientific impossibility? After all, he's just "hamfisting" in unrealistic giant mushrooms.
As for lizards, they'd freeze to death underground. There's a reason they climb on those sunny rocks you know.
Not all cold blooded creatures live in the tropics. There are, after all, many cold-blooded cave dwellers in real life, with as little food in the ecosystem as there is. On top of that, the overwhelming majority of sea life, even in the arctic or deep abysses, are cold-blooded.
Cold-blooded creatures may sun and warm themselves to up their metabolisms and make digestion faster, but cold-blooded creatures can adapt to a slower, more ponderous life... especially since cold blood keeps them far more energy-efficient, and allows for longer lifespans and greater sizes.
I'm not that averse to replacing cats overall though, some cave critters are capable of sort of filling that slot. They just might be considered unsavory, such as cat-sized spiders. Not sure they'd want to keep those over cats.
What? Don't you know that cat-sized exoskeletal creatures with lymph-based respiratory systems are impossible?!
Foehamster covered the crops pretty nicely. Besides, renaming them is real easy. Not too many of them in the game. Wonder what I should call the strawberries..
Actually, "not too many of them" is something I rather dislike, as well, but is mostly a symptom of having such a stripped-down farming system. Hopefully, a more
robust farming system will give the sort of diversity in farming that would allow for different kinds of crops to take advantage of different types of soils.
But hey, want another name for strawberries? Call them Tartvine Fruits. Strawberries are always being jammed into tarts...