Topic: Termitefolk Colony (1.1) (Read 14439 times)

nil · « **on:** August 24, 2011, 09:20:15 pm »

(this mod is not currently being updated; thread is checked intermittently)

Termitefolk Colony
"Madder than an elf in a termitefolk mound." - dwarvish idiom

This mod adds the "termitefolk" as an intelligent and player-controllable civilization.

Termitepeople generally play in a similar way to stock dwarves, with three significant differences.

First, termitefolk are carnivores. This is actually directly contrary to the diet of actual termites, but I figure it's not unreasonable that whatever caused them to develop to a human size and shape could also have changed what they eat. The actual reason, however, is to give players an incentive to use the included custom workshop ("Wood Processing Mound") to convert wood into food. Note that this means termite civilizations starve to death during world generation; see the installation instructions at the end for effects and solutions.

Secondly, termitefolk are insects. One result of this is that they have six limbs, For most termitefolk, this means four arms; losing one or two of them will barely slow them down, and they are capible of wielding multiple weapons or shields. In addition, instead of skin they have chitin exoskeletons. Chitin is rigid, which means even the victims of relatively minor injuries will require the services of a bonesetter--although it does make unarmed termitefolk dangerous than soft, fleshy tetrapods, sometimes being able to sever limbs with a single bite.

Finally, they are divided into a caste system:

Workers: Roughly a third of all termitefolk are workers, making them the most common caste. Workers are extremely fragile, intellectually uninspiring, and not particularly strong or agile. They're also not very big (smaller than a dog) and rarely live longer than a decade. On the upside, workers are tireless, with high endurance and no need for sleep. They also have an instinctual affinity for civilian labor (particularly less complicated tasks) learning them quickly and rarely forgetting them.

Soldiers: One out of five termitefolk are born as soldiers. Soldiers are nearly as large as dwarves, and possess natural armor and weapons that civilian termitefolk lack. They are stronger and tougher than average, easy to train quickly, and while they don't have the endurance of a worker, they do not sleep. The similarity to workers also extends to their low mental attributes and very short lifespans, however, and they have no affinity for civilian labors.

Royals: The fertile kings and queens are the only termitefolk able to reproduce, and together make up slightly less than a third of the average colony. As they live only slightly longer than workers, and are generally deficient in physical attributes (although kings are quicker than average and queens have high endurance), said reproduction is their usually their primary role. Once married, a queen can give birth to 5-6 termites a year. They have both some innate social skills and a general affinity for socializing, as well as highly defined personalities which facilitate their pairing-off (and can often lead to grudges with members of the other castes).

Nurses: Nurses are a rarer variation of the worker, comprising approximately 6 percent of the average colony. Like the worker, they are small and fragile, and while they have a lot of endurance, they do need to sleep. Young nurses are faster than the average worker, but they tend to slow down with age. While nurses share some affinity towards civilian labors with workers, it is far less pronounced. Unlike the worker, however, nurses live for decades and, as their name suggests, have innate medical skills and high disease resistance.

Ministers: Less than one out of twenty termitefolk are born as ministers. Ministers do not derive their name from any religious role, but rather as advisers to royals and the colony as a whole--being by far the longest lived caste, they have ample time to gain experience and skills. While they have impressive mental attributes and a knack for remembering complicated skills, they are otherwise comparable to other civilized races in terms of size and physical attributes; this makes them the most flexible and adaptable of all the termitefolk castes.

Elites: Roughly as common as ministers, elites are their military counterparts. Like the soldier, the elite possesses thicker chitin than other termitefolk, large mandibles and a natural affinity for military skills that, unlike the soldier, extends to exotic weapons (it is also better suited for leadership and teaching roles). It is the largest humanoid termiteperson, standing as tall as a human. While not as long-lived as the minister or nurse, its lifespan can nonetheless span more than half a century and unlike the other longer-lived termitefolk, it does not require sleep.

Brutes: One in fifty termitefolk births will result in a brute. Like elites, brutes have lifespans of medium-length uninterrupted by sleep, as well as thicker exoskeletons and powerful mandibles. However, the similarity between them, and between brutes and all other termitefolk, end there. Brutes do not speak and are not intelligent in the normal sense of the word. Although they can learn and perform skills, they are slow to do so with anything not associated with melee combat. They walk with four legs instead of two, and have large, deadly pinchers in the place of hands on their two arms--although this does not prevent them from wielding weapons. Most importantly, they are huge, only slightly smaller than the average rhinoceros. A fully equiped brute makes for a deadly and nearly unstopable defender of the colony.

INSTALLATION

To install, go to the DFFD page and download the zipped folder. Unzip and put the five text files contained within in your raw/objects folder. Players may wish to remove the [CARNIVORE] tag from the termitefolks' creature RAWs before worldgen, adding it back into the save file RAWs after completion; failing to do so will cause termitefolk civilizations to die out during worldgen. During an extended play-through this appeared to have no repercussions beyond limited availability of materials at embark and during trade, but this was unexpected and may have been an outlier.

For both balance and role-playing reasons, is also recommended that you replace the [INTELLIGENT] tag in the elf creature raw with [CAN_LEARN], or add [BABYSNATCHER] to their entity file. This will make them automatically seige your colony--a sensible relationship for wood-eaters and treehuggers to share. If you do so, it may be a good idea to also modify the progress triggers in the elves' entity entry to avoid unduly early sieges.

Changes for 1.1
- caste-specific profession names added
- food production from wood processing boosted
- some variation and personality added to higher castes
- lifespans of royal castes slightly boosted
- extravision added to soldiers
- sundry minor details and tag cleanups

I made the core of this mod soon after castes were introduced as a way to play with the new mechanic, but never really finished it. I had a few days to kill recently, so figured I'd finish it off by tweaking out the balancing of the different castes and adding in wood-eating. Since it's only the result of about half a dozen nights' work, it's ultimately a pretty small mod. I think it would, however, dovetail well with something more expansive, and I'd love to see it incorporated into something well-done. That said, please drop a line here in the thread before doing so.

nil · « **Reply #1 on:** August 24, 2011, 09:20:40 pm »

creature_termite (partial, paste text from here after this section in the same text file)

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nil · « **Reply #2 on:** August 25, 2011, 12:33:20 am »

entity_termite

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reaction_termite

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termite_tissue_template

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b_detail_plan_termite

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building_termite

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jaxy15 · « **Reply #3 on:** August 25, 2011, 03:19:33 am »

Aren't termites supposed to be blind? They should at the very least have extravision.

Vattic · « **Reply #4 on:** August 25, 2011, 03:38:52 am »

Nice work!

Now I feel stupid for not finishing my Antmen mod.

nil · « **Reply #5 on:** August 25, 2011, 10:24:50 am »

Quote from: jaxy15 on August 25, 2011, 03:19:33 am

Aren't termites supposed to be blind? They should at the very least have extravision.

According to wikipedia, soldiers are usually blind, so yea extravision might be a good idea for them and elites, altho it doesn't mention anything about any other castes. I'm also tempted to try and implement this:

Quote

Another form of self-sacrifice is performed by Southeast Asian tar-baby termites (Globitermes sulphureus). The soldiers of this species commit suicide by autothysis—rupturing a large gland just beneath the surface of their cuticle. The thick yellow fluid in the gland becomes very sticky on contact with the air, entangling ants or other insects who are trying to invade the nest.

Quote from: Vattic on August 25, 2011, 03:38:52 am

Nice work!

Now I feel stupid for not finishing my Antmen mod.

Better late than never...

Yoink · « **Reply #6 on:** August 25, 2011, 10:30:17 am »

Ha, this looks pretty cool! Next time I get a chance, I'll probably download it. I imagine playing as them would get a bit monotonous after a bunch of embarks, though. Not sure if I missed this or not: Do they attack dwarves?

Pan · « **Reply #7 on:** August 25, 2011, 06:14:22 pm »

Looks awesome. Will follow.

RAKninja · « **Reply #8 on:** August 26, 2011, 03:00:10 pm »

elves: rather than remove their speaking, could you just add babysnatcher? would harken back to pre-tolkien elves and folklore of changlings, as well as make the hippies hostile.

and just curious, any particular reason you decided on using goblinish for their language? perhaps you should add babysnatcher to the termites instead =D

varnish · « **Reply #9 on:** August 26, 2011, 03:33:44 pm »

Nice! Going to give this a try when I get the chance. It's good to see a some mods reaching beyond a generic fantasy setting.

ashton1993 · « **Reply #10 on:** August 26, 2011, 03:48:43 pm »

Might try this one out sometime, posting to watch

Keltiknight · « **Reply #11 on:** August 26, 2011, 09:33:48 pm »

Gonna try this out sometime, sounds unique, and honestly, its an excuse to kill treehuggers...as though we needed one.

BackgroundGuy · « **Reply #12 on:** August 28, 2011, 01:25:38 am »

So I've been using this mod, and I have some feedback.
1) The termite mounds are a nice flavor touch, but unnecessary. Sufficient amounts of grazing animals make deforestation unneeded.
2) These guys are made out of tissue paper holy crap. Seriously, they get beaten up by Bog frogs and gremlins.
Edit:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

3) They actually learn things somewhat quickly, which is nice.
4) Chief medical termites are referred to as dwarves

All said, thanks for making this mod.

nil · « **Reply #13 on:** August 29, 2011, 01:00:38 pm »

creature_termite (continued from here, paste after first section in same file)

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nil · « **Reply #14 on:** August 29, 2011, 01:35:53 pm »

I've uploaded and pasted a new version. Mostly just minor fixes and balance tweeks, but I did add caste-specific labels for pretty much every profession, allowing one to easily tell what caste a given termiteperson belongs to without being forced to go through the z-menus.

Quote from: Yoink on August 25, 2011, 10:30:17 am

Not sure if I missed this or not: Do they attack dwarves?

I don't think so, but as always it would be easy to make them do so by taking away speech or (easier in this case since the speech tags are attached to the castes) add babysnatcher to the entity file. That said, they're not really balanced as an enemy race; the invasions would be mostly made up of civilian castes which generally go down pretty easily. Playing with the [POP_RATIO] takes in the creature raw would fix this (if anyone tries this I'd be very curious to hear if any brutes show up being used as mounts)

Quote from: RAKninja on August 26, 2011, 03:00:10 pm

elves: rather than remove their speaking, could you just add babysnatcher? would harken back to pre-tolkien elves and folklore of changlings, as well as make the hippies hostile.

True, I think I went for mute elves out of habit/a throwback to an old 40d mod of mine. The option is now mentioned in the OP.

Quote from: RAKninja on August 26, 2011, 03:00:10 pm

and just curious, any particular reason you decided on using goblinish for their language? perhaps you should add babysnatcher to the termites instead =D

Couldn't figure out that language-generation utility and wanted to pick something unique for them. Goblinish just sounded a little more... insecty than elvish or the human language.

Quote from: BackgroundGuy on August 28, 2011, 01:25:38 am

So I've been using this mod, and I have some feedback.
1) The termite mounds are a nice flavor touch, but unnecessary. Sufficient amounts of grazing animals make deforestation unneeded.
2) These guys are made out of tissue paper holy crap. Seriously, they get beaten up by Bog frogs and gremlins.
Edit:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

3) They actually learn things somewhat quickly, which is nice.
4) Chief medical termites are referred to as dwarves

All said, thanks for making this mod.

1. True. I'm considering taking out butchery (via the entity raw) and adding in a reaction to convert corpses into raw skin, bones, and fat--if that's possible, that is. I would just go ahead and do the former but I don't want to remove the boneworking, rendering, and (domestic) leatherworking industries.
2. Heh, yeah, I've noticed it too. Guess that's just how chitin works out--although arena testing indicates military castes do alright, usually beating comparably sized mammals. I even did a few rounds of regular brutes versus otherwise identical "soft" brutes with stock chitin, and the former won out consistantly.
4. Fixed, along with all other references to dwarves in the entity file.

News:

Author Topic: Termitefolk Colony (1.1) (Read 14439 times)

nil

Termitefolk Colony (1.1)

nil

Re: Termitefolk Colony

nil

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jaxy15

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Vattic

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nil

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Yoink

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Pan

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RAKninja

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varnish

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ashton1993

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Keltiknight

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BackgroundGuy

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nil

Re: Termitefolk Colony (1.1)

nil

Re: Termitefolk Colony (1.1)