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Ethic

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This article is about the current version of DF.
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Ethic tags are used in the entity raw files to determine how different civilizations feel about various issues. Relationships between civilizations are based on their ethic responses in relation to each other; similar ethics result in friendship, while conflicting ethics result in animosity. Strongly conflicting ethics often trigger wars during world generation. (In practice, this generally causes elves to declare war on everybody else over killing plants and making trophies, and everybody else to declare war on the elves over the devouring of sapient beings.)

Some ethics also affect fortress mode features, such as justice, or trading. In adventurer mode, ethics can affect the level of conflict (lethal, or no quarter). During world generation, ethics also affect how the entity treats its kills, such as devouring them or making trophies out of them.

Example[edit]

In the raw files for entities, ethics appear as follows:

[ETHIC:LYING:PERSONAL_MATTER]

This means that the entity will treat lying as a personal matter - more technically, the value of its LYING ethic is set to PERSONAL_MATTER.

Ethic types[edit]

Token Extra Information
ASSAULT The result of a tantrumming citizen attacking another in fortress mode. Other effects unknown.
EAT_SAPIENT_KILL This determines if the race will sometimes devour defeated enemy combatants.
EAT_SAPIENT_OTHER This includes whether or not a race is willing to butcher other sapients. Note that, due to a bug, player forts will never butcher intelligent creatures in fortress mode (they are still willing to eat their meat though, should they have access to it). However this works as intended in adventure mode, worldgen, and offsite (caravans will deliver products made from sentients, etc.)
KILL_ANIMAL A response of JUSTIFIED_IF_EXTREME_REASON, JUSTIFIED_IF_SELF_DEFENSE, or anything from MISGUIDED to UNTHINKABLE (see below) causes the entity to refuse animal products in trade — namely, materials with [IMPLIES_ANIMAL_KILL]. Animal products sold by caravans will be marked as "grown", which means kosher for their ethics, for example grown leather.
KILL_ENEMY If REQUIRED, all lethal combat with an enemy who is an enemy of the whole entity will put the creature in no quarter mode.
KILL_ENTITY_MEMBER If REQUIRED, all lethal combat with an enemy in the same entity will put the creature in no quarter mode. Determines whether and how often entity members will be murdered.
KILL_NEUTRAL If REQUIRED, all lethal combat with an enemy who is neutral with the entity will put the creature in no quarter mode, and the creature will also demand that strangers identify themselves; it will also greatly increase war aggression in worldgen.
KILL_PLANT This includes a race's position towards wood — any response from MISGUIDED to UNTHINKABLE (see below) causes the entity to refuse wooden objects (except for "grown" wooden objects) in trade, and also prohibits them from bringing caravan wagons. Caravans will sell grown wood objects (if the civ has WOOD_PREF) and even grown non-wood objects but that elves refuse to buy (if the civ uses misc processed wood products).
LYING Giving false witness reports?[Verify]
MAKE_TROPHY_ANIMAL This determines whether animal kills will lead to characters with trophies. Historical figures can arrive at your fortress with leather, horn, ivory, tooth, hair, bone or nail jewellery from slain non-sapients, and fortress citizens may put on crafts made from their kills as well.
MAKE_TROPHY_SAME_RACE This determines whether kills of one's own race will lead to characters with trophies. Historical figures can arrive at your fortress with leather, tooth, hair, bone or nail jewellery from their race. Example: a goblin with a -goblin tooth ring-.
MAKE_TROPHY_SAPIENT This determines whether kills of other sapients will lead to characters with trophies - as previously, but regarding other races, including INTELLIGENT.
OATH_BREAKING The result of a citizen violating noble mandates in fortress mode. Other effects unknown.
SLAVERY Civilization will enslave defeated enemies and bring them back to their site. Also affects whether you may trade caged sapient beings to merchants. Aside from diplomacy, higher/lower values don't seem to affect anything beyond if a civilization is willing to take slaves at all.[Verify]
THEFT This determines whether the civilization will try to steal goods and how it will respond when stolen from.[Verify]
TORTURE_ANIMALS Determines if the civilization will kill all animals of the conquered site, or preserve them for further use.
TORTURE_AS_EXAMPLE Civilization will sometimes execute non-combatants after defeating enemy defenders.
TORTURE_FOR_FUN
TORTURE_FOR_INFORMATION
TREASON Protects position-holders from being murdered like everyone else – the reason that demon overlords of goblins manage to live for centuries, despite goblins' regard of killing each other as being a personal matter.
TRESPASSING Ignoring burrow restrictions[Verify]
VANDALISM The result of a tantruming citizen breaking furniture in fortress mode. Other effects unknown.

Ethic values[edit]

As used internally (see below), roughly in order of acceptability:

Num Token
0 NOT_APPLICABLE
1 ACCEPTABLE
2 PERSONAL_MATTER
3 JUSTIFIED_IF_NO_REPERCUSSIONS
4 JUSTIFIED_IF_GOOD_REASON
5 JUSTIFIED_IF_EXTREME_REASON
6 JUSTIFIED_IF_SELF_DEFENSE
7 ONLY_IF_SANCTIONED
8 MISGUIDED
9 SHUN
10 APPALLING
11 PUNISH_REPRIMAND
12 PUNISH_SERIOUS Will result in either a beating or a month in prison. See: Justice#Punishments
13 PUNISH_EXILE Mentioning in history: "...after being exiled following a criminal conviction."
14 PUNISH_CAPITAL Will result in either 8 months in prison or 50 hammerstrikes. See: Justice#Punishments
15 UNTHINKABLE
16 REQUIRED


Ethic value numbers in relation to each other[edit]

The following table describes how entities respond to other cultures, with the observer on the vertical axis and their target on the horizontal axis. If an entity's accumulated animosity towards another passes a certain threshold (determined by the ruler's personality) then it will run a risk-assessment check. If passed, this will lead to a declaration of war.

In general, entities react much more strongly to actions that violate their taboos than to the outlawing of their customs in other civilisations. For example, Civ A finds slavery Acceptable, but Civ B considers it a Capital Offence.

  • Civ A will consider Civ B most unreasonable (−5) for executing people over such a non-issue.
  • Civ B will be shocked and disgusted (−15) that Civ A engages in such a debased activity.
  • The end result is mutual negativity. However, Civ B is 3× more offended, and much more likely to go to war over the issue — assuming, of course, they think they have a chance of winning.
  TARGET
Accept. Personal Reperc. Good Extreme Self-Def. Sanct. Misguid. Shun Appall. Reprim. Serious Exile Capital Unthink. Req.
OBSERVER      Acceptable +1 +1 +1 0 0 0 0 −1 −2 −2 −2 −3 −5 −5 −2 +1
Personal +1 +1 +1 0 0 0 0 −1 −2 −2 −2 −3 −5 −5 −2 +1
No Reperc. +1 +1 +1 0 0 0 0 −1 −2 −2 −2 −3 −5 −5 −2 +1
Good Reas. 0 0 0 +2 +1 0 0 0 −1 −1 −1 −1 −1 −1 −1 0
Extreme Rs. −1 −1 0 +1 +2 0 0 0 −1 −1 −1 −1 −1 −1 −1 −1
Self-Defence −2 −2 −1 0 +1 +2 0 0 0 −1 −1 −1 −1 −1 −1 −2
Sanctioned −2 −2 −1 0 +1 0 +2 0 0 −1 −1 −1 −1 −1 −1 −2
Misguided −1 −1 0 0 0 0 0 +2 +1 +1 +1 0 0 −1 +1 −1
Shun −1 −1 0 0 0 0 0 +1 +2 +1 +1 0 0 −1 +1 −1
Appalling −5 −5 −3 −2 −1 −1 −2 +1 +1 +2 +1 +1 +1 0 +1 −5
Reprimand −5 −5 −3 −2 −1 −1 −2 +1 +1 +1 +2 +1 +1 0 +1 −5
Serious −10 −10 −7 −3 −2 −2 −3 0 +1 +1 0 +2 +1 +1 +1 −10
Exile −10 −10 −7 −3 −2 −2 −3 0 +1 +1 0 +1 +2 +1 +1 −10
Capital −15 −15 −10 −5 −3 −3 −5 0 0 +1 0 +1 +1 +2 +1 −15
Unthinkable −15 −15 −10 −5 −3 −3 −5 0 +1 +1 0 +1 +1 +1 +2 −15
Required +1 +1 +1 0 0 0 0 −1 −2 −2 −2 −3 −5 −5 −2 +1

All above info was collected and interpreted from the data given by Toady himself at [1].

Ethics of vanilla civilizations[edit]

Animal people currently have the same ethics as kobolds.

Issue Mountain
(dwarf)
Forest
(elf)
Plains
(human)
Evil
(goblin)
Skulking
(kobold)
Killing member of the same entity Capital punishment Justified with extreme reason Justified with good reason Personal matter Exile
Killing neutral sapient Only if sanctioned Acceptable Justified if no repercussions Required Required
Killing enemy Acceptable Acceptable Acceptable Required Required
Killing animal Acceptable Justified in self-defence Acceptable Acceptable Acceptable
Killing plant Acceptable Unthinkable Acceptable Acceptable Acceptable
Torture as example Unthinkable Acceptable Acceptable Acceptable Unthinkable
Torture for information Unthinkable Misguided Acceptable Acceptable N/A
Torture for fun Unthinkable Unthinkable Appalling Acceptable Acceptable
Torture of animals Unthinkable Unthinkable Shunned Acceptable Unthinkable
Treason Capital punishment Exile Capital punishment Capital punishment Unthinkable
Oathbreaking Capital punishment Exile Capital punishment Personal matter N/A
Lying Personal matter Exile Personal matter Personal matter N/A
Vandalism Serious punishment Reprimand Serious punishment Personal matter N/A
Trespassing Serious punishment Reprimand Serious punishment Personal matter N/A
Theft Serious punishment Reprimand Serious punishment Personal matter N/A
Assault Serious punishment Exile Serious punishment Personal matter Personal matter
Slavery Capital punishment Exile Acceptable Personal matter Unthinkable
Eating sapients Unthinkable Unthinkable Unthinkable Personal matter Unthinkable
Eating sapients (that have been killed in battle) Unthinkable Acceptable Unthinkable Personal matter Unthinkable
Making a trophy from a corpse of the same race Appalling Unthinkable Acceptable Acceptable Unthinkable
Making a trophy from a corpse of another sapient race Shunned Unthinkable Acceptable Acceptable Unthinkable
Making a trophy from the corpse of an animal Acceptable Unthinkable Acceptable Acceptable Unthinkable