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Genesis default castes

This one was done specifically to complement Genesis mod, thus "required items". On its own it would break the game :).

does this mod need genesis or can it run on its own?

That makes some sense, but it feels like that then the mod is only suited for pretty intense micro-management or the like, not any sort of sweeping "cultural" feel.
This is not a criticism, many players enjoy that exact thing. But the differences dont feel so profound, necessarily, to require the effort.

No complaints here, I was just unclear and had misunderstood it for something more mechanically weighty.

I can answer that one.

1) You have a bunch of paralyzeimmune dwarves. Make a squad to treat paralyzing monsters.
2) You have a bunch of shield and rare steel dwarves. Make them into elite military squad.
3) You have a bunch of shroom dwarves. Make them into a farmer guild.

Etc.

At least that was the idea behind this.

I can try to simplify: Having more variety is neat, but.. if I've got a bunch of various types of dwarves running around my fort - what do I do with them? Enjoy their aesthetics? (That could be sufficent).

With variety in races, you get politics, and limitations on items/metals/accessibilities. With castes you get...?

Even if there is a way to min/max the dwarves - what's the impetus to do so?
(Note, in adventure mode, this seems fantastic! But for fortress mode, less so.) 9 varieties of 'minor differences' between dwarves feels like flavor, but not much else. 3-4 big-difference castes would suffice.

The latest version of the main mod really cut down the number of unique appearances.
Are you sure you are experiencing the same on the latest release?

I've kept it enough to have a squad of steel or aspid dwarves for unique situations, the rest should be common castes.

Let me know what you think please.

I'm torn. On the one hand, I like the idea of diversity among the dwarves, but as it stands, the diversity is SO pronounced, it almost feels like entirely different races.

My suggestion is "inbetween"

Parse down the number of casts, say from 9, to just 3 or four. As, the primary issue I have is, in fortress mode, what do I particularly care which caste is which? I could micromanage it, and some players love that. But "right now" i just need someone to haul that corpse to the dump, etc.

With an overabundance of variety without distinction, it just feels like I've got dwarves on their way to a rave running around. I encourage that racial AND caste distinction should affect macro level play. (Fortress mode) Most of these modifications feel like they'd be super interesting in adventure mode instead.

I will take note of that, and most likely will change the original mod then.

The idea is that once I have curses and magic, they would affect dwarves of different castes differently.

I will adjust the skin color then, or make them extremely rare.

They are already rare, but apparently not too rare :D.

Overall enjoy the castes, just less of a fan of some of the rarer dwarves in terms of appearance/abilities. They feel a tad... un-dwarf-ish if that makes sense?
If it was the result of a Secret like necromancers I think I'd be ok with it, but the idea of just being able to start a game and have a magical purple dwarf standing there amongst my ordinary miners doesn't jell with me. That, and a lot of the more colourful hair/skin options feel a tad oversaturated and unnatural to me. The "moss green" hair looks a lot more like "neon lime" in my eyes.