Bay 12 Games Forum

Dwarf Fortress => DF Dwarf Mode Discussion => Topic started by: pisskop on February 16, 2020, 10:52:26 pm

Title: Worldgen preferences
Post by: pisskop on February 16, 2020, 10:52:26 pm
Anybody play with advanced worldgen too much?  Establish a preferred setting?

Those who knew me know I did in fact prefer a heavily modified worldgen that featured fewer mountains, more savagery, and some good and evil thrown in.  One thing Im interested in is how many monsters people put in to their worlds.

Do you prefer a world with many evil rains but few boogeymen?  Or many vamps but few semies?


Having just gotten back into trying to make a world and play it I immediately added my old mods back in and genned a world, but after 250 years its still the age of myth and goblins have been the beating stick,  Im worried I made too many civs in my medium world and too many semies and megas.

I cant help but feel its too cramped in my world...
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: Pancakes on February 16, 2020, 11:29:57 pm
I can't go back to using the normal worldgen after using the advanced one, and I have probably spent more time than I'd like to admit just fine-tuning all the parameters. Normally, these are the big things I do:

1) Turn "Percentage beasts dead for stoppage" down to 30-40%
2) Reduce drainage to 70 or less, that way there's more flat areas
3) Turn savagery up to at least 20 to get more dangerous animals, although this tends to hurt the civilizations a bit much
4) Take whatever values are default for megabeasts, titans, night trolls, secret types etc., and first round them to the nearest 10, and then multiply by 5. If I'm doing a start at a very young world age, I'll multiply by 50 instead.
5) Turn the Z-levels above layer 1 to be at least 15.

Overall, I like world that are flatter & have more space above the first cavern to build, and have more monsters to deal with. I do lots of oddball experimental stuff on occasion, though.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: teh sam on February 16, 2020, 11:41:43 pm
I'm genning world after world trying to get a perfect embark.  I'll get there eventually.  I think I've genned at least 15 so far.

I turn off vampires (just don't find them fun) and up the savagery a lot, also max out volcanoes to try to get my perfect embark.  Also edited raws to remove aquifers.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: draeath on February 18, 2020, 03:30:59 pm
Generally I stick with the built-in presets, except that I zero out bogeymen because they're anti-fun and nonsensical.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: Pancakes on February 18, 2020, 03:32:20 pm
Quote from: draeath on February 18, 2020, 03:30:59 pm
Generally I stick with the built-in presets, except that I zero out bogeymen because they're anti-fun and nonsensical.

I think that bogeymen only show up in certain evil areas now, and again only when you're by yourself. I also think that having a pet/mount prevents them from attacking, too.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: draeath on February 18, 2020, 03:33:42 pm
I tend to let big new releases 'settle' before diving in, so I've yet to play with the new stuff :(
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: NordicNooob on February 18, 2020, 04:16:41 pm
I have many strong opinions on advanced world gen. There's a lot of things I do on almost every param set I make, but I do make a pretty wide range of sets. My most recent idea has been a human-dwarf collaboration fort, where dwarves are dead or basically dead, but humans are present in decent numbers and goblins are dominant.

As for things I always do, let me restate that there's a lot of them. I normally make caverns open, with a fixed 20-40 water level, and remove two of the three. I also widen up the underground layers since advanced world gen worlds are short, reduce mountains in some way for more usable land (how I do so depends on what I want), remove oceans, crank semimegabeasts way up (they don't butcher civs like megabeasts do), and turn poles off (friggin' poles, nobody wants a hot embark or a cold embark and that invalidates like half the map).

Things I often do include editing the raws to control the expansion and number of specific civs; controlling the biomes they can exist in is quite effective in letting them prosper or keeping them small, though it's hardly exact science. I also basically permanently have gobbos modded to be able to make necro towers, which I still mostly consider a world gen thing since that's all it really effects. If you just want your dwarves to die right away, making their max pop 1 in their entity raws is a good way to do so, though it's irrelevant for other races where you can just set them to not have any starting civs.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: SaD-82 on February 18, 2020, 04:43:03 pm
My recipes always include cranking up savagery into unhealthy numbers (paired with NO_FEAR for all predators and animals I want to be predators in the raws), raising semis, bringing the numbers for types of night creatures, werebeasts, secrets, vampires, mists/rains and alike to very, very high numbers, maxing volcanos, also raising population numbers, sites and civs, opening the caverns, increasing natural cavern sizes and increasing the amount of caves at all and finally genning a large region/island map.

After all my most beloved mode of playing is adventure mode and this guarantees me worlds that are in constant turmoil. Fun to play in dwarf mode, too. And legends is an interesting mess to read as there is action right around every corner.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: DrCyano on February 19, 2020, 02:04:05 pm
I try to preserve the feel of default world gen, but make the climate more appropriate for the size of the map (instead of treating the map as a whole planet).

To that effect, I turn off poles and set the temperature to a very narrow range (I wish DF could randomly set a single temperature for the whole map, but the lowest resolution setting is to make each forest random and interpolate in between). I always turn off the biome tile number requirements.

For example, here's my params for generating a temperate archipelago:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

params:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: NordicNooob on February 19, 2020, 03:43:32 pm
Quote from: DrCyano on February 19, 2020, 02:04:05 pm
(I wish DF could randomly set a single temperature for the whole map, but the lowest resolution setting is to make each forest random and interpolate in between).
You should be able to; just set your temp variances to 0 and make your min and max temp whatever range you want your random number to be in.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: DrCyano on February 21, 2020, 09:01:09 pm
Quote from: NordicNooob on February 19, 2020, 03:43:32 pm
Quote from: DrCyano on February 19, 2020, 02:04:05 pm
(I wish DF could randomly set a single temperature for the whole map, but the lowest resolution setting is to make each forest random and interpolate in between).
You should be able to; just set your temp variances to 0 and make your min and max temp whatever range you want your random number to be in.

I tried something like that, but didn't set the variance all the way to zero. I will try that tomorrow and report my findings.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: pisskop on February 21, 2020, 09:13:18 pm
It doesnt always.

Quote from: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Advanced_world_generation#Temperature
These parameters form the "base" temperature for an area, and describe peak summer temperature in degrees Celsius. This does not correspond 1:1 with the final climate. Temperature is always influenced by a number of variables, including elevation, time of year, thick forestation, and if Poles are enabled, latitude. These other variables are factored in after the temperature mesh is applied, and frequently bring temperatures above and below their set minimum and maximum values. The inclusion of Poles is particularly strong in this regard, as it allows latitude to raise and/or lower temperatures by more than 75 degrees Celsius! That said, the temperatures aren't raised or lowered by more than about 65 degrees past the set minimum and maximum. Furthermore, for typical ranges the temperature will never be raised more than about 25 degrees past the maximum (but will still drop up to about 65 degrees Celsius below the minimum).
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: Blastbeard on February 22, 2020, 07:47:19 am
 I've spent more time on advanced world gen than I'd like to admit, and used to have extremely specific and kind of  frivolous preferences(x amount of mountain regions, y amount of desert squares, must begin generation under the light of a full moon, etc.). Eventually, I adopted a "whatever, roll with it" mentality and I've been happier ever since. I still have my preferences, but these days I focus more on broad strokes rather than fine details, and I have a lot less map rejections to deal with as a result.

I try to stick to setting x and y variances slightly above default, but I do set a desired number of regions for mountains, forests, and plains. I only do this to ensure at least one of each civilization spawn, so I disable the rest. I also narrow the temperature range to 32-64 like I always have, but I think that became redundant after I stopped generating worlds with poles.

The only big thing after that is a little eccentric. I always change nearly every numerical value to a multiple of eight. End year, megabeasts, rivers, pretty much everything except meshes, cavern settings and cave depth. I don't remember when or exactly why I started doing this, and the only reason I keep doing it is because I haven't found a reason to stop.

Edit: There's actually one other thing I've made a habit of. Once I start generating a world, I always, always, always immediately return to the menu and switch 'use seed' to yes before proceeding. If it's set to random, that parameter is cleared after world gen is finished, and the only way to get that seed back is to export the info. If the game crashes during world gen and you didn't save the seed, you're SOL. I've had a lot of promising worlds vanish into the mists due to this, and I've gotten so used to doing it that I actually forgot to mention it at first.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: Sver on February 22, 2020, 08:36:55 am
* Small region based - for fps and "experience" reasons, I prefer when no civ is isolated from others.
* Single pole, because two poles make temperature variation too extreme on a small map. Also, slightly narrower temperature thresholds to avoid completely extreme climates which I never settle.
* Some messing around with terrain values to get "jagged" landscape with lots of smaller biomes and separate mountain ranges.
* 3-4 partial oceans and 0-1 complete ones, same reason as above.
* Small number of savage, good and evil types. Just prefer such places to feel more rare.
* Increased numbers of civs and (semi-)megabeasts for more stuff happening in history and remaining after the years of generation.
* 1 vampire and necro types, 1-2 werebeast, default for night trolls and demons. Usually no bogeymen, but haven't tried adventuring in 0.47 yet.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: Deus Machina on February 22, 2020, 09:24:45 am
I mostly just tend to raise the rate of volcanoes, based on a worldgen formula thread, so I don't have to worry about fuel.
I do plan to experiment more, so keeping an eye in.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: arbarbonif on February 22, 2020, 05:23:13 pm
I used to edit the raws to limit aquifers to the silty soils but I just tried my first "light aquifer" site and it is SOOOO much easier.  I made a simple 3x3 stairwell that cut right through 2 layers of aquifer and put the walls up without a single suspension.  At no point did water show up more than 1/7 deep and there were a total of 4 or 5 squares of those in the 5x5x2 block before the walls were up.  No pumps, no mess, no problem.  Just lost one layer of rock and 2 of soil, but there is lots of rock down there.  I suspect you might be able to even have fully usable rooms in the aquifer layer with some drainage.

I add a bunch of volcanos and increase the extremes of volcanism and savagery and about 10X the number of semi and mega beasts.  I also reduce the mesh sizes so it gets smaller biomes and more chance of getting coal and obsidian in a single embark and the like.  For caverns I do fairly open and 20-80 water, so no full water and no lifeless levels.

Oh and I commonly remove werebeasts.  They end up being too bad too early for me.



Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: Superdorf on February 23, 2020, 01:06:18 am
Quote from: arbarbonif on February 22, 2020, 05:23:13 pm
I suspect you might be able to even have fully usable rooms in the aquifer layer with some drainage.

I can confirm, it's pretty easy to set up entire rooms within light aquifers. Just replace any natural walls with constructions and you're golden. :)
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: pisskop on February 23, 2020, 01:13:28 am
what is 'light aquifer'?  you mean not all aquifers gush water at a rate requiring a major pumpstack to overcome?  I can be below it in less than 4 months?
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: Shonai_Dweller on February 23, 2020, 02:03:50 am
Quote from: pisskop on February 23, 2020, 01:13:28 am
what is 'light aquifer'?  you mean not all aquifers gush water at a rate requiring a major pumpstack to overcome?  I can be below it in less than 4 months?
Yes.

(Read 47.01 release notes for details, heavy aquifers, the old kind, are extremely rare right now, probably never have to think about them again unless you're looking for the challenge specifically.)
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: Naryar on February 23, 2020, 06:03:58 am
I exclusively use advanced worldgen parameters, almost always a Small region that I tweak. Volcanism way up, increase number of volcanoes a bunch because I like embarking on them and I have yet to pull magma out to the surface the dwarfy way. Usually set up volcanism to extreme values only so I get less rejects due to number of volcanoes, and both more igneous and sedimentary layers. What else, only one pole, usually one partial ocean, increase semi- and megabeasts numbers.

Also... I usually remove the minimum amount of tiles settings to remove rejections. I fuss around a lot with world gen and spawning a "perfect" world and will take hours to create a worl. I guess this says a lot about my overly excessive standards. Usually increase savagery, try and mess around with caverns so the caves are less mazelike and more open expanses, set caverns to 1 only in an effort to remove z-levels, try my best to flatten the world so the magma isn't 100 z-levels away from the surface.

I've tried to reduce the amount of large regions affected by good/evil/savage surroundings because those do get tiresome, but to no avail. That being said I like having evil poles for some reason.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: DrCyano on February 23, 2020, 11:37:29 pm
Quote from: NordicNooob on February 19, 2020, 03:43:32 pm
Quote from: DrCyano on February 19, 2020, 02:04:05 pm
(I wish DF could randomly set a single temperature for the whole map, but the lowest resolution setting is to make each forest random and interpolate in between).
You should be able to; just set your temp variances to 0 and make your min and max temp whatever range you want your random number to be in.

I just tried this and it worked. Thanks!
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: Deus_Vult on March 06, 2020, 02:27:59 am
Quote from: Naryar on February 23, 2020, 06:03:58 am
try and mess around with caverns so the caves are less mazelike and more open expanses, set caverns to 1 only in an effort to remove z-levels, try my best to flatten the world so the magma isn't 100 z-levels away from the surface.

I've tried to reduce the amount of large regions affected by good/evil/savage surroundings because those do get tiresome, but to no avail. That being said I like having evil poles for some reason.
Did you notice that when you “flatten” the world, the dwarves stop breaching underworld during worldgn? On my many attempts, none of the worlds wirh lower z levels OR caverns than original has breached underworld. Then i generated standard world and there it was.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: PatrikLundell on March 06, 2020, 05:31:40 pm
Quote from: Deus_Vult on March 06, 2020, 02:27:59 am
Quote from: Naryar on February 23, 2020, 06:03:58 am
try and mess around with caverns so the caves are less mazelike and more open expanses, set caverns to 1 only in an effort to remove z-levels, try my best to flatten the world so the magma isn't 100 z-levels away from the surface.

I've tried to reduce the amount of large regions affected by good/evil/savage surroundings because those do get tiresome, but to no avail. That being said I like having evil poles for some reason.
Did you notice that when you “flatten” the world, the dwarves stop breaching underworld during worldgn? On my many attempts, none of the worlds wirh lower z levels OR caverns than original has breached underworld. Then i generated standard world and there it was.
I've got a potential explanation for the case when you reduce the number of caverns. Cavern reduction goes from the bottom, logically pushing cavern 3 into cavern 2, feature wise (such as e.g. availability of blood thorn and deep cavern creatures), and cavern 2 and 3 into cavern 1 if you've only got one cavern. Spires set to reach cavern 3 are NOT extended to cavern 2, nor are those set to reach cavern 2 extended to cavern 1 when the target cavern has been removed. When embarking such spires are missing completely, but in the abstract world gen case you still have the issue that you have to dig down to the magma sea to reach spires not set to reach the top cavern, and I wouldn't be surprised if worldgen dorfs haven't figured out how to deal with the magma sea.
Title: Re: Worldgen preferences
Post by: Deus_Vult on March 06, 2020, 08:33:27 pm
Another question - how long do you set your history to be? I prefer 1000+ year worlds, but is there any real difference between 200 year old world and 1000-year one? Except more events & presumably writings.
Also I've seen people complain about lack of gobbos. In my generations there is always 10000 goblins vs tiny group of humans, dwarves and elves.