First of all, let's leave aside the fact that having generated several dozen worlds in search for my next fortress location shows I'm a rather
anal finicky fusspot, and that the perfect embark is highly subjective and unrealistic. The info here might be of use to others, though.
Simply put, I want to have as much fun (and !!FUN!!) as possibe in a single (6x6 maximum) embark site. I've been messing around with the advanced world generation parameters, and come pretty close, but still not quite it, so I come here for your opinion. Basically, I create a custom medium region and look for the following features:
- I want a floating fortress, so ocean/sea shore site. That is pretty much a given in every world, so... Check.
- I want a floating fortress made of glass, so I need sand; however there is sand in every ocean shore, so no worries here. Check.
- A volcano for fast, pump-less magma. Pumping up "minimum volcano number" to 200, volcanism weighted ranges to 10000 in both the min and the max and zero in the rest, and maximum volcanism variances nets me volcanoes pretty much anywhere, even the middle of oceans with no land. Check.
- A heavily forested area. Rain weighted range (80-100) = 10000 and Minimum rainfall=50 results in forests and groves everywhere. Check.
- I want featherwood, so must have "good" surroundings. However, I can't just pump the desired good squares to the max, because dwarven civilizations need neutral sites to spawn, and I get endless rejected worlds due to "no playable civilizations"; 600/6000/12000 in small/medium/large subregions does the trick, with mostly good areas everywhere but few failures. Check.
- I want a shitload of minerals, even rare ones like bismuthinite and platinum, so Scarcity = 100. Motheload get.
There is pretty much a dozen of such sites in every world I generate now, which is a big success. Obviously, I had to nullify all minimum requirements for biome square counts, or the game would complain about not being able to place deserts, which I don't care about. However, the problem comes from the next (and last) condition I want my site to fulfill:
- It must NOT be an island site: I want goblins and elven caravans.
It is unbelievably hard to get a volcano close enough to an ocean shore, and this is where I'm stumped. Every good site I've found so far where a volcano is in close proximity to a seashore is an island site. I seriously want the goblin hordes to invade me whenever they want, and the exotic animals and rope reed seeds elves bring. I don't really care about flux, gypsum, clay or gems.
So, the question is, does anyone know how to generate volcanoes very close to continental shores? Or, maybe easier, how to get elven caravans and goblin invasions in an island site?