Bay 12 Games Forum

I have been working on my terrifying embark skills, and mostly dying horribly in various ways. On my last worldgen I got what I thought was a really cool area, but the elevation display lied to me, so I'm wondering if maybe some of you could help me figure out how to create the following embark scenario:

*Large river in a deep canyon - 10+ and preferably 20+ z level straight cliffs on both sides --- preferably it should be a fairly long river allowing for multiple embark sites so I can have numerous of them fail miserably and still enjoy aiming for my goal of having a tower suspended over the river.
*Evil - preferably with undead rising from corpses
*Aquifer
*Sand/Clay/Dirt/Flux/Deep and Shallow Metals (everything, the kitchen sink and then a bit more)
*Goblins and/or tower nearby and hostile.
*Temperature: not freezing, so that digging through the aquifer is a challenge.

Everything else is non-critical and some variation along the river would be unproblematic.

Any help is much appreciated.

For the snatcher issue:

1. Early game kids - designate a meeting area deep in your fortress.  Kids hang in the meeting area when not doing stuff.
2. Chained dogs at the fort entrance/meeting area entrances.  Traps at the fort entrance.
3. Parents with infants - assign to inside duty while kids are attached.  Or give them dogs. (as others have suggested).
4. All dwarves harvest (as long as farms are also inside fort, away from entrances).  Kids will be hard at work harvesting.

Say no to rng breakage.

It's really simple why.  The rng removes skill from gameplay.  Rngs are necessary for chance actions, which is why it is used.  In DF time is substituted for random chance in crafting.  In game terms this means that the player's skill at time management becomes important in difficult situations.

Obviously on an easy map with few or no hostiles, easy digging ground, no aquifer etc. it's largely irrelevant.  On a terrifying map with skeletal carps and elephants, aquifer and self imposed restrictions... that skill matters.  Managing, and micro-managing your dwarfs becomes very important.  Beyond the rng substitutes for skill issue there are other reasons from a game perspective not to include the rng in this aspect of DF - namely that it does not add any fun.  Random breakage for 90% of the game will be unimportant, but for those 10% of times when you have a fail that breaks in some way that can't be compensated for or be fixed and you have to abandon your vision and restart it will suck.  Rng do not teach anything, do not instill any value and do nothing to assist in the progress of the game.  It only adds the element of chance to actions that otherwise do not require it, or need it.  Removing skill, planning, anticipation from the game is removing fun. In the real world when we deal with creation failure in automated systems we simply order more of the object.  If there is a .1% failure rate in the production of widget A then for evey 1000 widgets you need you order 1001.  Yay... so helpful.  In game the only result would be even further redundancy in the systems, over orders, more unnecessary contingencies that will drain the player's time.  No progerss is made in telling the stories of your fort, no progress is made in having fun.


From a reality perspective Rng breakage is also dumb.  I don't roll a die every time I cook to see if it is busted.  And even when I screw up it's edible, just that I might not want to eat it, and probably edible if I turned it into a 'mystery meatloaf'... either way it is my choice.  Same goes for any creative activity I try, I'll succeed at my task... making the object.  Whether the object meets any criteria other than functional is of course up for debate.  Creating objects isn't a chance action, it's a function of (materials*skill*determination*talent*patience)/time available = product  (I'm sure that's an incomplete equation btw.)

Thanks for the replies folks.  I guess I'll just have to build a fire extinguisher for my butcher's shop and/or forbid the imps until they rot away.


 

Make a printout of the command list.  

All the key bindings are listed in a menu you can find by pressing '?'

In my opinion, I think defense of your outpost is pretty good as it is.  It allows you to choose your style of play.  Obviously I'd like to see more abilities for the attackers (bridging, opening doors, better morale, mining (maybe - I really am not looking forward to planning for this)).  But as it stands you have a choice about how 'hardcore' you want to be in your defense.  

Self chosen variants are major part of a game's replayability.  They give you new challenges and goals without the developer having to hand hold you.

Therefore, as someone mentioned, as have others in other threads:  Just stop using defenses that you find too powerful.  It takes a lot more dicipline to not use a powerful tool available to you, and it is much more interesting to play the game when you choose to make it more difficult for yourself (or at least I think so).

A couple of questions:

1. Has anyone else had no fall immigration wave?  

On my last map, treeless/freezing, I had a lot of room, huge stockpiles of food, and a mostly bought out caravan.  Yet I recieved no fall immigration... instead I got 24 in the spring  Subsequent waves have always been more than 20...

2. Has anyone else observed that having only wrestlers as your military attracts peasants rather than weapon trained dwarved?  

I usually have a bunch of dwarves assigned to weapons duty to cut down on useless immigration, but this time I've been getting 5-8 peasants in each group, and maybe one or two weapons dwarves.  My military dwarves are all on wrestling duty to cut down on injuries...

3. How significant is excavated area as a factor in immigration as compared to buying out the caravan and/or food surplus?

Again, with the treeless map you want a large underground forest quickly, but you need your immigration to be somewhat managed.  Thus if excavated area is a significant factor I would have to find a balanace somewhere.