Bay 12 Games Forum

Sorry to intrude, but could someone please help me with genning a world? I've generated a few dozen worlds so far with various parameters, but just can't seem to get the perfect embark I want. I am looking for a site with:

I'm trying to go for a high resource, high danger embark with a sort of 'all the good races are dying out so let's try sending a military squad to a dangerous location that can serve as a foothold and supply resources' kind of feel.

I don't know how big of a region you are genning, My medium region was created for nearly the same purpose , the one about my frozen waterfall embark on page 2 of this thread.     You could bump the savagery up a bit mine is 2x more savage than calm, I already have boosted megas / caves / titans (more than typical medium region)  Its got boosted evil areas, but not so much that the whole world is bordering on collapse, you could perhaps double the #'s for evil small medium and large regions.  Then good civs might be on the decline by year 150ish  And you should have half a dozen or more necro towers.   Its already maximizing volcanos + flux + many biomes (increases chance of having everything you want ore wise).  You could also change the temperature ranges in mine back to normal 25-75 instead of 15-60 and level out the drainage setting so its not 2x more high drainage than normal or whatever it is.  Since you don't want glaciers.   Although most of my map as-is is not frozen, and goes to warm in the south pole, no scorching with the current settings.

Gen the world till you find the spot you want with like 30 years history.  Then change the creature / history seeds and you'll get new placements of civilizations / histories and gen it for 150+ yrs you'll have lots of necro towers.  And maybe the civs you want around the location unless it's really isolated.

Anyone have a set of minimum values that's tolerant but still sanity-tests a bit?

You can check my last post with world params for a decent set of Medium Region params. 

The #'s really depend on how large of a world you are generating, medium is 129x129.  Its also the smallest I was able to fit 200 volcanoes into without rejects.    I tried small region but I had trouble getting enough mountains and regions to feel satisfied with the world look, and I could only do about 120 volcanoes without rejects.  All the minimum parameters you just lower until they stop giving rejects, make a copy of the world type you want, start with the default advanced params and work your way down as you tweak things enable the logging of map rejects in INIT, it tells you exactly how many you failed by, you can tweak based on that.  I had to lower almost all the minimum number rejection parameters in my medium world because I turned the variance up so high that I had much fewere "large regions of desert/forest/swamp etc" And have my variance as high as i can get it without more than 5000 distinct biome rejections.
I also had pretty high draingage limiting certain other biomes because with the params I chose I"m able to get at least 2-3x more glacier per world gen than the default params were making.  I've always got nice large swaths of evil glacier. 
  Another thing about volcanos, you don't need that much high volacanism, if you look my weighted range is like from lowest 4x 4x 0x 0x 1x (only 1x being 80-100 volc)and so thats 8x more low volcanism than high volcanism, but i did that cause i turned variance to max and i wanted flux next to volcano.  I was still getting enough 100's with only 1 per 9 squares on medium region to get the maximum 200 volcs and no  rejects.  And I tend to have flux on close to 50% of those volcanos(in a 3x3 embark). 

Fortress Log 14th of Hematite (4/14) to 15th of Limestone(7/15)

After my last log I did some rethinking and made three updates to the blueprints and schematics.
First - Another floor atop my fortress for needed expansion space in the residences.  Though I still plan to refuse admittance once our fort population reaches 120.
Second - The aqueduct got a small redesign to put it fully outside, giving me a little more interior space.
Third I moved the planned supports from the corners of the fort to above the cornerstairwells, now they will double as stairwells.

14th Hematite - What looked like a bloodthorn sapling was in the middle of our entrance, I've ordered the road paved.

28th Hematite - Wanted to order bridges built when I realized how little obsidian had been collected thus far.  New orders were set to create blocks, and assign stockpiles to only accept obsidian. 

6th Malachite(5/6) - One of my paved sections of road was cancelled due to a rock blocking the construction and I can't get anyone to move the damned stone.  I was readying a curse at my foul luck when word came that migrants had arrived.  I held my tongue for the migrants luck was far more deplorable being as they were stuck on the north mountain across the river. 

15th Malachite.  After stewing over my options I decided I would aid the migrants.

My first instinct was to build the bridge from cliff to cliff where I plan to build my lava pipe.. But the migrants would starve waiting for that construction and I'm lacking the obsidian I planned to build it with.  Another idea was to build a tunnel to the upper river and let them wait till it froze over, but that could be months of starvation. 

So in the end I order a tunnel dug out under the river. 

2nd Galena (6/02) - Tunnel complete.  Here's a sketch of the scene where thirsty migrants rush into the tunnel while my miners exit the south side.  I don't blame my men for not wanting to socialize with the dirty peasants who camped on the north mountain for a month. 
7th Galena - Still no obsidian blocks! Even though the other blocks have cluttered up all my stockpiles.  I order the rest of the aqueduct dug and shout at random idle dwarves to start using bins.

15th Galena - I now see why our miners were hesitant to finish the aqueduct.  It accidentally breached the first cavern layer.  Anyway, it's been floored over and walled in for good measure.

1st of Limestone (7/01) - Autumn has come, and my bridges aren't ready!  I issue hurried orders to place the levers and try to link them.

15th of Limestone  - The river must have frozen over just as the last mechanisms went into my levers and bridges.  Irrigation must wait till next spring.  But we're in luck, a caravan has arrived along with an envoy from the Big Rocks capital.  They are coming through the migrant's tunnel now and I should be able to purchase what I need to survive until the next thaw.  I'll end my log here and get ready to talk to the envoy.

@zdrgn
... the salvage operation for the gear is a bit of a challenge for beginner me.  Any tips?

The trick is something all forts need at the beginning, a custom stockpile that lets you haul just about anything into it.   From food to finished goods and everything in between except maybe refuse and stone.  Once you set that up, your dwarves have hauling labors to start and they'll begin moving everything off the wagon, you can deconstruct the wagon and salvage the wood too. 

If you read that link above your reply where i point to the Fotress log, it actually kinda explains what i did. (savescum then build a stockpile 5 feet away in the direction of the still frozen ice. I basically setup the stockpile before unpausing, and then moved everything in 3 game days.  It took 7 game days for the ice to melt.)

You can then dig your way into either the north or south mountain and once you have an area you would deconstruct the old stockpile, and make a new one for them to haul it safe and underground.
You've got almost a whole season before the other ice melts, it does so a week or so before summer.

Fortress Log "Twinklingwhips" by Leader of expedition Mebzuth "dzangor" Lormedtobd

Our small civilization "The Big Rocks" has tasked me with embarking into the frozen north because our surveys indicated an abundunce of ore and steel making materials between the mountains and forests of this location. 
And the site is a beauty!  After a long trudge through the snowcovered Musical Forests and up the massive frozen river we found ourselves at the base of a mountain in the Teeth of Stabbing with steep cliffs along the river.  A brook atop the mountain appears to be frozen but will provide a lovely waterfall in the summer.  Opposite the waterfall is a lava tube extending almost to the plateau atop the mountain.

We camped on the frozen river and I dreamt of a grand fortress shaped like a cube under the mountain cliff and behind the waterfall.  So I designed an elaborate blueprint of a cube fort. 

15th of Granite
After what seemed like an eternity of planning, day dawned and it was time to strike the earth.

Luckily, due to a premonition of DooM that involved half our supplies crashing through the melting ice into river below, I immediately ordered disassembly of the wagon which had found itself stuck in the ice.  No sooner had we done this than a warm rain melted the snow atop the lower river and it seemed like water was flowing beneath the ice there.  Quickly orderering a stockpile be made in a safer location upstream my team and I hauled all of our equipment on to the stockpile. 
We finished on the 18th of granite and it was time to channel into the ice at the base of the cliff to provide a tunnel that will one day fill a lake around the site of our Dwarf Cube Fortress.

My premonition proved correct on the 21st of granite when the former wagon location and forest portion of the river suddenly was a vast roaring river.

Ok I knew i'd done it before..

to get the same world, with different evil / good regions etc, towers and what not..

Just change th # of years of history ( for towers is good)
and the # of squares evil/good etc. for different evil mtn ranges etc.   
but keep the same world seed.

Look at the two below screenshots of same worldseed, with diff year & evil regions parameters.


edit: ok i now have the above posts embark with sinister/haunted biomes.
it's a little too evil but i'm ok with it.

I always build macros to designate 3x3 rooms in a grid
(i don't worry about doors and hallways these get designated later, its easy to cut them out of the grid)
I end the macro one level down, in the top left corner(where it started) so I can build a multi z-level grid with just a few repeat keypresses.

Basically start designate (d) and do shift+arrow 3-4 times to get a 40x40 grid which i divide into 3x3 rooms with x cuts vertically and horizontally every 4 spaces

I either build hallways so that i have 9x 3x3 rooms or 16

for dormitories the 3x3's work great, also for workshop floors.
Then some levels i do large rooms of 12x12 or so which equals 9 3x3's as a storage room with a central staircase up to the workshops.

4x4 x 3x3 rooms is fun for dormitories.  its 16 rooms, but to use them all I lose 4 as connectors, and end up with 12 bedrooms making a shape like:
*-o-* * |||
  |   | |||
* * *-o-|||
|     | |||
o-* * * |||
|   |   |||
* *-o-* |||
    |   |||
--------XXX
--------XXX
--------XXX

the O's are 3x3's that connect to the outside hallways, and have a staircase in the middle to allow interlevel travel to storage rooms and workshops.

(a 2nd macro conforming to the original grid allows me to place the stairwells.)

I think you had the idea with multiple z-level chamber.  If the fortification is say 3 zlevels up, you need a chasm or river or something to keep him 3-4 z-levels away from the fortifications so they can fire down at a 45 degree angle(if memory serves).  Not sure how far up/out you need to build.