Bay 12 Games Forum

Howdy there. Just wondering if there's any way of getting a Walking Dead type of world? By which I mean almost everywhere is populated by undead. I don't know what parameters affect tower generation, but maybe making most of the world squares evil would do the trick? I'd be happy with a smaller or small sized world. Anyone got any advice?

There's a few different types of undead. At least:
Thralling from evil clouds.
Reanimation after death.
Controlled/created by a necromancer.
Part of the region.

If you're looking for a fortress mode embark that has both reanimation and animated arriving corpses/undead wild animals, this one qualifies.

What features are applied to evil biomes or regions or what effects/syndromes come from particular evil clouds or rain is procedurally generated.
You can, for example, generate a world that has lethal versions of all of those, while some are minor inconveniences at best.
While towers are a source of undead, the denizens, at least, from what I've seen, stay in or near the tower unless on a specific task.  That may be different with the new towers that spread evil in Adventure Mode, but I haven't tested enough of that personally to speak with any authority.
From your request, it seems like a biome (or many) where the trees and animals are all undead/dead is likely the closest match.  I call these animated corpse embarks, because you get things like Barn Owl Corpse, Echidna Corpse, or Buzzard Man Corpse arriving on the embark regularly. (depending on the biome)

It's worth noting, though, that in these embark regions?  Surface existence is extremely challenging without your military being fully equipped in metal gear and having very high military/combat skills.  At least, in fortress mode.  Particularly if you start getting Undead versions of Giant creatures.

The other challenge is that Regional Interactions (which are the things that can have/cause these reanimating, corpsing, etc effects) are only different based on different regions.  If you have one region throughout your entire world, or only a handful, you'll only get a handful of unique Regional Interactions, and thusly, very few chances at seeing Undead regional effects within range of other features you may desire, like water, metal, sand, clay, flux, or trade with other races.  Generating unique regions can also be tricky, depending on what biomes you're comfortable with or desire.  It's much easier to create very large single regions rather than many tens/hundreds of tiny regions, which is the opposite of what you want, in this scenario.

Obviously, it's possible to get it all together.  However, it can take some time reviewing many tens/hundreds of worlds, depending on how specific you are with your requirements, and how few or many unique regions there are in the target worlds.  Evil clouds are similar.  You can have many evil clouds in a world, but there's often no guarantee they have the evil that you want, or even that they'll show up with enough frequency to make it challenging, although one brief mistake can end your fort very quickly (if all your dwarves are above ground and all are caught in a cloud at the same time)

Lastly, there are now quite a range of different necromancer undead types.  Experiments, lieutenants, divination, ghouls, summons all create quite a range of type, difficulty and density.
Recently, for example, I had an unexpected visit from some necromancers who brought many crossbow/bow/ranged attackers.  Hadn't seen that before, personally, and it .. wiped out the fort quite handily.  There's also demonic experiments permitted as well, which.. given how simply LARGE demons are, and the consequences in combat, any undead version would be very very difficult to engage hand-to-hand.

Ok, from that, I'll look for a volcano on the surface embark of a glacier, in a world with all the races, at least one tower within the embark range, and sand available for glass.
Temperate and glacier don't typically go together, but if you want a temperate embark instead of a glacier, or both together as part of the embark, let me know.

Here's a save, so you can make adjustments if you wish and see it in action.
The save is on Limestone 1, the wagon/caravan arrives on Limestone 10, so it's a brief wait.
--
Update..

I've tested this in another save to be sure, and in this second test case, the wagons path in as normal, just as in the first save above.  All good there, no surprises.
However, I blocked the single-tile / walkable access to the fort underground, and the Caravan dwarves that lead single animals waited at the embark edge indefinitely, until that path was opened.
In fact, I waited until both wagons were at the Depot before opening the path, and then the animal-leaders pathed in and unloaded as normal.
Similarly, the migrants that arrived in Summer exhibited the same behavior;  they simply waited at the map edge while the ingress path was blocked.  They would not use this particular wagon path.

I still haven't seen any fliers or other wild animals use the path, yet.

Here's a challenging world and two challenging embarks.

The world/embark(s) feature:
A 2x2 embark area.
Dead Civ. No-one is coming to help you, beyond the two starting waves of migrants, no caravans.
A Dry Cavern.  Just bloodthorn trees.  No water, shrubs, or plants.
One Cavern, rather than two or three.
No surface trees.
No surface vegetation.
No surface water.
All wild animals entering the embark are undead/animated corpses.
The embark is Untamed Wilds + Evil (Terrifying), so you'll get giant animals as well as animal people, all as undead/animated corpses.
The embark region features reanimation of the recently deceased.
Sand
Steel Friendly: iron bearing ore, flux, coal+lignite (2000+ of each)
Magma within 14 Z-levels of the embark level.
A 'within embark range' Necromancer Tower.
No humans, elves, kobolds, titans, megabeasts, semi-megabeasts, clowns or candy.
Also, no access to pig tails (seeds or otherwise) from the dead civ.

The first embark has no aquifer, and as a result, no water of any kind.  Not on the surface, not in an aquifer, not in the caverns.
The second embark has a tiny aquifer, for those who would like the easier challenge of having a water source present.
Otherwise, the embarks are in the same region, "The Dunes of Sullying", and both should play in Fortress Mode as mostly identical.
To ensure this works as expected, I've taken this parameter set, edited only the worldgen.txt file in a brand new install of DF 47.04, generated the world, and embarked in the indicated locations.  Everything works as anticipated on Windows 10.
However, I've also put a .7z of the generated world on DFFD here, which should work cross-platform in the same version, if it doesn't generate for you.

If you're looking for a play-through goal, try and build an above ground 3+ storey fort in either embark. 

If you're referring to the surface when you say vegetation..

Cavern mushroom-trees.  For beds and charcoal fuel for forges, with no magma.
And for food, you can grow crops underground on muddied soil provided you bring seeds, if your civ has access to them. 
You can also create grazing areas underground after you expose the caverns, if you have caverns with moss, even if the surface is sterile.

Also, a few animals don't require grazing, yet produce food, similar to Turkeys.  But there are many egg layers you can also bring, in addition to Turkeys, like Peacocks.
One viable non-farming option I've successfully used is Pigs for meat and cheese, and they don't need grazing/food.  That's just a matter of scale for sufficient meat/cheese. 
The wiki is being stupid slow for no good reason, but there may be, iirc, a chart/table that shows grazers vs. non-grazers.

Even with no caverns and no rain, no embark surface vegetation, no wild animals, and no surface/cavern water, if you can bring Pigs and seeds, you can thrive.  For beds, you just need to bring a few logs from the mountainhome.  If you pick a steel friendly site, you can use lignite or coal for fuel, if there's no magma and no trees.  Aquifer makes it dead easy, but you can survive without any surface/cavern water, it's just.. risky if there are injuries or infections, as the Dwarves only consume alcohol, and Armok help you if you run out.  I've even survived in a no-animal no-seeds dead civ embark by raising bees only for food/mead.  It's challenging, but possible.

Yep, somewhere between 200 and 1000 years apparently works pretty well. 

The parameters you quote above, BrisoS, are definitely not the default.  Most of the worldgens in this thread are very far from the default.
In the case of those two you mention, in fortress mode, the divine metals (to the best of my knowledge) have very little or no impact.  No reason to have them if they have no value, imo.
megabeasts and semi-megabeasts have the potential to wipe out civs or affect civ growth or populations.  In some worlds, they are used to great effect to ensure a civ or all civs are dead or gone.  In some, their lack is set to ensure some survive.
You can certainly change any and all parameters yourself to determine how they affect the outcome.  That's all part of the fun.

Your request isn't anything too particularly difficult, but just one query about aquifers, as it's been a few years since you've played..
Currently, in 47.04, aquifers are extremely easy to deal with.  They're not the embark-killers they were in the past, so given that, would it be fair to say you don't particularly care if there is an aquifer or not, as they are trivially breached and utilized now?  I only ask because it makes finding an embark that much easier if it's not a concern. Most people don't care, I'm just making sure.

EDIT: Also, just to make sure, it must be a river, and can't be a brook?  A brook makes it trivial, a river will take some time.