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Author Topic: The quest for the perfect embark; Adv. world generation issues.  (Read 3020 times)

Seikatsukan

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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?
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caddybear

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Re: The quest for the perfect embark; Adv. world generation issues.
« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2012, 05:03:20 pm »

Use perfectworld df to gauge the height range for the volcanoes to spawn in, you can make them appear on the shore if you play with it enough.
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CaptainArchmage

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Re: The quest for the perfect embark; Adv. world generation issues.
« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2012, 07:10:36 pm »

OK so I was thinking about an interesting embark location.

The idea is you have a coastline on a continent, and you have an island just offshore. The island is in the 16x16 region tile, and it is possible to make an embark that encompasses the island and the shoreline. The idea is your dwarves will likely land on the island, which will be cut off from the rest of the world. All migrants and so on would arrive on the mainland.

Ideally you would have a volcano, and you could encompass the whole thing in a reasonably-sized embark.

I know it is possible to either paint the map elevations, volcanism, rainfall, savagery, and drainage yourself using the advanced worldgen parameters system, or use perfectworld. As to getting Good surroundings, set the number of good tiles to something high and be prepared to regen the world a few times. You may want to set the number of good tiles in small and medium subregions to something high, but the number of tiles in large subregions to something low. This will get you a lot good forests, but mountains and oceans (the large subregions) will mostly be neutral.

Setting the mineral scarcity to 100 will get you the minerals you want.
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knutor

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Re: The quest for the perfect embark; Adv. world generation issues.
« Reply #3 on: June 16, 2012, 07:34:04 pm »

Remove the civ check.
Increase min good regions.
Triple site cap and pop cap.
Lower the elevation and variances.
Lower subregion to under 2k.
Lower the river counts to 1, but not to 0.
Lower erosion rate to under 100.
Increase drainage.

Goal is to get more connected landmass and more unique civs, right?  Hope that does it.  Take care, Knutor
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Friendstrange

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Re: The quest for the perfect embark; Adv. world generation issues.
« Reply #4 on: June 16, 2012, 09:12:39 pm »

The idea is you have a coastline on a continent, and you have an island just offshore. The island is in the 16x16 region tile, and it is possible to make an embark that encompasses the island and the shoreline. The idea is your dwarves will likely land on the island, which will be cut off from the rest of the world. All migrants and so on would arrive on the mainland.
That does sound mighty interesting.
How would one go about say, making the island have a volcano AND be good, while having the mainland be half evil (evil enough enough to have eye stalks and wiggling tendrils) and half savage (enough for giant tigers or something) with the ocean being evil enough to spawn sea monsters? This of course, along with everything Seikatsukan mentioned (maybe adding clay as well for the hell of it).
For the ocean thing Im guessing having an island world with a single evil ocean and many islands surrounding it.

I doubt a 6x6 embark would be enough to hold all that though.
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Murgy

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Re: The quest for the perfect embark; Adv. world generation issues.
« Reply #5 on: June 16, 2012, 09:32:04 pm »

In regards to your volcano issues, you may be best served through the use of the liquids command included in Dfhack.
I eventually turned to in due to a need for less FPS intensive magma access without creating worlds with a separate volcanoes for every man, woman, and child.
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Seikatsukan

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Re: The quest for the perfect embark; Adv. world generation issues.
« Reply #6 on: June 16, 2012, 09:44:03 pm »

Goal is to get more connected landmass and more unique civs, right?  Hope that does it.  Take care, Knutor

No, the goal is "Volcano in good-aligned forest, extremely close to ocean/sea/lake shore, with access to Goblins and Elves". What you say is another reasonable approach, but the main problem I'm facing is that volcanoes only appear close enough to the water when in an already-small island.

Use perfectworld df to gauge the height range for the volcanoes to spawn in, you can make them appear on the shore if you play with it enough.

Hey nice, I didn't know there was an utility for that! Sounds mighty useful, and probably what I need.
*Goes to check it out*
Windows-only app. Should have known. Well, maybe I can get it to run on Wine...
*Requires .NET 4.0*
Oh, come on. I've had nightmares bearing that name. Luckily, it seems to work with Mono. I'll give it a go.

In regards to your volcano issues, you may be best served through the use of the liquids command included in Dfhack.
I eventually turned to in due to a need for less FPS intensive magma access without creating worlds with a separate volcanoes for every man, woman, and child.

Hehe, yeah, but that would be a last measure for me. I prefer maps to be as auto-generated as possible; a volcano wouldn't be as ominous and imposing if I painted it myself, now would it? ;D
Thanks for the tip, but I think PerfectWorld will be enough to get me my perfect embark.
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knutor

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Re: The quest for the perfect embark; Adv. world generation issues.
« Reply #7 on: June 16, 2012, 11:14:25 pm »

connected landmass
Volcano in good-aligned forest, extremely close to ocean/sea/lake shore, with access to Goblins and Elves
The Goblins need boats and the Fairys need wings.  That's a tough issue. 

Only way I know to get more siege entities is to take out the blockaids: oceans/seas/lakes/rivers and provide more sites.  If ya do that, then ya don't have the guarantee of sand, however.  -Knutor
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Seikatsukan

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Re: The quest for the perfect embark; Adv. world generation issues.
« Reply #8 on: June 17, 2012, 01:24:58 am »

Finally got what I wanted. PerfectWorld is certainly a most powerful tool, easy to use once you get to understand its mechanics. I'll leave this here, as a sample of the configuration that generates shoreline volcanoes most reliably.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
There is some hand searching involved after worldgen, of course, but with all volcanoes on the shore, it was nothing compared to the fiftysome worlds I had generated before.

Use perfectworld df to gauge the height range for the volcanoes to spawn in, you can make them appear on the shore if you play with it enough.

Once again, one hundred thanks for the tip. You're the boss!
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Quote from: Naryar
It's simply an escaped demon posing as a god. Still a badass killing machine, but nothing your dwarves can't handle.
Quote from: �
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.