This is an old megaproject idea I had that I'm restarting from scratch. I tried something like this a couple years ago, but due to a very large flaw (I somehow managed to NOT RAISE THE POPULATION CAP), I ended the project early in frustration. Today, I'm starting my project anew.
So! One thousand Dwarves, One Tile.
There are a couple constraints that come into play when working with such a small area. Possessing enough stone is a real issue that can crop up early. Unless I want to waste precious Z-levels excavating, I'm better off setting up on a map with sand and clay. This is kind of hard when my embark area is one tile. Metal is also something we might not get enough of, and there is a high chance that we simply won't have basic materials like iron on the map at all. To make matters worse, there is a one-in-four chance the map won't have any HFS Spires. This means no awesome equipment and no road down to the circus, and I find that
Absolutely Undwarven. Finally, there's the need for a brook or river, which will be vital for any fortress to have. I need easy access to water in copious amounts for access to water in the early game and as a power supply later on. Even if the top half of my fortress will be built around the damn thing, it will be worth it.
One thing I do not need is Trees. After playing a couple of 1x1 mini-forts, I've found that Trees are basically the bane of my outer defenses. The game isn't made to have a map so small, which means that Trees are constantly forced to grow right where I don't want them to be, like on my bridge or overhanging the walls of my fortress. Once I have a reasonable supply of glass and clay production, trading can easily provide all the wood I need. Aquifers are also straight out. On one-tile embarks, the game will always tries to force at least one animal onto tile at any given time, and since these beasties are so close to my Dwarves, I need to get underground to set up defenses as fast as dwarvenly possible. I don't have that kind of time if I'm dealing with an aquifier.
So, the map we'll be getting will have to have:
-Sand and Clay, to allow for the production of various stoneless materials.
-A brook or river, for water
-HFS, for !FUN!
-Access to both Goblins and a Tower, to maximize metal production
-Access to Humans and Elves for maximized wood imports
-No Aquifier
That is a lot for one tile, and something I've had to world-gen a lot to get.
Since I need sand and don't need trees, I opted for custom worlds with large deserts and badlands. I need civs to be reasonably close together, so the world size is medium and Savagery is pretty low to encourage civilization growing close to each other. Oceans and Mountains I nullified because I simply don't need them on my map. I also increased the base number of Secrets (And titans, because I like having hard fights). Because I need a lot of z-levels on my map, I opted for a single cavern layer instead of the usual 3.
It tooks some time doing this. A couple hours at least. After finagling with world gen, I finally found an area with everything I need.
The first world:
My wonderful Neighbors:
Yeah, tell me about it.
Setup for a small area in a desert has to be special. I have to bring a lot of wood, and any animals with GRAZING are straight out. Instead of bulls or sheep, I'll be starting off with Pigs, since I can keep them without worrying about starvation. Later, I'll be killing any grazers that come in, and probably leave all grazing pets to starve in a locked room. Because animals spawn close to my dwarves on small maps, Two of my starting seven are dwarves are axedwarves, and will help protect the others in building the starting defenses. All my leftover points go into hauling Logs over.
Everything was going great, until I found...
Uh,
Oh Boy...It turns out my starting Civ has no anvils nor Plump helmets. My dwarven civilization are basically bearded humans. Ehm. Back to the drawing board!
Several days of generating MAP AFTER MAP AFTER MAP and fussing with world Generation:
Alright- This looks good. I can work with this. Now, to embark along this river until I get Adamantine.
First try:
And, with a little cheating to look down below:
Those black squares indicate a nice, tidy spire for me to dig out. Only problem is that they crop up Right before the magma ocean. Really tiny spires! Unacceptable. I immediately abandoned the fortress and tried south of here.
Second try:
Wait, did that say 'Giant Dingos' ? This is gonna be interesting.
Bah- No black squares. I'm definitely trying right by here again though. Giant Dingos.
Third Try:
Squareless. Time to Abandon it!
Alright this is getting a little repetitive. Fast forward to
Seven Tries later:
FINALLY. It took a long while, but I've finally found everything I need on one map tile. It has been a maddening experience. Here we are though; The mighty fortress of- what was it? Crap, I forgot to set the name to something impressive.
Murkknife. Alright. We're rolling with it! Welcome to Murkknife!
Next time I'll set to work actually building the fortress, from the perspective of the expedition leader. Wish me luck!
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Topic: Murkknife - 1000 Dwarves; One tile. (Read 12406 times)