Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: How old a world have you/can be generated?  (Read 1172 times)

VABritto

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
How old a world have you/can be generated?
« on: January 26, 2020, 08:03:05 pm »

I am curious how old a world can be made in world gen with current computer power (specially now that computers are mostly 64bits). Anyone fancy showing their experiments? It would be interesting to see how old your worlds got and if there was anything interesting in them.
Logged

feelotraveller

  • Bay Watcher
  • (y-sqrt{|x|})^2+x^2=1
    • View Profile
Re: How old a world have you/can be generated?
« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2020, 04:31:01 am »

I've never done anything beyond roughly 1000 years, highly preferring short (100 year) to very short (2 year) worldgens but I think 10000 years is the upper limit. Anyway a number a off people have fixated on the 10000 year mark both old and new as well as in between.  A couple of years back someone's laptop spent a week generating a max-sized max-length world.

Question for you is why?
Logged

VABritto

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: How old a world have you/can be generated?
« Reply #2 on: January 27, 2020, 08:03:58 am »

Good question. Can't really answer for others, but personally I tend to like to roam around Legends mode more than actually play Dwarf Mode sometimes, and the longer the world exists the more content it has. Sure, it also has a bigger chance of being empty, conquered by goblins etc, but when it isn't it's very interesting. I love to see the thousand years old monsters being killed finally by a random hero or those very old families that manage to survive for millenia. Some old worlds can be very dead and boring, but when they aren't, they're pretty epic.
Logged

PlumpHelmetMan

  • Bay Watcher
  • Try me with sauce...
    • View Profile
Re: How old a world have you/can be generated?
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2020, 08:16:14 am »

I tend to gravitate towards shorter worldgen timelines that are still long enough to have a rich history, in the range of 200-600 years. Playing in a millenia-old post-apocalyptic world sounds neat in theory, until you realize it basically just means NPCs have likely already done all the cool stuff for you.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2020, 08:20:33 am by PlumpHelmetMan »
Logged
It's actually pretty terrifying to think about having all of your fat melt off into grease because you started sweating too much.

VABritto

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: How old a world have you/can be generated?
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2020, 08:19:26 am »

True. It's mainly only good if you want to read Legends mode all day lol Something I do a lot. I like to document the history of my worlds and think up the stories behind the data. I have pages and pages of notes about one particular world, with all the main lineages of one of their civilizations. You can get a lot of drama and epic tales just by looking through Legends mode.
Logged

George_Chickens

  • Bay Watcher
  • Ghosts are stored in the balls.
    • View Profile
Re: How old a world have you/can be generated?
« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2020, 08:42:30 am »

You can edit the worldgen files to have an indefinite worldgen, however I am not sure how possible it is post worldgen activation releases. Back many, many versions ago, I had a pocket world (actually no, it was custom size between pocket and small, because small took too long and pocket just meant worldgen stopped early from extinctions) that ran for almost 100 thousand years. It took me over 24 hours to create it. Things start to get a little nuts at that point, if you can strike the right balance to prevent extinctions. Megabeasts with nearly six digit kills and legendary elves who had fought in tens of wars and killed and cannibalized their way across the globe.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2020, 03:14:53 pm by George_Chickens »
Logged
Ghosts are stored in the balls?[/quote]
also George_Chickens quit fucking my sister

VABritto

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: How old a world have you/can be generated?
« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2020, 08:55:22 am »

You can edit the worldgen files to have an indefinite worldgen, however I am not sure how possible it is post worldgen activation releases. Back many, many versions ago, I had a pocket world that ran for almost 100 thousand years. It took me over 24 hours to create it. Things start to get a little nuts at that point, if you can strike the right balance to prevent extinctions. Megabeasts with nearly six digit kills and legendary elves who had fought in tens of wars and killed and cannibalized their way across the globe.

It's kinda baffling when you see something like that. A being that has been wrecking havoc for a hundred thousand years. Pretty incredible stuff!
Logged

George_Chickens

  • Bay Watcher
  • Ghosts are stored in the balls.
    • View Profile
Re: How old a world have you/can be generated?
« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2020, 09:27:24 am »

If I had a computer specifically for genning DF worlds and the seed, I'd definitely try it all again. It would definitely be interesting to see how different it would be in the modern versions. Only problem is, it could be months before it actually completes.
Logged
Ghosts are stored in the balls?[/quote]
also George_Chickens quit fucking my sister

VABritto

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: How old a world have you/can be generated?
« Reply #8 on: January 27, 2020, 09:29:40 am »

If I had a computer specifically for genning DF worlds and the seed, I'd definitely try it all again. It would definitely be interesting to see how different it would be in the modern versions. Only problem is, it could be months before it actually completes.

Although the next release will definitely make things even slower, I can't wait for when Villains, Religion, Guilds and Mercenaries are properly implemented into the game. Because I imagine such things will make long term world genning even more likely to create an interesting world with a rich history to it and a lot of character depth.
Logged

Untrustedlife

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
    • My Website
Re: How old a world have you/can be generated?
« Reply #9 on: January 27, 2020, 01:21:00 pm »

I have generated several 3000 year old large worlds. They took a day or so each to generate and the coin step when loading takes ages but they work pretty well.


3000 year old worlds are steeped in history and its cool to find a 2 thousand year old artifact sword for example.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2020, 01:22:57 pm by Untrustedlife »
Logged
I am an indie game dev!
My Roguelike! With randomly generated creatures Roguelegends: Dark Realms
My Turn Based Strategy game! Which you can buy on steam now!DR4X
My website untrustedlife.com