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[fehtuh]

So I'm quite particular about my DF worlds and generally prefer to have all my forts and adventures in one who's history I'm really invested in.

However since the last update I'm struggling to find a world I'm happy with so I wanted to use this as an opportunity to discuss the kinds of histories we're generating and what changes can be made to get better results.

Here's some findings I've had so far.

1. Necromancers are now the main existential threat to Civs - Towers are incredibly common and one's that aren't destroyed early snowball. After 300 years it tends to be more like playing catacaclysm.

2. Where are the goblins? - In the 20+ worlds I've created only one had a sizeable goblin population. This is because this world had a dark fortress spawn at year 0(there still seems to be a rare chance this still happens.) All other worlds have had tiny goblin pops.

3. Goblin civs are more of a threat - but not because of goblins themselves. Because they now emerge from dwarf civs visiting the circus they come with a small army of clowns. This means when other Civs attack them they take huge losses even if they win.

Does anyone else have any suggestions on how to increase Goblins and decrease necros? Or any other interesting findings in the new version?

[Vicious_Unicycle]

What world size are you using? Larger worlds give civilizations more time to expand their territories and grow their populations before they come into contact, leaving them less vulnerable to outside threats, particularly necromancers. And what's the number of desired civilizations set to? I'm guessing you probably set it pretty low to make it easier to get invested in each civ's history. I know I've done that, at least. If so, that may be the reason for your lack of goblins. Every world I've made lately has been overpopulated by goblins, and I haven't even been trying for that.

To get more goblin civilizations, you need more clowns bound to the surface world at the dawn of time. To get that to happen, you need plenty of gods with the appropriate spheres. To make sure that happens, you need at least a few different dwarf and human civilizations. Restricting the number of elf and kobold civilizations may also help by freeing up more civilization 'slots'.

So. Lowering the maximum number of caves to just 1 or 2 will reduce the number of possible kobold civs. Increasing the desired number of mountain regions will give more opportunity for dwarven civs to arise. Reducing the maximum rainfall and drainage to 60 or less will eliminate forests in favor of grasslands and swamps. Without forests, there will be no elves. More grasslands means more opportunities for humans. Although goblins civs aren't associated with a specific biome the way other races are, I have noticed a moderate preference for swamps, tundras, and glaciers. Probably just because other civs are averse to those locations.

Now, if you're willing to reduce the number of forests and elves, but you don't want to eliminate them entirely, then you may need to mess with the drainage and rainfall terrain meshes. Which I do not thoroughly understand proper use of. If you do, just remember to lower the minimum required high-drainage/rainfall squares. Otherwise the worlds will all get rejected.

And of course, to reduce the number of necromancers, you can just reduce the number of secret types.

[delphonso]

You might not be satisfied because you're expecting results from 44.12. Necromancers are the game right now, so unless you turn them off totally, you're unlikely to have a world without them playing a significant role. Vicious_Unicycle is right about the settings, but I went down a perfect world hole and ended up without a few of the new things instead, so I just scraped it and started from default settings.

In the world I'm playing (year 250, only) dwarves are hanging on by a thread, and at peace with the very populous goblins as they stare down the threat of a sole necromancer tower, which has been utterly unassailable.

[Shonai_Dweller]

In this interview from last week Toady mentions that Necromancers are op right now and need dialing back (but it's a handy situation for showing them off). So expect worldgen necro nerfs in future releases.
https://literate-gamer.zencast.website/episodes/172