Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[digitCruncher]

I plan to make my own little unique fort... something which (I hope) hasn't been done before. Chances of success are zero, and chances for fun are quite high (if I survive long enough)

Effectively, I will be designing my own little shipwreck. Although most of the details are still in the planning stage, the basic grounds of the scenario are this: A group of enterprising dwarven sailors get shipwrecked on a far away continent, where no dwarf has ever walked before. But they weren't prepared for a long stay on the continent... all they have is thier exploration gear, and the scavanged wreck of a ship. And they don't often bring picks on a sailing mission, do they >.> <.<

This will be by FAR the hardest fortress I have made, but I will need to do a little modding first. Specifically, I need to gen a world with NO DWARVES. So here are my questions:

#1: Would changing the litter size of the dwarves to 0 (or something) mean that after around 200 years, all dwarven civilizations would crumble to thier end? If not, how can I kill all dwarves in world-gen?
#2: If all dwarves are killed in world-gen, then the new dwarven embarkers have no immigration, and no caravan, right? If not... dang I know that that is not the case if they are all killed in adventurer mode, but I heard somewhere that it was possible to have the desired outcome in world-gen
#3: Humans trade picks, right? If not, then that won't be a major problem. I can forge my own, with a little metal, plus an anvil.
#4: How easy is it to make the starting seven dwarves breed? I have never had a marrage before, and my only children have come from immigration. In fact, I am reasonably sure that my starting dwarves in my other forts don't even have a lover!!
#5: In other forts with no immigration, how easy is it to defend against invasions? I assume that there won't be any goblin ambushes while I still only have 7 dwarves...
#6: Is there a tool that allows me to select a site with a bunch of 'other' features? Specifically, I would like a start with ocean, flux, and magma. And probably a cave or chasm. Unfortunatly, the inbuilt site finder doesn't have the ability to search for ocean starts, and I doubt that I will be able to manually search for an open magma pipe next to an ocean (Or a volcano, next to an ocean ), as those things rarely occur.
Finally #7: How many bone bolts does it take to kill a regular hunting animal? Would it be a net gain, or a net decrease? I plan on having my main food source being above-ground farms, and hunting (fishing in an ocean? Do I *want* my fisherdwarf to be eaten by carp?) Assume the most skilled hunter, and most skilled marksdwarf you can possibly get on embark. If no-one knows the answer... you soon will

[RedWarrior0]

First of all, the ocean holds things a lot more deadly than carp. Second of all, volcanoes are actually rather common near the ocean from what I've seen. Third, humans do trade picks. Fourth, I haven't had much trouble making the starting 7 breed

That's all I know.

[Whitney]

(fishing in an ocean? Do I *want* my fisherdwarf to be eaten by carp?)

No carp in the ocean. I have little problem fishing oceans.

How many bone bolts does it take to kill a regular hunting animal? Would it be a net gain, or a net decrease? I plan on having my main food source being above-ground farms, and hunting

Honestly, the farms will do you just fine. But the required bolts will be quite a bit for a new hunter. Eventually, once he becomes a better hunter/marksdwarf, he'll get more bolts from the bones acquired then what is needed. But as I said, farms suffice quite well.

How easy is it to make the starting seven dwarves breed?

If they are social dwarves who spend a lot of time in the meeting hall, a couple of years. Toady has stated that dwarves won't marry/breed with their parents/siblings.

[puke]

if you kill off all the dwarfs in worldgen, you shouldnt be able to play fortress mode.  generally it discards worlds without enough playable civs.  you can make it not discard them, but you cant also then play a fortress in that world.  there has actually been some contradictory information about this, but it all refers to slightly older versions.  your mileage may vary.  the debate seems to stem from when migrants show up, and if the parent civ was truely destroyed or if there were still roaming bands of individual dwarfs left.

there have been some "last dwarfs in the world" type games where dwarven civs have all but died off, all the mountain homes fell to gobbos and elves, and only some migrant groups of refugees were left.  someone was able to embark from that.  searching the forums for "last dwarves in the world" turns up the original posting:

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=24863.0

There have also been two community games inspired by the idea:

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=24886.0

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=46207.0

[digitCruncher]

OK... so totally wiping out the dwarves is a *bad* idea, but I want a world where the dwarves are really really weak and not on the continent... Right. Thanks

To generate such a world, I will have to make dwarves weaker in worldgen (not so weak that they all die within the first 100 years, but weak enough so that there is only often 1 dwarven civilisation around by ~year 500), and then mod them back to be stronger (BONUS FUN: Forget to mod them back to be stronger, and fight with puny dwarves ). The worldgen also has to have two entirely seperate land regions (either seperated by mountains or ocean), and the one without the dwarven civilisation needs to have an ocean in it.

So... does anyone have *any* idea on how to make dwarves weak in worldgen, but not too weak? Would removing the dam block, and decreasing the size to cat-size (or mouse size ) do it?

I think I am going into uncharted territory here... I will have to experiment myself. *Reads up about modding*

Failing that, I will just steal the seeds of those three examples you gave me, and look through them for a suitable site

Thanks puke [Edit] ... and whitney and redwarrior for giving me basic survival tips [/Edit]

[puke]

made a couple edits above to correct some mistaken assumptions i made.  embarking on a different continent (or on an island) is good for role-play, but it wont actually stop your parent civ from sending merchants and migrants.

reading more in those posts, it SOUNDS like you might actually get what you want by turning off the "minimum playable civ" values in worldgen, and modding the dwarfs to be weak enough to die out.  it sounds like someone was able to embark that way.

you can change the dwarf entry in "creatures standard" to be total pussies with lower size, negative damage-block, and low or zero birth rates.  then you can just change it back when you are ready to play, without any problems.  that way you wouldnt be making a permanent mod to your game, and you wouldnt have to run it from another directory or anything.

[digitCruncher]

My other question:

How do I get a guaranteed magma + flux + ocean start??

I am testing a bit with the design of my dwarves... hopefully I can make it so that I can make a fortress without those annoying dwarven caravans, immigrants, or seiges

[Edit]
Testing to see if I have dwarven caravans here will be very boring... I accidentally forgot to change my stats of my dwarves, so they are now all EXTREMELY old, and don't do any jobs except for hauling. If they survive until winter, I will be able to see if my dwarven civilisation (which apparenly does exist, just that it has no members) is still functional (in that immigrants and caravans can arrive)[/Edit]

[Savok]

Ah, back in the good ol' days, when the world was much flatter, we knew where the rivers of magma flowed under the mountains, and our scouts could find precious minerals deep down with ease. And so I thought, "Why not alter the very fabric of reality so that we could have this bounty again?" And I did, and it was good.

TL/DR: Embark to your fluxless site, then add [FLUX] to some stone that you do have.

[digitCruncher]

I have solved the problem by enabling magma pipes and magma pools to be visible on the embark screen. Now I just need to manually search the coastline of an ocean for a biome with flux and a magma pipe (or, in a pinch, a magma pool).

Unless flux doesn't naturally appear near oceans and/or magma pipes... I know that non-marble flux is rare near magma pipes / magma pools, but I would be fine with marble... And in a pinch, steel is not REALLY needed... I can always obsidian cast for obsidian swords (pity you can't make obsidian armor, otherwise sparring would be easier.

And it looks like there are pretty much only sites with aquifiers near the coast. Doesn't matter too much ... but I will need to build my first desalinisation plant

Question: What could you justify as being on an exploration ship? I was thinking wood (LOTS of wood), 2 crossbows, an axe (or two), a small amount of stone blocks, a reasonable amount of iron (or copper), a few gems (trade goods / jewelery), furnature (if you can take furnature on embark, but I can't remember), and some war dogs. Oh yes, and rations. Food and booze. (Food being mostly meat and seafood)

And I have a victory condition: produce a metal sailing ship, ideally, the largest sailing ship ever constructed. All this without dwarven caravans or immigrants This will be a LOOONG game But at least I don't have to deal with dealing with immigrant waves.