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[FreakyCheeseMan]

This isn't exactly a modding issue, but you all seem to have the best understanding of game mechanics, so...

Trying to gen a world; haven't fucked with the settings too much, doubled the number of caves, moved megabeasts from 33 to 50, upped the chances for extreme temperatures slightly (2 and 3 on for 0-20 and 80-100), and ran volcanoes up to 150.

After running history for only a hundred years, I almost always get at least one civilization extinct- or possibly not started yet, as I noticed elves *never* seem to eppear before year 50.

Can anyone explain more of what's going on?

[darkflagrance]

Firstly, increasing the number of megabeasts and their survival rate tends to cause them to wreak larger amounts of havoc on civilizations, facilitating the extinction of the latter.

That is probably the main reason why civilizations are having trouble surviving.

Another possibility is that your temperature changes have slightly decreased the biomes where civilizations can be placed, but that is not likely.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Do civs need time to "start"? Cause I swear, young worlds never have elves.

[Shade-o]

Their forest placement might be putting them in contact with other civilisations before they are strong enough to survive. Try tweaking the worldgen for larger forests. Making elves slightly stronger might help, too.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Their forest placement might be putting them in contact with other civilisations before they are strong enough to survive. Try tweaking the worldgen for larger forests. Making elves slightly stronger might help, too.

I don't think they're going extinct- they're fairing about as well as other civs at the 100 and 150 year marks. It's at the 50 year mark that I never see them.

I don't really know how civs work- are they all placed at year 0 and getting weeded out from there, or what?

EDIT: Forgot to mention something possibly significant. I maxed out the variance for volcanism and elevation- desperately trying to get a volcano near sand, water and sedimentary layers, pref. limestone.

[Frumpy Playtools]

try adding in min elevation 5 and No for periodically erode cliffs....I find I can a few volcanoes, sand, mid-heavy forest,suitable amounts of marble, and a river into a 4x4 often enough.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

I want other sites in this world, two, with different sorts- glaciers, deserts, etc. Will that mess those up?

[Shade-o]

At worldgen all the megabeasts are placed and a population of each civ is placed in a town. I find that elves are extremely susceptible to being mauled by beasts early on.

At first, civs are usually spaced far apart and low in population, so they don't attack each other. 'beasts will immediately start stealing, razing and killing, however. Since the first generation of a population only reaches maturity after quite a few years, this makes it possible that enough attacks by 'beasts can kill off an entire town before their population becomes self-sustaining. Elves suffer the most because wooden equipment sucks.

Incidentally, if you remove all the food, drink and item stealing tags, this means that 'beasts will ONLY kill. Great way for wiping out nearly every civilisation.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Ok, that's helpful...

So... a civ's chances of existence should only go up, from year zero? Does it take them a while to spread enough to be "neighbors"- I've never noticed a map where I had elven neighbors some places and not others.

I'm mostly still confused about the 50-year thing; if I make 100, 150-year worlds, elves seem to survive about half the time. I've yet to see them in a 50-year world.

[Shade-o]

Is the only difference between 50 and 100 and 150 year worlds the date that you manually stop history generation, or are the 50 year worlds smaller in size?

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Is the only difference between 50 and 100 and 150 year worlds the date that you manually stop history generation, or are the 50 year worlds smaller in size?

Same parameters, just change the "End Year" thing.

Hell, I'll check it a few more times... I've seen it a good bit on big worlds, but I really tested it on little ones, cause, you know... don't really want to gen a big world for an experiment.

[Dante]

Please also note that having doubled the number of caves, you will have doubled the number of places for semimegabeasts etc to hang out and beat on civs in history, aiding and abetting the extinctionism.

[Shade-o]

Testing on smaller worlds would result in few elves, due to there being less starting elves in a more limited area, which nullifies their only means of survival- numbers and remoteness.

Incidentally, I made 'Dark Elves' which are all but identical to regular elves, but use metal like Dwarves. It was not pretty.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

*Nods* Yeah, I'd already cut back on megabeasts some when I started this thread- caves as well.

Still looking for that site, though... grr. I usually am happy to play on more limited sites- it's more fun- but I wanted to remake the superfortress I had back in the old version. It felt epic enough to be worth reincarnating.

...and just finished genning a huge 50-year world. Elves are intact. Guess I'd just been unlucky.

Thanks for the the help- though, I'm thinking about editing the wiki on some of this stuff, it's a bit sparse, so... if you've got anything else about how world gen works, I'd like to hear it.

[Shade-o]

Searching through legends is usually a good way to identify the cause of death. If a civilisation disappears very quickly, their Legends will usually end with "The 89th Rampage of the Dragon Ustoth Cragmenaces the Pallid Joy of Wheel-Lands".

Simply put, the wooden equipment of Elves REALLY sucks in history. It renders them incapable of fending off beasts, and makes them lose almost every war.