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[dreck345]

Hey all! Just got into dwarf fortress recently and am loving it. It's better than many, many games I've played in the past. I've probably spent the better part of a week playing it and I haven't even gotten to the Economy portion of a fortress yet! It seems starting up in different locations is a lot of fun to me.

Anyway, to my point: I am somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to my fortresses and especially when testing out new techniques. I noticed in the older versions of dwarf fortress the mountain face was a fairly straight line with an easy access river. After hours and hours of looking at starting locations, I have not been able to find a smooth fairly straight mountain face to dig into with a flowing river next to it.

If I DO find a good mountain, it is usually haphazard and has cliff levels with sharp dropoffs and is generally hard to do large construction with. I know this is much more realistic, but this IS a game    Can anybody help me find a map that is close to the old version in terms of the straight mountain line and level terrain around it? I don't even need a chasm, magma might be nice, but mostly a river if there is no soil to farm in underneath the ground.

Also in case anybody suggests it- I tried playing the older versions, but there were enough bugs and differences that it put me off on it. I would love the old style map with the absolutely wonderful new features. It doesn't have to be as big, but some similarities would be great.

Thanks everybody! I appreciate any and all help.

Addendum- Will there be either a map editor or a much more customizable map generator with more options in any later versions? I would sacrifice a hundred dwarf lives for this cause.

[slMagnvox]

While I agree it'd be really cool to play the z-level dwarf game in the old 0.23 cliff face and a map editor would be awesome, etc, etc.. I really don't think thats the direction the game will take with its immense emphasis on the world gen.  Learn to love haphazard cliff faces?  Maybe go start a thread in the Modding forum, some of the utilities authors in there are awful clever.

I'm not even sure if finding a straight cliff is possible, the way world gen works everything is pretty crooked and haphazard.  Anyone seen a nice smooth cliff with a river running alongside recently?  If so, definitely post and upload the region to dffd.

[Areyar]

Just start on a reasonably flat-land map with a brook running along an edge, then do some landscaping, digging down next to the river, relocate the river to a lower streambed eventually remove the entire toplayer and carve your home into the bedrock below.
Nice practice for your miners too.

you could live in a temporary diggs which you remove later.

[Exponent]

I've been making some of my fortresses start off with just a ramp downward, often from flat ground.  So on my first real level, I already have stone all around me in all directions, no interference from irregular cliffs, brooks, ponds, and so forth.

Side view from a 3-high cliff:

code:

    #############
    #############
____ ############
####\_ ##########
######\_ ########
########\___TTTTT

Side view from flat ground:

code:

____ ____________
####\_ ##########
######\_ ########
########\___TTTTT

# = wall
_ = floor
\ = ramp
TTTTT = trade depot

If you make it three-wide, wagons can go down it just fine.

I've been making them even deeper than what's shown above, though, because I like to build up above the main floor as well as below it.  Obviously you could choose whatever depth you like, but remember that the game only goes 15 levels below the lowest default level, so the deeper you make the ramps, the fewer levels down you can go from where they end.

[Kogan Loloklam]

I've found flat cliffs for a single square before. You need to decide how picky you plan to be. If you have a 5x5 starting location, you will never find a flat cliff for the entire length, HOWEVER, it is about where your fortress is, not what the rest of the canyon looks like. Just picture the size of your fortress along the length and find a flat cliff. Alternatively, make one. Build a staircase up along the top of a face, and channel out enough of a distance, starting from the top and cliff side, and working your way back to the staircase. Once it is all channeled out, you can "remove stairs", and usually, since it's only a single tower, your miner doesn't die. There are tricks to make it even safer for your miners, but I believe in keeping it simple  

[Othob Rithol]

The easiest and simplest way to sculpt the landscape is this:

1-2 Z levels  : Build Ramps. Remove excess ramps.
3 Z levels : Channel Top, then Designate Ramps on bottom.
4+ Z Levels : Designate up staircases on bottom, down on top, and up/down in between. When finished, channel one level at a time , top to bottom (they can actually channel from the level below a tile). Then remove bottom stairs.

I'm actually working on reshaping a map to be the original style mountain: cliff side, then an underground river (it is in limestone, but it's artificial), followed by the chasm, and then the magma vent. I dug the surface down until I could line the chasm and magma in a straight line on on z level with adequate cliff frontage, and then built the river.

[Shamasu]

Personally I don't like flat cliff. Gimme a cliff that has a valley going into it and I'll build the entrance to my fort at the very end of it and fill the valley with trap, plus build fortification into the walls of the cliff from the inside and have crossbowdwarves patrol it.

[dreck345]

Yes, I know the direction of the game is going elsewhere other than flat cliff-faces. That's perfectly fine, I'd just like a map editor for testing out with that kind of style, though.

I *love* the suggestions about digging out your own landscape basically. It'd take a whole lot of work, but that is actually not a bad plan at all. I'm going to get to it right now.

Valleys are actually my second favorite style. Two mountains on either side with a river running through it is just great.

Thanks all!