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Author Topic: Dead civilization start?  (Read 3478 times)

noirscape

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Dead civilization start?
« on: April 02, 2016, 03:26:43 pm »

So I want to do a 'citizenship' fortress. The idea behind the challenge is basically that after the default 7 starting dwarves + the two forced migrant waves, no more migrants show up and the fort is required to sustain on visitors applying for citizenship and long-term resident visitors having babies.

There are two methods I can use to restrict everything after the first two migrant waves:
  • Lower the migrant population cap. I don't like this because things like traders will still show up.
  • Start out with a dead civ. This is appealing to me, partly because then one of my initial dwarves can become a King, without having the minimum requirement of 80 dwarves.

So yeah, I want to start out with a dead civ as a part of the challenge. Before 0.42.XX hit, starting out with a dead civ was easy: You just made all female dwarves homosexual (just add a oriëntation tag) and let history run for at least 170 years (max lifespan of dwarves) and then removed the code that made them homosexual. With the new visitor mechanic, doing this however causes me to end up with elven fortresses. I want to start with a dead civ, not with a treehugger one. Is there any other tag I can change so that my fort can start with a dead civ. (Note that filling the world with more beasts/adding a lot of Gobbo's to butcher the other raced civilians isn't really appealing to me, as trading with elves and humans is still something important for my challenge.)

Maybe I can download 0.40.24 and generate a world with the tag for homosexual dwarves and then move it to 0.42.XX and remove the tag?
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Dead civilization start?
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2016, 05:42:20 pm »

vjek has a few templates that result in dead civs reasonably often. I've managed to get them by setting maximum number of dwarven civs to one and then generate worlds a lot of times, but getting a dead one with humans and elves still alive is very tricky.

Generating a 0.40.24 fortress and then migrate it isn't a good idea, since a lot of 0.42.X stuff happens during world gen (you'll never get any instruments, for instance, and I don't think your workshops will be able to produce new things such as book cases (or quires).

Also, getting a monarch for a dead civ is difficult. I've heard it has been done by setting up a lot of embarks. I've recently managed to get a dead civ up to a metropolis through births alone (plus three captured gremlins, but they were above that limit). I then retired and recaptured the mountainhome from the FB that killed of the civ in the first place, and I still didn't get a monarch.

Dying/struggling/... civs saddle you with a monarch early, but they send caravans, a trade liaison and unlimited waves of migrants (void dwarves if no historic ones exist). Thus, it seems you want a dead civ, but get a monarch.
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Mostali

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Re: Dead civilization start?
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2016, 08:44:46 pm »

The next issue would be visitors.  I had the last scenario you described - king appointed on first day of spring in the second year, all void-dwarf migrants.  There were no human civs, just goblin, elf and mine (which I couldn't actually find on the map).  I set up all my attractions within the first two years, but didn't get a single visitor for the five years I played the fort.

This has me believing that visitors come from a specific civ, and that if there are no dwarf civs, then you won't get any dwarf visitors.
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Dead civilization start?
« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2016, 02:46:23 am »

All visitors come from civs (and roving bands of vagrants, it seems. I have had two visitors who didn't belong to any civ, but rather vagrant groups based in camps), and are historic persons. If all dwarves are extinct you can't get dwarven visitors, and if your civ is dead there is a very low probability of there actually existing any non necro dwarves in the world, and if they do (I'm not sure it's possible), they're probably members of the (usually goblin) civ that conquered your site and killed off your civ. If you embark sufficiently far away from them that another goblin civ is closer to you, you should theoretically be able to receive a dwarven visitor, but getting one of the 40 dwarves rather than one of the 40000 goblins are slim odds.
Thus, if you want dwarves you should expect to grow them yourself, making aggressive use of pre honeymoon suites and baby making encouragements (it took my dorfs 20 years for the first couple to marry and another 10 for the second one. 10 additional years provided two non marrying lover couples. Some pre honeymoon work raised the number of baby producing couples to 8 [that includes couples formed from the offspring of the first two couples]).
Provided the human and elven civs are sufficiently healthy to produce visitors, you can also get humans, elves, and goblins to get down to fortress population production activities. Animal peoples should work as well, provided you can get a marrying/married couple.
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vjek

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Re: Dead civilization start?
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2016, 09:33:26 am »

It should (might) be possible to make a world where dwarves are dead and goblins, elves and humans are ok.  I'll make an attempt this afternoon.

vjek

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Re: Dead civilization start?
« Reply #5 on: April 03, 2016, 05:53:27 pm »

Yep, works fine.  All races (Humans, Elves, Goblins) show up as neighbors on the embark finder screen. 
Civ screen is empty after embark.  No migrants (after the two hard-coded waves) or liaisons or caravans or sudden promotions to nobility.  Played it out to two years to be sure.
Embark location is steel friendly, with clay, sand, and a tiny aquifer in SE corner, easily ignored or utilized.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Crowbeard

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Re: Dead civilization start?
« Reply #6 on: April 04, 2016, 02:55:55 am »

vjek and PatrikLundell helped me out with dead civs recently, too. Here's that thread.

I decided I wanted a more 'normal' looking world, with all of the civs except dwarves alive. I prefer using v0.42.06 (even though it has its own bugs and I go without DFHACK since it crashes for me occasionally).  After fiddling with vjek's template, I was able to come up with a larger, wetter world with the bigger biomes I like.  The dwarves are properly dead (no living members, blank civ screen after embark, no caravans & only 2 migrant waves), but the elves and humans managed to hang on. And plenty of goblins, of course.

I'll share it in case anyone is interested.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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