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Author Topic: How do you choose a site?  (Read 2651 times)

Plutoman

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Re: How do you choose a site?
« Reply #30 on: December 20, 2010, 12:30:32 am »

Whenever I decide what I want, I'm remarkably picky.  I'll gen 6-7 worlds, customizing settings, trying to get the perfect embark.  However, what I want can change drastically each time I play.

My latest embark, I had found two options.  One was perfect in the layout; but imperfect in the biome.  I wanted a tropical dry broadleaf forest, and not a coniferous forest.  The other had my tropical forest, but was slightly off in the layout.  I had been through several worlds already, and these were the best I'd found, so I decided to make my pick - went with the second.

The layout is relatively nice, but not exactly what I was looking for.  You can generally get a good idea through the elevation tabs.  The first had a little stretch of land leading to an almost island on an ocean, terrifying/terrifying, no flux, couple sedimentary layers.  I was aiming for an island-style without the cutoff from civs.  The second had a large portion of ocean in the embark, but not quite ringing it.  Still had most of the northwestern corner as land - will be settling in the shale beach circle up on that side so I can write my story.
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celem

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Re: How do you choose a site?
« Reply #31 on: December 20, 2010, 03:13:52 am »

I love volcanos, its such a massive time saver not to have to dive 30+ z-levels to find power for forges but be able to tap it off at any level of your choice

Since 31.18 I've not been able to find any of the nice flat volcanos, everything been really cliffy and I hate cliffs

Mainly 'cos you cant see things coming on uneven ground, tired of goblins being uncovered somewhere on the slope but i cant then find em without going through units list anyway.

Embarking on volcanos kind of (read really) limits your options and I do miss my sedementary stone layers.

So either I embark on volcanos and pray for a marble layer or I skip the volcano and make sure I take an area with definate flux and sedementary layers.
Any temperature other than freezing/scorching, any biome type, any savagery/evil, thats all fine

I do mprobably spend more time during embark on the eleveation/cliff tabs.  flat sites are a major thing for me
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Marksdwarf Pillboxes
I wish I had something cool to say about this.  Because it's really cool.

Mickey Blue

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Re: How do you choose a site?
« Reply #32 on: December 20, 2010, 05:53:22 am »

Well if I'm going for a standard "build a fort" game I tend to go for no flowing water (reduces FPS I assume), no aquifer (I can deal with one if I have to), preferably marble.

However, a lot I end up wanting to do what for lack of a better word I'd call a theme fort, be it extra challenge (savage/evil, scorching/freezing (though those have gotten a lot easier with caverns), or whatever).  Sometimes I go for a volcano fortress, or one on the seaside.

-MB
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Daetrin

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Re: How do you choose a site?
« Reply #33 on: December 20, 2010, 09:53:03 am »

I decide what I want to do with my fort before I decide on embark locations. I had been going the flat volcano route (you can get them in .31 but it's more difficult), but I decided to try a flat, 1 cavern layer, aquifer embark for my current fort.  Using worldgen tweaking I increased SMR layers to about 20 so I can actually have a chance at adamantine.  So far, only one cave-in!

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All you need to know about Ardentdikes
It is really, really easy to flood this place with magma fwiw.

Doors stop fire, right?

Nameless Archon

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Re: How do you choose a site?
« Reply #34 on: December 20, 2010, 11:17:28 am »

I recently started a new fort on a flat area, and it's AWESOME to build crazy constructions on!  Plus, flatness + Stonesense = win.  When I play flat places, I gen the world with 10-15 layers above the first cavern.  That way I can fit everything I want below ground, and still have enough resources to do stuff above ground.
This.

I embark in swamps, with modded-out aquifers and decent (mid to high) savagery, where there is sand and sedimentary (flux) present, plenty of trees and soil (for tree farms and easy early excavation) and then build everything underground in my 15 levels of stone above the first cavern. Plenty of room to be dwarfy without struggling with rage-inducing cliffy-ness. The other advantage is that there's not a lot of wide variety in the stone of a Z-level - if it's flux at point A, it's probably still flux at point B, rather than having an upthrust of different stone from lower levels that offends my OCDness.

I've done half-and-half embarks, the trick is finding one with a brook, plenty of trees, and decent wildlife. After that, it's much like playing on flat land, really, except I can simply build fortifications in the side of the mountain instead of having to use masons to assemble a curtain wall and defenses. It's slower to get the excavation done, and provides less opportunity to train miners from scratch than the massive soil levels, but it's not a bad place to set up. (My favorite non-flat embarks are river valleys.)
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mrtspence

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Re: How do you choose a site?
« Reply #35 on: December 20, 2010, 11:39:12 am »

I've started embarking to places with awesome names, current one is a terrifying glacier named "the blizzard of fists", how great is that? To be honest, I prefer sedimentary layers (easy steel), but I just go straight for adamantine if there is none.
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mrbobbyg

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Re: How do you choose a site?
« Reply #36 on: December 20, 2010, 01:14:29 pm »

The way I play this game, it really should be called Worldgen Fortress.

10-20 worlds is not unusual.

I really, really like mixed embarks, with good z level variation, but no crazy cliffs.
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!!Elves!! would actually be kinda cool as a civ symbol.  !!Clowns!!, however, you get the impression they're on fire of their own free, malicious, evil, will.

Also, much scarier if literally clowns.

Rowanas

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Re: How do you choose a site?
« Reply #37 on: December 20, 2010, 01:18:23 pm »

Volcano, running water, some form of shrub/tree. I'm not picky, but it's still hard to find what I'm looking for.
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I agree with Urist. Steampunk is like Darth Vader winning Holland's Next Top Model. It would be awesome but not something I'd like in this game.
Unfortunately dying involves the amputation of the entire body from the dwarf.

Korva

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Re: How do you choose a site?
« Reply #38 on: December 21, 2010, 06:27:40 am »

My "must-haves" are flux and at least some vegetation, plus magma and water not too far from the surface because digging down 30+ levels for either is annoying, nevermind building a pump stack that high. That aside, I have a strong preference for savage embarks since it adds interesting critters. Having sand and sedimentary stone is great too. On the issue of flat versus steep, I'm torn. Digging down into flat ground doesn't feel as stylish to me, but playing on a map with a 15-odd level cliff does show that it can be a pain to track units down. As a compromise, I like having at least a small hill to dig into, ideally as a stone layer.
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