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[BFEL]

So I dont know if this has ever been done before, so heres potentially the first ever Embark Creation Contest!

Rules: 1.Contestants have a number of days (to be decided by the community) to find ways to turn the embark site of their choice into the stuff of nightmares.
          2.This may be accomplished through tweaking the worldgen parameters, changing the embark options and modding of the raw files.
          3.The embark must be sustainable for a minimum of 1 in game year, so it must contain essentials such as food, booze and picks (or at the very least, the possibility to create them)
          4.After the contestants have created their embark sites, a team of judges, composed of veteran players, will embark in a save immediately after embark.
          5.All judges will play all embarks, in order of sign-up, and chronicle the ensuing carnage.
          6.After all embarks have been played through the judges will cast their vote for the most !FUN!

So whos with me on this?
Anyone who wishes to sign up to create an embark, or to judge need only say so.
Also any amendments to the rules?

[joeclark77]

My suggestion would be to make it the "most interesting hardship" rather than just the "hardest".  I think a terrifying rocky wasteland or terrifying glacier with aquifer, no trees or plants, and no pick would be the "hardest" and you'll get a lot of entries that are pretty similar.  Instead you might challenge everyone to come up with one *interesting* hardship.  Like, flying air-breathing carp.  Or trees weigh 10x as much as usual and wheelbarrows are foreign.

[BFEL]

My suggestion would be to make it the "most interesting hardship" rather than just the "hardest".  I think a terrifying rocky wasteland or terrifying glacier with aquifer, no trees or plants, and no pick would be the "hardest" and you'll get a lot of entries that are pretty similar.  Instead you might challenge everyone to come up with one *interesting* hardship.  Like, flying air-breathing carp.  Or trees weigh 10x as much as usual and wheelbarrows are foreign.

Those are EXACTLY the type of things that I am looking for in this contest, and not just one either, the basic idea is to load up the embark sites with all the crazy difficulty curves that the contestant can come up with without making the embark an instant kill. Whether those come in the form of making the entire world hot enough to melt dwarves that stay outside too long, secretly making all common domestic animals into werebeasts or any other ridiculousness that our contestants come up with.

The intent, as you have pointed out, isn't just to make the embark hard, but to do it in creative and unexpected ways. Apologies for not being clear in that regard.

[Meph]

You cant do this with worldgen settings, you would need to start modding for this...

[slothen]

I participated in a succession fortress where the creator embarked on a flat wooded swamp with no picks/mining/mechanisms and the fortress defense mod, with the extra caveat of no traps and the majority of the fortress must be accessible by wagon at all times.  He got bored by autumn of the first year and I kept it going for another year and a half.  2-man training squads, some marksdwarves, and some scavenged weapons and leather armor made it surprisingly manageable.  Doubt it'll work so easily after the combat updates coming.

[BFEL]

You cant do this with worldgen settings, you would need to start modding for this...

Which is well within the bounds of the contest, only included the worldgen settings thing because I like making the world melt people.

So yes I realize that this is pretty much a modding contest, just figured that kinda thing hasn't been done before (to my knowledge)

[peregarrett]

!!Fun!! thing. But a few things are unclear.
What are the conventional ways ofcausing nightmare? Worldgen tweaks, handicaps, modding, hacking? Because with two latter ones it's simple to make dwarven clothings insta-burn on unpausing, or cause magma tsunami on whole embark, or whatever.

My personal style would be based on vanilla terrifying region - it tends to crumble down very quickly and do that !!fun!! way. Espesially if combined with handicaps like "No Atom Smashers" or "No traps" or "No archers" and so on.

[chaosgear]

 This sounds super awesome!
I've never modded before, but this may convince me to start. What is the limit on modding? Custom races? New weather?

[smakemupagus]

Well, I have two nominees from the existing legends

(1) The well known community challenge Reclaim of Battlefailed, was a legendarily tough embark.  If reclaims count.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=57052.0  The save is here
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=76193.msg1929368#msg1929368  The reclaim story

(2) I don't know if I'm going to be able to find it, but there was a challenge posted on here at one point, about a tiny volcanic island that would actually erupt, and not only did the dwarves only have a couple dozen useable tiles to work with, they had to stay safe from the eruptions.  It was pretty epic.

Here it is, "Shipwreched" by Crashmaster
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=118266.msg3733013#msg3733013

[Meph]

There was also a "planet" embark, were people recreated the temperature on different planets. One was a star, our sun. Everything on the surface died withing a few seconds. Naturally, someone "won". Magma-safe picks, no clothing, dig underground instantly. Make access tunnels near the map edge for migrants. Invaders sort themselves out.

[Urist McKiwi]

Invaders sort themselves out.

You mean "explode". And it was hilarious.

[BFEL]

!!Fun!! thing. But a few things are unclear.
What are the conventional ways ofcausing nightmare? Worldgen tweaks, handicaps, modding, hacking? Because with two latter ones it's simple to make dwarven clothings insta-burn on unpausing, or cause magma tsunami on whole embark, or whatever.

My personal style would be based on vanilla terrifying region - it tends to crumble down very quickly and do that !!fun!! way. Espesially if combined with handicaps like "No Atom Smashers" or "No traps" or "No archers" and so on.

This sounds super awesome!
I've never modded before, but this may convince me to start. What is the limit on modding? Custom races? New weather?

Well as for limits as I explained (poorly) in the OP, no "insta-death" hacks or mods. The fort must remain playable for at least a year.
Other then that you can pretty much go nuts, new weather, custom races, exploding ore.....just so long as an experienced player could theoretically make a successful fortress.

Well, I have two nominees from the existing legends

(1) The well known community challenge Reclaim of Battlefailed, was a legendarily tough embark.  If reclaims count.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=76193.msg1929368#msg1929368

(2) I don't know if I'm going to be able to find it, but there was a challenge posted on here at one point, about a tiny volcanic island that would actually erupt, and not only did the dwarves only have a couple dozen useable tiles to work with, they had to stay safe from the eruptions.  It was pretty epic.

Here it is, "Shipwreched" by Crashmaster
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=118266.msg3733013#msg3733013

hmmm I was mostly looking for newly created embarks, but I suppose if alot of people want to allow these then I have no problem with it.......but do they have playable saves up?

And Meph and Urist? A clever modder could make gobbos immune to killy conditions outside....yeah this contest is gonna be fun

[smakemupagus]

hmmm I was mostly looking for newly created embarks, but I suppose if alot of people want to allow these then I have no problem with it.......but do they have playable saves up?

I have no real opinion on whether they should count, just those are what came to mind when I saw the thread. 
Shipwreched is definitely still up. 

Battlefailed presumably is too, you'd have to go back to the original thread (hall of legends).
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=57052.0

[Talanic]

How about something similar to RockyWires?  I'm afraid it failed as a community fortress but the concept might have some potential as a challenge map.

I used modding and hack tools to create a map with a partially-hidden, infested fortress that needed the player to clear it, section by section.  RockyWires itself wouldn't work for this challenge because it would be easy to just dig in a different place, bypassing the threat entirely, but I think it has potential for fun.

It requires more time spent to set it up - I wound up using the entire spring - but it allows for scenarios that aren't possible under normal modding conditions.

[chaosgear]

How about something similar to RockyWires?  I'm afraid it failed as a community fortress but the concept might have some potential as a challenge map.

I used modding and hack tools to create a map with a partially-hidden, infested fortress that needed the player to clear it, section by section.  RockyWires itself wouldn't work for this challenge because it would be easy to just dig in a different place, bypassing the threat entirely, but I think it has potential for fun.

It requires more time spent to set it up - I wound up using the entire spring - but it allows for scenarios that aren't possible under normal modding conditions.

I had a similar idea that's impossible to bypass by simply digging elsewhere.

Have a MASSIVE prebuilt fortress between the soil and stone layer that takes up the entire map. They need to get through this fortress dungeon layer to get to stone, and they won't have any way to dig around or otherwise avoid it.
It'll be perfectly survivable, but the growth of the fortress will be limited until the dungeon is dealt with. The challenger will be able to play it at their own pace.

There could also be multiple dungeons and multiple layers. One before the cavern layer, and one before the magma sea. You'll have a different challenge for each resource.