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[AquiziTC]

So I've dabbled in DF for a long time now. I can make a self-sufficient fort. I've read the Legends (Syrupleaf being my favorite, and I personally know the guy who did Glazedcoast!.. we've been playing games together for years now).

I think I'm ready for a public game, but I'm hesitant. I know the basics, military, traps, caves, thriving food industry... but some of the other things I don't know too well... aquifers, pumps, etc.
But live and learn, right? I want one of those old RP forts, where the dwarves have personality! Syrupleaf I read and reread and REREAD because of that very thing. (<3 Sirocco, Glazedcoast!'s strength was in its narrative) I guess that lends itself more to a succession game? I dunno. Thoughts? Volunteers?

If succession, I can easily start one, I'm actually pretty good at starting a fort. I'd likely think about a volcano (or maybe not, make someone else hit the magma below), no special rules, never done evil before (Joyous Wilds is fun though, unicorn heart for EVERYONE!).

Anyway, back to thoughts? Volunteers?

[Grim Portent]

Succession games are great fun and good for narrative since so much can happen under each different players turn. My personal favorites are forts subjected to great dangers, undead, necromancers, lots of enemies and evil weather are always good.

If you do start up a game I might be up for a turn, depending on the fort location and it's perils.

[WoobMonkey]

I'm just jumping in to succession forts, as a player - so yeah, count me in.

I prefer Joyous/Terrifying overlaps, 'cause the only thing more fun than a fortress made of unicorn soap, is a fortress made of unicorn soap that's being attacked by undead elephants!

But hey, that's just me.  And yeah, like so many others, it was reading the tales of Boatmurdered that turned me from 'casually interested in this quirky game' to 'hardcore addict to this digital crack cocaine,' so I get what you're saying about the narratives/RPing being a major draw in these sorts of community games.

Let's do this!

[4maskwolf]

I'm in.  And yeah, Syrupleaf is the best by far.  Sorry, Boatmurdered.

[AquiziTC]

Well I just embarked on my first evil biome. It began to rain filthy ooze after about 5 days. Then everyone's lungs liquified... soooo... yeah.

Anyway, if people want to do a succession, I'm down with that. Consensus needed on embark location!
Go!

[Grevenis]

I'd be interested in doing this, also a person with a bit of DF experience and a great interest in storytelling through DF. As for the embark, it doesn't matter much to me, though I'm unused to dealing with aquifers.

[Kolnukbyne]

I'd be interested in joining!
I think the best embark would be a savage biome with enough dangerous neighbours to make things interesting. Without aquifers would be preferable because those things are flippin' annoying.

[WoobMonkey]

Really?  I find, the more evil and savage the biome, the more necessary it is to have an aquifer - secure, underground, unlimited freshwater is often the difference between life and undeath - especially if there are evil clouds or rain about.

When in a frozen area, they're easy to pierce.  When in a temperate zone, there're usually plenty of sources of lumber about to build pumps.

But I'm easy on that issue.  I do, however, vote that we look especially keenly for sand, clay, and surface lava tubes.  Then having/not having an aquifer is not an issue - we can build with clay bricks, and defend ourselves with serrated green glass disks, with only a few scant rocks, if the aquifer is too difficult to get through.

Personally, I prefer having a flat plain at the base of a sheer cliff (Degelgongith[Galleysquid]-style).  But that's just one voice - what's everyone sayin' on this?

Oh, and I also vote NO on river/stream/brook availability.  With an aqui, this doesn't really matter (except for fishing, but meh); without one, it makes taming at least cavern level 1 a high priority.

Just my pair o' pennies.

[Kolnukbyne]

I don't think I've ever been in a situation where an aquifer would have really been useful to me.

I totally support lava tubes and sand (I really like embarking in deserts).
As far as geology, I prefer flatter areas, coasts/beaches and deserts/rocky wastelands. The scarcity of trees in the latter two make things more interesting and encourage me to begin smelting as soon as possible.

[WoobMonkey]

An infinite source of flowing water is *always* useful.  Then again, I tend toward playing Single-Pick Challenge forts - no aquifer = no surviving past the first couple months, in those circumstances.

Anyways, I was playing around with advanced parameters, and came up with this:

Spoiler: parameters (click to show/hide)

[WORLD_GEN]
   [TITLE:MEDIUM REGION]
   [SEED:Get Dorfed!]
   [HISTORY_SEED:No, Really]
   [DIM:129:129]
   [EMBARK_POINTS:1324]
   [END_YEAR:350]
   [BEAST_END_YEAR:125:5]
   [REVEAL_ALL_HISTORY:1]
   [CULL_HISTORICAL_FIGURES:0]
   [ELEVATION:100:400:3200:3200]
   [RAINFALL:0:100:3200:3200]
   [TEMPERATURE:25:75:200:200]
   [DRAINAGE:0:100:200:200]
   [VOLCANISM:15:100:200:200]
   [SAVAGERY:0:100:200:200]
   [ELEVATION_FREQUENCY:2:4:6:3:2:1]
   [RAIN_FREQUENCY:2:5:4:3:2:1]
   [DRAINAGE_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
   [TEMPERATURE_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
   [SAVAGERY_FREQUENCY:2:1:2:3:4:7]
   [VOLCANISM_FREQUENCY:2:1:2:3:5:8]
   [MINERAL_SCARCITY:250]
   [MEGABEAST_CAP:45]
   [SEMIMEGABEAST_CAP:80]
   [TITAN_NUMBER:15]
   [TITAN_ATTACK_TRIGGER:80:0:100000]
   [DEMON_NUMBER:28]
   [NIGHT_TROLL_NUMBER:14]
   [BOGEYMAN_NUMBER:14]
   [VAMPIRE_NUMBER:14]
   [WEREBEAST_NUMBER:14]
   [SECRET_NUMBER:28]
   [REGIONAL_INTERACTION_NUMBER:28]
   [DISTURBANCE_INTERACTION_NUMBER:28]
   [EVIL_CLOUD_NUMBER:20]
   [EVIL_RAIN_NUMBER:20]
   [GOOD_SQ_COUNTS:13:125:251]
   [EVIL_SQ_COUNTS:50:500:1000]
   [PEAK_NUMBER_MIN:10]
   [PARTIAL_OCEAN_EDGE_MIN:0]
   [COMPLETE_OCEAN_EDGE_MIN:0]
   [VOLCANO_MIN:25]
   [REGION_COUNTS:SWAMP:0:0:0]
   [REGION_COUNTS:DESERT:0:0:0]
   [REGION_COUNTS:FOREST:0:0:0]
   [REGION_COUNTS:MOUNTAINS:0:0:0]
   [REGION_COUNTS:OCEAN:0:0:0]
   [REGION_COUNTS:GLACIER:0:0:0]
   [REGION_COUNTS:TUNDRA:0:0:0]
   [REGION_COUNTS:GRASSLAND:0:0:0]
   [REGION_COUNTS:HILLS:0:0:0]
   [EROSION_CYCLE_COUNT:0]
   [RIVER_MINS:10:10]
   [PERIODICALLY_ERODE_EXTREMES:0]
   [OROGRAPHIC_PRECIPITATION:1]
   [SUBREGION_MAX:5000]
   [CAVERN_LAYER_COUNT:3]
   [CAVERN_LAYER_OPENNESS_MIN:90]
   [CAVERN_LAYER_OPENNESS_MAX:100]
   [CAVERN_LAYER_PASSAGE_DENSITY_MIN:0]
   [CAVERN_LAYER_PASSAGE_DENSITY_MAX:40]
   [CAVERN_LAYER_WATER_MIN:25]
   [CAVERN_LAYER_WATER_MAX:100]
   [HAVE_BOTTOM_LAYER_1:1]
   [HAVE_BOTTOM_LAYER_2:1]
   [LEVELS_ABOVE_GROUND:20]
   [LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_1:5]
   [LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_2:1]
   [LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_3:1]
   [LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_4:1]
   [LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_5:2]
   [LEVELS_AT_BOTTOM:1]
   [CAVE_MIN_SIZE:5]
   [CAVE_MAX_SIZE:25]
   [MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN:30]
   [NON_MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN:60]
   [ALL_CAVES_VISIBLE:0]
   [SHOW_EMBARK_TUNNEL:2]
   [TOTAL_CIV_NUMBER:75]
   [TOTAL_CIV_POPULATION:15000]
   [SITE_CAP:5000]
   [PLAYABLE_CIVILIZATION_REQUIRED:1]
   [ELEVATION_RANGES:0:0:0]
   [RAIN_RANGES:0:0:0]
   [DRAINAGE_RANGES:0:0:0]
   [SAVAGERY_RANGES:0:0:0]
   [VOLCANISM_RANGES:0:0:0]

Spoiler: map (click to show/hide)

There aren't any towers that I noticed, but I do like the wide swathes of magenta on the map.  Also, note that there are roughly double the MegaBeasts, Titans, and cave populations than usual.  I dunno; use this, tweak it, throw it away - just looks like a fun sort of map, littered with nifty places to set up shop.

BTW - are we setting a population cap?

[AquiziTC]

As for pop caps and stuff, this is generally my init:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I generally run with a 500 mineral scarcity (to try and keep flux from disappearing), a 2013 year history (I like Glazedcoast!'s approach to that, plus tons more engraving/artifact possibilities), but I've never played with volcanism weights before. Is there a sweet spot to get high magma tubes without losing sedimentary layers?
What are our metal minimums? Iron? Iron and flux? Just bronze?
I'm comfortable with both flat embarks and hillside embarks, though I've never flooded a farm before, so mountainside may be trickier. I've never played without some trees, but I can manage one year with embark logs for beds and make someone else worry about cavern lumber.
I'm usually a big hunter/meat industry guy. And an experienced hunter on a savage map can be quite interesting. Plus tallow. Lovely soap-making tallow. That said, I'm just super good at keeping food stocks high.

Ok so.. I think consensus would be untamed or joyous wilds (I may have this obsessive dream about having a squad of hunter/marksdwarves clad entirely in unicorn leather). Desert is riskier there due to GDS, at least compared to other biomes. River not necessary, apparently, I'm going to vote against an aquifer, so that really just means it's down to the magma and metal question.

[WoobMonkey]

What do you mean by 'keep flux from disappearing?'  If you're talking about how it stops showing up on the pre-embark radar when scarcity is low, that's just because it's everywhere, and doesn't need to be shown specifically.

100 seems low for a pop cap.  Don't we need at least 150 to get to mountainhome status?

As to metals - I personally don't care.  There's always Goblinite to mine; all that requires is a few logs for xbows, and the bones of our fallen enemies for ammo!

[Grimmash]

I'm down for trying trickier embarks.  I don't really like aquifers, but they present an interestin challenge and water.  If you pick something without trees, having a magma tube/volcano would be useful.  I like having iron over other ores.  Iron is the dwarfiest of metals.

[AquiziTC]

I can bump it to 200 easy. If I'm doing the embark, -I- won't have to worry about 200 dwarves, buahahaha.

Ok, so someone crib notes me on volcanism weighting and I'll play with that and find a savage badlands/desert to strike.

[WoobMonkey]

Easy.  Set 'Minimum Volcanism' to a non-zero integer (I find about 20-25 works fine); also, set 'Minimum Volcanoes' to a higher number (default, IIRC, is about 3 - try closer to 30 or so).

As to making deserts, just weight the rainfall 0-20 much higher than the rest of the values.  I find it also helps to set the 'minimum regions' values on *everything* to 'none,' to avoid rejection after rejection when genning the world.

If you're looking for flatter areas, set erosion to the max (1k, iirc), and make sure to enable 'periodic erosion.'  If we want a cliff face, do the opposite - as little erosion as possible creates sheer cliff-faces.  That *should* cover it.