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Poll

What sort of regional qualities do you look for in an a proper embark site?  Pick up to four.

Evil
- 21 (3.5%)
Nuetral
- 37 (6.1%)
Good
- 19 (3.1%)
High Savagery
- 75 (12.3%)
Medium Savagery
- 13 (2.1%)
Low Savagery
- 3 (0.5%)
Tundra
- 5 (0.8%)
Deserts
- 15 (2.5%)
Forests
- 61 (10%)
Plains
- 8 (1.3%)
Mountains
- 25 (4.1%)
Wetlands
- 3 (0.5%)
Glaciers
- 5 (0.8%)
Caves
- 5 (0.8%)
Waterfalls
- 26 (4.3%)
Volcanos
- 58 (9.5%)
Nearby Towers
- 25 (4.1%)
Rivers or Streams
- 70 (11.5%)
The Intersection of Multiple Biomes
- 62 (10.2%)
Tropical
- 23 (3.8%)
Temperate
- 23 (3.8%)
Cold
- 8 (1.3%)
Other: Special Regional Features Not Mentioned Above
- 18 (3%)

Total Members Voted: 168


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Author Topic: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?  (Read 12827 times)

Button

  • Bay Watcher
  • Plants Specialist
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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #15 on: June 24, 2014, 12:32:37 pm »

and a circus tent or two.

It's impossible to have more than one tent on a single embark; only one gens per 14x14 world square.
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I used to work on Modest Mod and Plant Fixes.

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flame99

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  • Lady Stardust & her songs of darkness and disgrace
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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #16 on: June 24, 2014, 01:00:46 pm »

I've never really minded animalmen myself; why do people seem to have such a hatred for them?

Anyways, I like to embark on river gorges, myself. I also usually go for untamed wilds and the like, but I'll gladly go for lower savagery if the terrain's good.
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It/its, they/them, in order of preference.

Not gay as in happy, queer as in fuck you.

nimbus25

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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #17 on: June 24, 2014, 01:03:43 pm »

I've never really minded animalmen myself; why do people seem to have such a hatred for them?
I don't hate most of them. If they're aggressive and want to kill everything, that can get annoying.
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ancistrus

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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #18 on: June 24, 2014, 01:05:01 pm »

I've never really minded animalmen myself; why do people seem to have such a hatred for them?

Because of what I said. There is nothing inherently wrong with them, but there are interesting/cuddly animals that I can't get because the animal men keep spawning. They are the organic equivalent of galena.
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kingubu

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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #19 on: June 24, 2014, 01:55:02 pm »

First of all, don't be bad mouthin' galena. :P

I love embarking on the shores of lakes and oceans.  Which is an "other" for some reason.

Very relaxing sitting on the shore watching the waves roll in. Enjoying the sharks skipping along the water then realizing it's not a shark, a tantruming dwarf has thrown your anvil into the ocean.  True story.
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Iamblichos

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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #20 on: June 24, 2014, 01:55:49 pm »

They are the organic equivalent of galena.

ROFLMAO... awesome line.  :)
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I'm new to succession forts in general, yes, but do all forts designed by multiple overseers inevitably degenerate into a body-filled labyrinth of chaos and despair like this? Or is this just a Battlefailed thing?

There isn't much middle ground between killed-by-dragon and never-seen-by-dragon.

PDF urist master

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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #21 on: June 24, 2014, 02:09:30 pm »

sphalerite is more accurate.

I always choose high savagery, on one hand, you get more animalmen, but on the other hand, you have a chance for truly interesting creatures to spawn, like giant desert scorpions, giant tigers or giant badgers. You have to take the good with the bad.

other than that, I prioritize plains and forests over all other biomes, warm or hot over all other temperatures, and neutral over good or evil. I feel that it gives me the most optimal start in order to get some truly interesting things to happen.
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We are not evil by choice, but evil by necessity.

JAFANZ

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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #22 on: June 24, 2014, 02:29:25 pm »

I currently mostly do Serene with clay & "high drainage".

Fire clay is nice, but Sand is easier to find..
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Melting Sky

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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #23 on: June 24, 2014, 02:34:01 pm »

First of all, don't be bad mouthin' galena. :P

I love embarking on the shores of lakes and oceans.  Which is an "other" for some reason.

Very relaxing sitting on the shore watching the waves roll in. Enjoying the sharks skipping along the water then realizing it's not a shark, a tantruming dwarf has thrown your anvil into the ocean.  True story.

Yeah, that's one location that didn't occur to me while I was making the poll and it probably should have been on there. An ocean front fort is pretty neat. That's why I put the "other" option, to cover things I may have forgotten or didn't think of.
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nimbus25

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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #24 on: June 24, 2014, 02:42:10 pm »

First of all, don't be bad mouthin' galena. :P

I love embarking on the shores of lakes and oceans.  Which is an "other" for some reason.

Very relaxing sitting on the shore watching the waves roll in. Enjoying the sharks skipping along the water then realizing it's not a shark, a tantruming dwarf has thrown your anvil into the ocean.  True story.
Thank you! I like Galena, it's the only decent source of silver half the time :/
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escondida

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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #25 on: June 24, 2014, 02:53:05 pm »

I really like forested embarks,  preferably with a waterfall I can dam and then use for projects. I'd love to find one with a hill smack in the middle, but can never seen to find one. Also, I've found that aquifers are very, very useful, so I tend to like having multiple biomes so I can bypass the aquifer relatively painlessly.
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ancistrus

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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #26 on: June 24, 2014, 03:30:43 pm »

sphalerite is more accurate.


I wanted to, but there already is an organic equivalent of sphalerite and he is a pretty cool guy.
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EvilBob22

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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #27 on: June 24, 2014, 03:43:23 pm »

and a circus tent or two.

It's impossible to have more than one tent on a single embark; only one gens per 14x14 world square.
If I'm not mistaken, only one gens per 16x16 world square.

On topic, I almost always go for high savagery, but other settings change frequently -- although now that I think about it, my sites are usually relatively flat.  Also, my animal-men are set to a lower frequency.  I like the flavor of having them, but at the default setting it feels like the normal and giant animals are replaced by swarms of different kinds of animal-men; non-tameable, non-butcherable animal-men.
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I will run the experiment to completion anyway, however. Even if the only reason why there is a punctured equilibrium in the fortress is because I have been brutally butchering babies
EDIT: I just remembered that dwarves can't equip halberds. That might explain why the squads that use them always die.

jwest23

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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #28 on: June 24, 2014, 03:59:49 pm »

I'd love to find one with a hill smack in the middle, but can never seen to find one.

If anyone has a secret for finding or generating this sort of formation more frequently, I'd like to know about it.  Every embark I hope that this will be the one where I've got a natural setup for a good motte-and-bailey style castle.  I never land near a sizable hill in the center of the map.

One day, I hope to be able to move dirt from the ditch and build the hill myself.  Feels strange to do it in stone, but I'm not above it.
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Melting Sky

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Re: What Are Your Favorite Biomes and Geographical Features to Embark To?
« Reply #29 on: June 24, 2014, 04:35:39 pm »

I'd love to find one with a hill smack in the middle, but can never seen to find one.

If anyone has a secret for finding or generating this sort of formation more frequently, I'd like to know about it.  Every embark I hope that this will be the one where I've got a natural setup for a good motte-and-bailey style castle.  I never land near a sizable hill in the center of the map.

One day, I hope to be able to move dirt from the ditch and build the hill myself.  Feels strange to do it in stone, but I'm not above it.

I think the biggest problem is the scale that the terrain is generated on vs the scale that the embark sites exist upon. The world map's smallest features tend to be so large as to completely dominate a 3 x 3 embark area. For instance if you have a volcano which is one of the more compact features on the map, it will still take up like half of your embark area if you include the mountain around the magma pipe. This would actually make a great idea for a suggestion to Toady. To have world generation create another layer of smaller and more detailed local geological formations that can be appreciated on an embark scale.

If you look at the world map through ISOWorld you can see all these awesomely varied and rich landscapes but they exist on too large a scale to be enjoyed at the embark level for the most part. For instance you will find these massive canyon systems in the overworld map and then when you go to embark there you realize that your entire embark sits at the bottom of the canyon and is essentially a flat plain with a huge river on one side. If you find what looks like a lone mountain peak out in the plains somewhere and you embark to it because it looks awesome, you realize the lone mountain is actually the size of 15 embark sites.

I've found by creating odd shaped embarks you can get slices out of the larger terrain that are occasionally big enough to give an impression of the greater landscape without completely destroying your FPS. For instance with a 2 x 6 embark you can sometimes fit a cross section of an entire small canyon into an embark with both walls present but often even going with a wide slice embark like this isn't enough to fit in the feature you wanted. Many of the smaller geological features are absolutely huge compared to an embark area. It really would be cool if there were some smaller features such as foothills, mesas, bluffs etc. that existed within the greater terrain of the world map.
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