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[CyberianK]

Hello everybody,

I played quite some DF but the whole embark location thing is still a mystery to me.
I know what the different environments are and how to search for an embark location with resources that I want. But I don't know what the range is for other civilizations and special locations to occur.

I had a couples of really nice locations only to realize later that I get no goblins to siege me which ended up too boring. Also sometimes I did not get elves although they were on that continent or I there was a wizards tower not very far but the wizard did not pay a visit. I would like to have an interesting game so is there a guide somewhere or some basic tips what range goblin civs or special locations have to be in to work?

[neblime]

this is more to do with bugs/changes introduced in 40.x
in 34.11 it doesnt matter what your exact location was as long as goblins (or another civ you're at war with or tower) are close enough site sieges will arrive at some point.
to verify this on the embark screen cycle menus with tab, on the one that says neighbors you should have a list including goblins, "Tower", or elves/humans with "War" next to them, if you don't you are either too far away or separated by terrain features

however since 40.x armies actually have to travel across the map/have a reason to go there/be made of people who actually exist in order to get to your fortress, and that doesn't seem to be working perfectly at this time.
Necromancers generally have the highest chance of sieging your fortress from what i've seen, but watch out undead are very strong in 40.x

[Shonai_Dweller]

Neighbours: Goblins

Won't guarantee them because there's still a bug in place.
They also might be attacking other sites/being attacked by a bunch of humans/elves/other dwarves
so best to keep away from other sites if it's possible.

Remember they won't turn up until you reach a population of 80.

[neblime]

Remember they won't turn up until you reach a population of 80.

is that still a thing in 40.x?

[CyberianK]

thank you I always overlooked that Neighbors screens thats what I was looking for

but yes that bug is unfortunate but I want to play 40.x
I think I will do some embarks and save at the beginning then just let it run quickly to 80 pop without doing much serious play and see if sieges happen and if they don't start some other game but if they happen I start over from day 1

[Shonai_Dweller]

Remember they won't turn up until you reach a population of 80.

is that still a thing in 40.x?

Yes, easily modded to 50 or 20 though.

[PatrikLundell]

The below largely covers what's been said already:

The neighbors screen is the first step, after ensuring visually the enemies are present. I don't really use the neighbor screen for enemy range purposes, though, but for non enemy trade access (if listed, they ought to send caravans), as well as to detect if the goblins are at war with me or just generally hostile (I haven't seen any difference between war and general hostility in the sieges, though; they seem to be about the same). Obviously, you can also see if you happen to be at war with elves and/or humans, which happens occasionally.

The best way to attract goblins is to embark closer to them than they are to any other settlement. The same should go with black towers.

Black towers have no pop cap threshold: they can arrive in the first summer. Also, undead armies are badly bugged path finding wise when arriving, so there is a large risk the army will drift randomly along the embark edge for a season or a year before leaving, without ever getting near your fortress. Undead that happen to stumble on your fortress rush in, but the do not communicate, so the rest won't come, unless one that stumbled on the fortress entrance happens to be one of the living handlers, in which case the handled undead follow the handler.

Pop cap thresholds are easily changed (I wouldn't even call it modding, since it's more tuning). Check the wiki for PROGRESS_TRIGGER_. There's one set for each civilization type. There is a similar parameter for titan/megabeast attacks that also defaults to 80.

[Zuglarkun]

To build on what has already been said, the range in which goblins are considered neighbors is 30 tiles and 10 tiles for towers on the embark map. Be sure that they are indicated on the neighbors screen when choosing an embark location. This information can be found on the wiki. You'll want to be the sole settlement closest in range to that civilization to increase the odds of them besieging you. If there are other sites in range, they might siege those instead, though they can and will send sieges to multiple sites in a year.

Another thing is to have patience. 34.11 invaders were generated from out of thin air. In 40.xx, they are plucked out of the population numbers for the civilization. They might take 3-4 years to arrive once you hit the 80 pop cap threshold. In 34.11 they used to send baby snatchers at you while you were under the 80 pop cap threshold, so that was an early indicator. But baby snatchers are bugged at the moment (though they still happen outside of your fort). First contact is usually a siege party of 10, which scales up quite a bit later on.

I understand that it is tedious and not everyone's cup of tea, but if you want to increase your odds of getting the location you want, plus getting sieges and all that fun stuff, your best bet is to learn how to manipulate the world generator to create the maps and conditions that suit your tastes. I've seen sieges of 100+ and averages of 50-60 are common on the maps I play, which have multiple civs to increase odds of the site I want being in range of some goblins, as well as getting the all the neighbors. The sweet spot for me is year 200-250 on world gen so all civilizations have some time to build up. Usually some civs are wiped out by then so it all balances out as no civ is too dominant.

[Daris]

Play with the advanced world generation parameters to increase the number of civilizations.  In a medium-sized world, 200 civs usually gives me ample embark spots with all the neighbors without causing too many rejections.  Goblins also need some evil regions to exist.  If you see goblins on your neighbors list, in my experience they will eventually show up, but it may be several years before you see them.  If you abandon forts after a couple of years, you may not ever see a goblin siege.

[Max™]

Relevant: tower numbers increase linearly with civ numbers.

More civs = more death gods = more necrofun!

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

Cunning Plan:

1) Add [civ_controllable] or whatever to goblin entity raws.

2) Find a nice place to embark.

3) Embark as gobbos nearby, with military skills & equipment. (Trolls seem to cost only 1 point)

3a) Optionally DFHack in random equipment and creatures.

4) Retire.

5) Repeat steps 3-4 to taste.

6) Embark as dwarves.

[lukstra]

It also might just take a few years for sieges to start happening. In most of my forts I had to wait a few years before getting sieges consistently every year.

[k33n]

If you make a small world and start at year 5 then you end up getting *more* sieges then older versions.

[CyberianK]

what I did in my latest embark is I looked around with legends viewer where the goblin civs capitals are and looked for embark sites directly next to them:

hopefully that helps

[Max™]

Use img width=650 inside of spoilers and it is generally legible without being table-breaking, and it can be clicked for full-size.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)