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[Halnoth]

Is it just me or does embark geography seem more interesting. So far, out of 12 embarks I have had 3 unexpected waterfalls on brooks that aren't joining another river. I have had unexpectedly large caverns. Half of my embarks have had height differences and hills that I wasn't expecting.

Anyone else notice this? or is it just a function of the embarks I have been choosing?

[Salmeuk]

How much attention do you pay to the cliff finder / relative height displays during embark? I have only embarked once so far so I can't contribute evidence for or against your observations.

[FakerFangirl]

I've seen river canyons before, but they are rare. This embark I had them along with undead harpies (I'm pretty sure harpies are new to vanilla) and some interesting freezing going on. The northern part of the river was saltwater and didn't freeze, and in the frozen river there was a sturgeon swimming in a 2x1 pair of water tiles, keeping the river from freezing on him through sheer force of will. The northern river had sea lampreys and was wider so I'm pretty sure it was the saltwater instead of the flow rate that prevented it from freezing. Then the sturgeon's brethren went and demolished a sea lamprey, and then the undead harpies came and wrecked my migrants.
Edit: Nevermind, I got a natural 4x5 waterfall

[PatrikLundell]

Nope. Harpies are found in creature_standard.txt in 0.43.05, and has probably been there for quite a few versions (probably since before 0.40.X). I've never seen one, though.

[Bearskie]

Cliffs have always been there, you just need to know where to find them. I find Isoworld to be a huge help.

[Bumber]

Wasn't paying attention to embark but my caverns are definitely taller than usual. I've had to dig stairs to navigate because some of the ramps don't connect due to steepness. Got a 2-level waterfall on the surface.

[Saiko Kila]

Unlike probably many people, I use adventurer(s) to prospect the world a bit before embarking in a carefully chosen location, for a long term fortress (as opposed to some quick tests). I have seen many weird things in terms of geography in DF, but I haven't seen anything new in v0.44.x yet.

[rhavviepoodle]

Preset world gen parameters seem to generate the same world before and after the update, so I would have to guess that geography hasn't changed.

[PatrikLundell]

Preset world gen parameters seem to generate the same world before and after the update, so I would have to guess that geography hasn't changed.

Does that mean you've made a comparison down to embark/adventurer level? The set of PSV values is the same, so the overall geography should be the same, but I wouldn't have expected rivers or lakes to end up in the same place due to RNG differences, and local features are generated by DF on the fly (although I don't expect that code to have changed either, but a quick check didn't show any shears, so maybe the air biome shear bug has been fixed?).

[Bumber]

a quick check didn't show any shears, so maybe the air biome shear bug has been fixed?).

If that's the bug I'm thinking of, I have an adventurer on an island that can't sleep in the trees because they're considered ocean, but on the ground is fine.

[PatrikLundell]

a quick check didn't show any shears, so maybe the air biome shear bug has been fixed?).

If that's the bug I'm thinking of, I have an adventurer on an island that can't sleep in the trees because they're considered ocean, but on the ground is fine.

Not quite, I think. There are actually two bugs:
1. The whole air biome is "supposed" to be the biome of the world tile to the NW, when it probably should be that of the own tile.
2. The shear bug is that there are (were?) randomly generated 16*16 patches in the sky with a biome differing from the NW one. This biome is one of the other 7 neighbor world tiles or the own world tile. These patches appear on a single air Z level only, but nothing stops a patch from appearing directly above. Embarking on the same embark multiple times from the same set generates different sets of shears, which is why I call them random: they're not generated from the mid level tile seeds.

[feelotraveller]

Does that mean you've made a comparison down to embark/adventurer level? The set of PSV values is the same, so the overall geography should be the same, but I wouldn't have expected rivers or lakes to end up in the same place due to RNG differences, and local features are generated by DF on the fly (although I don't expect that code to have changed either, but a quick check didn't show any shears, so maybe the air biome shear bug has been fixed?).

I used the seeds from a 43.05 embark I was interested in and the surface geology of the world was the same, including rivers and lakes, as far as I could tell.  Specifically the embark itself (I embarked 43.05 but never got far because reasons) was exactly the same, river confluence with a 1z drop in one river.  Without dfhack I can't quickly compare subterranean geology, nor biome shears, but I suspect the subsurface geology may well be the same. What was different was that it had changed from neutral to good (all 3 biomes) and the savagery was different.  Otherwise the savannah was still savannah and the conifer forest still conifer forest, tropical and tempate remained the same, and the boundaries of the biomes seemed to match precisely.  The civilizations were different but I expected history to have changed.

[Fleeting Frames]

Neutral to good, with same seeds?

Fi-fo-fe-fa-fum.

Okay, I can't actually say if that didn't happen before with 0.42→0.43 due how strictly I corral good and evil, but I haven't seen that before. Probs means new worldgen cookbook thread time, though vjek seems absent since fourth of July.

[PatrikLundell]

The geography step comes before the good/evil placement one, with placement of caves in between, so Toady's enhancement of Kobold caves may have had some kind of influence on caves in general, which might throw seeds out of sync. Now, the Kobolds themselves aren't placed until the later civ placement step, but if caves have received some additional field that's subject to random influences that should be sufficient. Might be worth a closer look.

Also, it IS possible to examine 0.44.02 things with gui/gm-editor provided you build DFHack yourself, which I've done (fighting git is no joy but I may actually have a working setup, thanks to web searches on how to get git to sort of work). I wouldn't recommend trying to actually use DFHack, although I've run some scripts (but I haven't tried to compile any plugins, as I expect there to be trouble in that department). My main focus has been on finding issues with the structures, but I'm also doing script assisted world gen on the side.

[Saiko Kila]

Without dfhack I can't quickly compare subterranean geology, nor biome shears, but I suspect the subsurface geology may well be the same.

If you have Windows version, and are willing to use 32-bit DF v0.44.02 and Cheat Engine, I have a script which basically reveals all tiles (something like "Reveal" from DFHack). I use it for Adventurer, where I usually wander with this script on, but it also works in Fortress mode. This won't help with the biome shears I guess, because they are normally invisible, but it allows to look deep underground and compare general composition or something.