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[Express]

I’ve been utilizing the advanced world gen to create interesting scenarios.

But one problem I constantly run into is goblins exterminating the dwarves race. Humans survive as do elves but dwarven outposts always seem to crumble in just a few years.

Thus, this prevents me from forming any kind of “long” history as anything past 10-50 years results in the destruction of most dwarven mountain homes.

I’ve been wanting to create a very old world in a small continent with 1 of each race. I am trying to shoot for at least 1000 years. Is there any way to ensure each race survives this long? I just want one of each race enduring at least 1000 years.

Thanks for any tips!

[PatrikLundell]

Goblins are good at getting into wars, which means given the opportunity they tend to either dominate or get dominated.
The easiest way to ensure they all survive is to keep them separated so they can't reach each other (using PSV worlds). You can then establish contact between them by embarking and retiring (or abandoning) "bridge fortresses" that lie in world tiles that block access, as a fortress makes that world tile passable. I've typically used single tile wide oceans, but mountains should work as well.
Once the world has been prepared with accesses to everyone, you can then embark "properly" (and with PSV worlds I create the world with a particular embark location in mind).

[Sver]

1) Goblins breed crazier than elves. They are immortal, like the latter, but also do not need to eat or drink - and while I'm not sure about the drinking part, [NO_EAT] certainly affects worldgen population growth. Removing [NO_EAT] and [NO_DRINK] from their raws and adding [MAXAGE:x:y] (I use the human 60:120 personally) should help with this.

2) Goblin entity raws, together with their [EVIL] creature tag, has them being able to settle anywhere but the good biomes. Other races can't do that, and the dwarves suffer the most here, as they are limited to mountains and nearby areas. You can add more settlement limitations to make goblin civ less expansive.

3) [LIKES_SITE:DARK_FORTRESS] and [TOLERATES_SITE:DARK_FORTRESS] tags increase the amount of goblins who move into the sites with uncapped population to breed there freely. Removing this tags from their entity raws will hinder their population growth a bit.

I have to warn you, though, that applying all three of these solutions at once may lead to goblins going extict instead, because, as PatrikLundell mentioned, their war politic is "all or nothing". So, try these one by one and see which one works best for you.

The last thing to take into account: dwarves are natural losers in the worldgen. First reason is that they never wage offensive wars and, thus, never conquer/reconquer new/lost sites. Second reason is Forgotten Beasts, which only attack dwarven fortresses and mountain halls and can easily destroy thousands of locals in a single raid. There isn't much that can be done about it, other than changing the dwarven site type. Better just deal with it.

[Express]

Goblins are good at getting into wars, which means given the opportunity they tend to either dominate or get dominated.
The easiest way to ensure they all survive is to keep them separated so they can't reach each other (using PSV worlds). You can then establish contact between them by embarking and retiring (or abandoning) "bridge fortresses" that lie in world tiles that block access, as a fortress makes that world tile passable. I've typically used single tile wide oceans, but mountains should work as well.
Once the world has been prepared with accesses to everyone, you can then embark "properly" (and with PSV worlds I create the world with a particular embark location in mind).

While an interesting solution, I was looking for something more natural and obvious I might be missing.

For example, how do the number of sites ensure a civs survival?

If I made a pocket world with just 1 dwarf and 1 globlin civ, how can the number of sites ensue they both survive past 1000 years without taking up the entire map in sites.

[Express]

Thanks for these tips. It’s unfortunate there’s no other way, using advanced world gen, to ensure dwarven survival.

[Sver]

One improtant addition to the first paragraph: if you remove [NO_EAT] fro goblins, don't forget to add any of the following tags to their entity: [INDOOR_FARMING], [OUTDOOR_FARMING], [INDOOR_GARDENS], [OUTDOOR_GARDENS], [INDOOR_ORCHARDS], [OUTDOOR_ORCHARDS], [RIVER_PRODUCTS], [OCEAN_PRODUCTS]; the last two have a weaker effect and require the civ to have access to rivers/oceans. Without any of those, goblin population will fall really low.

Also, lowering the amount of megabeasts and semi-megabeasts helps all civs in long-running worlds.
Edit: larger amount of separate mountain ridges also help the dwarven civs to grow.

[Bumber]

I remove [NO_EAT] and [NO_DRINK] from my goblins (without modding entity,) and I'm pretty sure I haven't noticed a dramatic change in population. Are you sure those tags actually have any affect on world gen?

[Sver]

Yes, I am quite sure. There was a dramatic difference in the population of my custom human civ before and after adding just one of these entity tags. They were humans, though - e.g. not immortal, and they were also pretty warlike, so that might explain why the effect was so easily noticeable. Chances are, the food availability doesn't affect death rates, but rather the population growth, so a civ with frequent deaths and no food gradually disappears.

[anewaname]

Regarding Sver's information about FBs, if you generate many Pocket or Smaller worlds, you'll see most of the destroyed dwarf civs were destroyed in year 1 when an FB attacked their only site. If there are two starting dwarfs civs, often the same FB will destroy both. Reducing or eliminating the generation of FBs should stop that.

[Fleeting Frames]

If you generate pocket worlds, you're already reduced FB population to the minimum it can be without reducing cavern layers (there's 1 FB per underground region).

I've found that dwarves get ruined if it is their only site, but if they manage to build hillocks nearby before that they survive and thrive (Thus I pair dwarven calm mountains with borderline untamed plains.)

[HerbalistRanger]

I've had the opposite problem and found that increasing demon types greatly improves goblin survivability. Maybe there are too many demon masters in your world. Looks like they often create their own goblin fortresses individually and it maybe spreads?

[Loam]

Increasing demon types allows more "unique demons" (i.e. historical figure demons) to generate; in the current version such demons are necessary for Dark Fortress civs to be placed at all, so if you cut back this number it will cut down the number of goblin civs that place, which should make them less of a threat.
If you want to keep dwarves alive, first thing is to cut down the number of FBs, as they only target dwarven sites. Unfortunately the only way to do this is to reduce cavern layers (I usually play with only 1 cavern), but I haven't noticed any downsides from this--in fact it might actually help FPS in a later fortress.
If you want to allow dwarves to start wars (and thus conquer other sites, improving their survival later on), you can change their ethic KILL_NEUTRAL to ACCEPTABLE. I think, actually, that any value "more acceptable" than ONLY_IF_SANCTIONED will work, but I haven't tested that.

As for myself, I haven't noticed goblins being a big threat in my worlds for several versions now. In fact I went out of my way to make them stronger, by making them breed faster and doubling the size of their trolls; only then did I ever see them conquering dwarf sites, and in general making a splash in the world. My problem is the damn elves wiping out humans all the time -- it's annoying how they dominate in worldgen when they're such pushovers in actual gameplay.

[Tinnucorch]

I've had the opposite problem and found that increasing demon types greatly improves goblin survivability. Maybe there are too many demon masters in your world. Looks like they often create their own goblin fortresses individually and it maybe spreads?

In a world with just one civ of each race, would't there be only just a demon master? I was assuming that for each goblin civ there is a single one along with a single dark fortress.

For achieving long histories with all race's civs present I take the opposite approach and set a high number of civs while trying to balance the conditions in which each one of them prosper -mostly, the land available to them. With just one civ of each and without any measures like those of above, the dwarven civ is very likely to succumb to either an early forgotten beast attack or to war.

I’ve been wanting to create a very old world in a small continent with 1 of each race. I am trying to shoot for at least 1000 years. Is there any way to ensure each race survives this long? I just want one of each race enduring at least 1000 years.

Unless you want especifically one of each -not just every race still present- I would try raising the number of spawning civilizations so if one civ gets screwed you still have others. The result is not a more overcrowded world than it would be with less civs, since you still have the cap site.

[HerbalistRanger]

Oh, excuse me. I simply forgot about the one of each race condition for OP. I always make large world with 140+ civs