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[sketchesofpayne]

Defini Etha: The Dimensions of Prophecy

In a small world I've, so far, made a series of five dwarf fortresses that I ran for about 10 years each.  I'm doing different things with each to see how the world responds and how they change after I retire them.

Looking through Legends Mode, the goblins were situated between the humans and elves who stomped the goblins into the ground early on and then proceeded to fight each other ever since then.  There are still goblins in the world, but they're all living in other civilizations or as bandits. I decided to revive the goblin civilization and made them 'site controllable.'  There was a huge forested swamp biome in the east where no one had settled, so my head canon was that secret villages of goblins survived deep in the swamps.

I had my starting seven goblins, plus two migrant waves for a total of 17.  After that there were no more.  The leader of the civ is still living with one other goblin in a camp (the civ's sole remaining site before I started building a new one).  I ran the fort for 58 years before deciding to move on.  In that time there were 65 births for a total of 82 goblins by the end.  There were only four goblin females having children, and one of them had thirty-eight of them.  What's more impressive is she was stricken with melancholy in year ten of the fort after not being able to sleep for too long.  She just sort of wandered around for forty-eight years, having kids every so often.

The place was really built like a human settlement on the shore of a bay where three rivers emptied into the ocean.  It rained all the friggin' time and we had to do a mass tree clearing every season, otherwise the place became completely overgrown.  I played with invasions turned off, because without a mayor, militia captain, etc I can't form military squads.  I don't know if positions like manager or bookkeeper can be added to the goblin civ post-worldgen?



On retiring I checked in with my older forts.  In those 58 years a lot of my dwarves died of old age.  When you unretire a fort, everyone who died of old age is just laying dead on the ground.  All of the livestock died of old age and wasn't replenished in one fort.  In another fort it looks like visitors and migrants brought new animals with them.  It would be nice if herds didn't just die out over time.  I was alarmed when Legends showed that 159 entities had died at the site, only to discover it was referring to all the sheep, dogs, and turkeys.

A mercenary who was in the tavern at another previous fort went on a killing spree a year after I retired it and killed 27 before being taken out.

Various people in other nations "claimed (artifact) from afar."  I assume that means they sent people to claim or steal them.

I've been trying to figure out why some of my forts dwindle in population after retirement while others gain population.  I think it mostly correlates to how many Hillocks are associated with your fort.

One fort was retired after a titan arrived.  Another was retired while demons were rampaging through it.  Post-retirement the simulation doesn't seem to care and just lists them as "outcasts" in the site populations.  I was hoping to see them cause some havoc, but the simulation seems to just ignore them.  I want to see if abandoning the fort with demons does anything different from retiring it.

The world only has one vampire who is a dwarf that profaned a temple by knocking over a statue in my fort.  The fort was retired with the vampire locked in a chapel worshiping the god of death.  Post retirement she's still in the same fort and... she got married recently.  Curious if that leads to anything in the future.  There are no werebeasts in the world.  I'll see if one appears on its own, or maybe get a dwarf cursed, or maybe play an adventurer and get them cursed.  Then see how far it spreads. 

There are three necromancers.  One necromancer, she had a son who became leader of a human civ.  The son later died of old age.  After several other leaders took the position and died of old age, the necromancer became the new leader.  Seems like a rare case where the parent becomes leader of the civ after their child does.  And this happened post-worldgen while I was running my forts.

There aren't any expertly written books in the world yet.  Everything is still amateurish.  I'm thinking of making a fort of scholars and trying to crank out some substantial writing.

At the moment I'm making a second goblin fort to try and grow the population.  The goblins in the previous fort are continuing to have kids and they're up to 94 population now.  I was worried they might get wiped out in an invasion after I'd spent so many hours growing the fort.  Luckily the humans and elves are still busy fighting each other and the dwarves are just chilling out in their mountain halls.

I know there are certain things that only happen during worldgen.  My goal is to poke and prod and see what I can make happen post-worldgen.  If you think of something I should try out let me know.

[Ziusudra]

PTW

There were only four goblin females having children, and one of them had thirty-eight of them.  What's more impressive is she was stricken with melancholy in year ten of the fort after not being able to sleep for too long.  She just sort of wandered around for forty-eight years, having kids every so often.

[brewer bob]

PTW, and:

I don't know if positions like manager or bookkeeper can be added to the goblin civ post-worldgen?

I'm afraid you'll need to gen a new world to do this (afaik). Don't know if it's possible with DFHack to add new positions to an existing world?

[doublestrafe]

PTW, and:

I don't know if positions like manager or bookkeeper can be added to the goblin civ post-worldgen?

I'm afraid you'll need to gen a new world to do this (afaik). Don't know if it's possible with DFHack to add new positions to an existing world?

Isn't that what fixmerchants and fixdiplomats do?

[Maloy]

I LOVE YOUR MAP! knowing what each building is makes it so much more pleasant to view

I'm also curious to see how your experiment turns out

I tried something similar some years ago, but it was on a pocket world, and it led to some of the most massive world-defining battles happening at my retired forts and not my current one and also led to the world depopulating to less than 100 people

[muldrake]

I LOVE YOUR MAP! knowing what each building is makes it so much more pleasant to view

I'm also curious to see how your experiment turns out

I tried something similar some years ago, but it was on a pocket world, and it led to some of the most massive world-defining battles happening at my retired forts and not my current one and also led to the world depopulating to less than 100 people

I did this with a world way back when, but not by retiring forts.  As in, I lost.  And then I'd immediately start another fort as close as possible to my last failure.

I was sort of hoping clowns would show up from my most recent trip to the circus, but it didn't happen.

Eventually the save broke but the entire world was already messed up beyond belief, plus my civilization was extinct, I assume because of me.

[sketchesofpayne]

Ran my second goblin fort for twenty-one years.  No migrants.  Two couples had six kids each, so we went from seven to nineteen goblins.  The two bi males became lovers, so the other female was left out.  On the other hand, I embarked with twenty trolls and ended with sixty!  They ate a lot of fish, the docks lined with barrels of them.  I don't know if this is true, but it seemed like they wouldn't eat fruits or vegetables?  I dunno, I gathered a bunch of plants in the beginning and they kept saying "no food available" until we got the fishery up and running.

It's another done in human style (I guess).  I was experimenting with various roofing styles.  Most of the town is built on raised wooden platforms.  You can walk under everything among the support columns underneath.



In my previous fort with the demons and vampire hanging around (named "Helltunnel the End of Life"), a bunch of people and dozens of yaks moved in.  The population went from 33 to 8.  Looking at Legends, it shows that over time all those people and yaks died of old age while I was running my two goblin forts.  Three of my other forts get tons of visitors.  The demon one hasn't had any.  Just the new settlers and their yaks, who apparently lived a quiet life until they all died of old age.

My smaller fort "Bronzeringed" that had the marsh titan (a three-eyed stegosaurus) hanging around lost a lot of population.  When I unretired it lots of migrants showed up and it was quickly made a barony.  The titan just ambled around the snow-covered mountain slopes above the tree line.  Dwarves got scared and ran away from it if they caught line of sight to it.  Otherwise it didn't bother the fortress or the caravans.  I just ran the fort for a couple of years to tidy things up, bury those who died of old age, and furnish some bedrooms.  Then I retired it again.

The fort "Riverroad the Castle of Glory" was built where a brook and a road crossed.  It has maintained the most population of my retired forts, and I'm starting to wonder if the road has something to do with that.  It also has the biggest problem with visitors walking off with artifacts.  Of course, what often happens is the person will take the artifact to another fort or town, but then someone there will take it and drop it somewhere else, then someone else with pick it up and bring it back.  Artifact scepters seem to always catch the attention of outsiders.

The prophet Nil Lancerheads keeps visiting three of my old forts every season.  She hasn't visited any other sites since becoming a prophet.  Just those three over and over again.

As far as warfare goes, I only ever sent three squads on one raid against the elves (civ: "The Plain Fish"), killing seven of them.  Since then, for the past hundred years, every decade or so they send a single unarmed elf to attack one of my forts.  They pick a fight, kill no one, and then leave declaring victory.

On the other hand, the other elf civ ("The Tufted Clearing") has armies of grizzly bears.  They're the ones who stomped the goblins and killed their gila-monster fiend overlord (struck down by grizzly bear in year 22).  And they're the ones causing humans to abandon their towns and flee as refugees when they go on the march.  Well, at least that was how things were.  Nearly two centuries of constant warfare take their toll, no matter how many grizzly bears you use.  They went from 427 elves in my first Legends export to 83 elves, 68 humans, and 68 goblins in my most recent export.

My previous goblin fort went from population 82 to population 74.  I'm having trouble figuring out where those eight goblins went.

[Ziusudra]

I don't know if this is true, but it seemed like they wouldn't eat fruits or vegetables?  I dunno, I gathered a bunch of plants in the beginning and they kept saying "no food available" until we got the fishery up and running.

Yeah, trolls and goblins are both [BONECARN], which in DF implies being carnivores (but goblins also hav [NO_DRINK][NO_EAT]).

[King Zultan]

I'm really liking the way you've done the buildings in this.