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[Zemat]

Since it's possible for fortress mode players to embark to far away locations way beyond the settled regions of his/her chosen civilization, I though any race should be able to settle in any location they like during worldgen as long as the selected biome supports the settlers. But, to avoid civilizations just randomly settling anywhere, the game should use a distance algorithm so that settlers by default avoid trying to settle too far away from their current territories. That is, the farther the place is, the less likely it will be settled.

This could be simulated in world gen by making settling groups a little less abstract and let them move on the map for a random amount of time trying to distance themselves from their homes until they decide to settle or die trying (by random beast encounter or getting to close to a unfriendly city). They could even end up settling closer to home that is currently allowed, giving a more naturalistic look to current territory configurations.

To make fortress mode be more congruent with settling AI mechanics. I guess there should be an extra cost to settling too far away from the civilization current territories. This could be translated to having less points to spend on the embark screen for being too far from home. Which implies that the rest of the points where already spend on food and booze used during the travel.

A neater feature which was already discussed would be to combine fortress mode with adventure mode during the embarking phase to simulate the seven dwarfs travel from their mountainhomes until they decide to settle. But this would take longer to implement than the other features and not everyone would like to play as traveling settlers. That's why other far away settling penalization mechanics should be implemented.

[Granite26]

Or even help those people who want your fortress to mean something:

You can only settle a maximum distance from your civ, where the civs zone of control is determined by city size.  (Each city draws a circle, inside all the circles is ok to settle in). 

Retiring a fortress could expand the circle by the value of your fortress and make new areas available.  Play the civ, and all that.

Or even better, you can settle anywhere, but you get fewer points the further out you go.  (Points are consumed in food to get you and your animals there.)  This would also let the crazy souls that want to settle in the mountains do so (at crazy high cost)

[sweitx]

Or even help those people who want your fortress to mean something:

You can only settle a maximum distance from your civ, where the civs zone of control is determined by city size.  (Each city draws a circle, inside all the circles is ok to settle in). 

Retiring a fortress could expand the circle by the value of your fortress and make new areas available.  Play the civ, and all that.

Or even better, you can settle anywhere, but you get fewer points the further out you go.  (Points are consumed in food to get you and your animals there.)  This would also let the crazy souls that want to settle in the mountains do so (at crazy high cost)

May be unnecessarily restrictive...

[Granite26]

May be unnecessarily restrictive...

Probably true.

One of the things that I think may be a long term issue with DF as it exists now (Notice the preponderance of weasel words) is the lack of things to work towards, both in a game standpoint and in a metagame standpoint.

By that, I mean that the full load is out there from the get go, and there's no reward structure for anything.

The only reason to play with the world after your first fortress is to use the goods in adventure mode.  Otherwise, you may as well generate a new world to find another 'perfect' spot.

[Duke 2.0]

 The ultimate answer to this thread:

 When the caravan arc starts being chipped at.

 But I would like to see more effect on civ's and their territories. Like mines, farms, larger towns, fortresses, walls, etc. So if you make a town near a mine, you can import metals and ore at reduced prices, with more immigrants associated with the mines.

[Zemat]

May be unnecessarily restrictive...

Probably true.

One of the things that I think may be a long term issue with DF as it exists now (Notice the preponderance of weasel words) is the lack of things to work towards, both in a game standpoint and in a metagame standpoint.

By that, I mean that the full load is out there from the get go, and there's no reward structure for anything.

The only reason to play with the world after your first fortress is to use the goods in adventure mode.  Otherwise, you may as well generate a new world to find another 'perfect' spot.

Most of the things you mention would be fixed almost right away by allowing the worldgen to progress from any arbitrary point after you made changes to your world. Setting a fortress in a strategic location or killing a pivotal creature in adventure mode could completely change how the world ends up after 500-1000 years. Of course it would be better if you could change the world in the course of a single game.

[Draco18s]

You can only settle a maximum distance from your civ, where the civs zone of control is determined by city size.  (Each city draws a circle, inside all the circles is ok to settle in). 

Retiring a fortress could expand the circle by the value of your fortress and make new areas available.  Play the civ, and all that.

I like.  Currently I do pick the closest civ to where I'm trying to go anyway (and ussually end up within 2 world tiles of their area).

[Skizelo]

I'm thinking that when you select a site, the game plots a path (may need boats) to the nearest established fortress. Each step takes points (the same points that you use to buy food and skills), at either a constant rate or varying on the terrain (roads and tunnels are cheap, deserts expensive). So if you embark right next to a fortress, you can bring each settler his own anvil, or you can head further afield and need to establish farms quickly.
They do say that after the long quest to your destination, the supplies are almost out...

[Jamuk]

Well, eventually Toady will combine adventure mode and fortress mode so that you actually take an adventurer and friends to a site to start a fortress.  Once that happens it will actually be safer to start near your home civ as you will have to travel to reach a good site.  Also, the caravan arc will likely make it so that traders have more difficulty getting to you if you settle further away from the civilization.  Most of the problems that come along with settling in remote areas should be implemented eventually.

However, this does seem like a great idea for a short term fix until the actual reasons are implemented.