Is it normal to go my first year with no orcs?
Not unheard of. I've gone for a year and a half, then got a four squad siege (which, sadly, ended with all their local leaders dead, so after that it was just butchering goblin ambushes).
As for suggestions, I have a few.
1. Darkmetal is too easy to get if you embark in an obsidian biome. I think you intended for it to be rarer, but it's a metal that right out of the smelter is harder than steel and in obsidian layers it's about as common as hematite in a sedimentary stone. I tried to write a mod where darkmetal was as hard as iron but makes darksteel by substituting it for iron in the steel reaction, but other changes I made broke it. Either way, Darkmetal is kind of imbalanced.
2. Bloodmetal could use some reactions too. I'd suggest either blood bronze, where it can be substituted for cassiterite, or crimson silver which just stretches your silver supply.
3. Cave Beehives have the same problem as Sweet Pods - too damn valuable. One Dwarven Honey is as valuable as an electrum bar. Dwarven Honey is in infinite supply, electrum is not. Anyone else see a problem with this? Guess I'm just weird, it bothers me.
Other than that I love it. It'd be kind of cool to see an easier version for newbies that sees the goblins siege from the start and the orcs ambushing and sieging later, but that's what broke my attempt at modding.
All very good suggestions. Will make the appropriate fixes.
PS - is it really true that when the local leaders die orcs stop coming? If true I'll have to fix that...
PPS - Busy with work for the next three-four days (sorry guys, I know I've been slack and Hearts of Iron 3 + Tropico 3 + Counter Strike Source + Simutrans have been distracting me!) but I'll try to get motivated to do some work on Dig Deeper after then. I really don't want the civ update to break the balance of the mod. It will be far from perfect but it'll be the first step on a long road to making the civs distinct from each other. I decided for the next arc I might start doing an overhaul on the value system and adding more metals... I love metals
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"Moonstone 16:
Armok have mercy, the orcs are across the bridge. Hurry, get the civilians into the underground quarry. Tell that miner chap to grab his pick, skulls need splitting. We make our stand here. We breathe our last breath here.
Moonstone 17:
The Axedorf and miner held them for mere minutes. I can hear them comping on our sheep in the pens above. I know it's only time till they descend into these caverns and destroy us all. We're not fighters, we stand no chance. Armok have mercy....."
My god I love this mod. Well done Ronin, well done.
It makes me happy to hear things like this, thanks
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PPPS - The new version with the new civs should provide a much more accessible game for all... If you're looking for about the same challenge as vanilla DF you build away from orcs and near snotlings (like a species of orc/goblin runts, a cross between an old goblin and a kobold... Goblins have been made tougher to rival dwarves in the mountains. If you want a much harder challange you build near the dark elves and the orcs... The dark elves are going to be nasty... Not as tough and strong as the orcs but nasty in different, new and exciting ways...
NEW UPDATE: I managed to get a chance to put in some decent work today. I fixed the outstanding great helmet bug, where dwarves couldn't equip it. I also fixed blackmetal to be much, much less common. I created a new metal called crimson silver which is a combination of silver and bloodmetal and I continued work on the civilizations polishing off the ORCS and DWARVES for this update as well as striking a nice balance between each civ. Just have to do some tweaking to GOBLINS, HUMANS... Etc now.
