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[Shima]

I'm pretty sure the Dwarvenfly Effect can happen at something as low as changing a single number or letter in the raws.

[Sensei]

Yes, yes.

Remember, it's pseudo random generator: It takes the seed (which is drawn from some function of time and other random human factors, or entered) and puts it through a bunch of functions to get the world, and its history. If you change ANYTHING in the raws, the function gets more and more out of whack (compared to what it would be otherwise).

Anyway, the war (anything in history) goes down to the seed and terrain (terrain works like history, with a seed, but it also affects history). So if general Billybob never got his high ground bonus because the town wasn't on a hill because there was no such thing as a large cluster of rubies, that could change the battle.

But no random numbers are added after worldgen starts. It's all pseudo random.

[DeathOfRats]

Not true, Vester. The only randomly generated number is the seed.

I've heard of the butterfly effect occurring from things as small as changing a stone type from vein to cluster, so it's probably something really small you changed.

Yeah, sorry, that's what I meant. The seed starts you off with a world, but in between, something happens.

(So if you gen a world and one civ wins a war over another, and you gen it again with the same seed, will the same outcome happen? I am curious to know.)

As long as *nothing* has been changed on the user end (like the raws), yes. The way it functions is the following:

Computers are very, very bad at doing random stuff, so there's a numbers of algorithms (i.e., somewhat like recipes, for those who aren't too fluent on computer-speak) to make them create random numbers. Only, they're not really random, only look like it. All these algorithms need some entry data, that's the seed. For the same entry data, it always generates the same sequence of numbers.

However, even if the sequence is the same, if what you use it for isn't, it's going to give you a different world. So, if the system has to make even a single calculation more using randomly generated data, there's no telling how the result is going to change. And since we don't really know how DF uses random numbers, unless we do a whole lot of experimentation and/or Toady himself tells us, we have no real way to tell what kind of changes would trigger a different result in worldgen.

Imagine, for example, that you changed something like the damblock of a megabeast. The first time, the megabeast was killed by a dwarf (because I don't believe all those tales of elves killing megabeasts - except for Cacame), but since now it has a higher damblock, the result of the calculation - even with the same numbers - is different. Now DF has to keep track of that megabeast, which it does - I speculate - by using more random numbers, which would have originally been used for other calculations (like Cacame's birth). Voilá, instant change in worldgen.

[Sensei]

Yes. To say what DeathofRats said more succinctly, if Cacame's father were killed Cacame would not have been born. But it's also popular that one different goblin getting killed on the other side of the world changes the numbers that had Cacames parents to meet, or them to get born, or to name him Cacame (and so on). In fact, the probability of the fate of one goblin eventually effecting every NPC in the world will gradually grow to 1 as time passes. The functions governing worldgen are designed to cause this.

[Holy Mittens]

Right. I'm using the same seeds. And I had generated this world a few times, all with the same civs and events, before I actually played it (I kept trying to change small things, but each time the dwarves and elves weren't at war, which is something I had wanted).

[Holy Mittens]

Oh God, I figured it out and it was incredibly stupid/simple.

At some point, I had turned off temperature and weather in order to improve my framerate (it was dropping to 4-5 when enemies or traders were around). I turned them back on and the world genned up to 100 properly. Though if that is enough to alter the generation of the world, I'm not sure if it'll work when I set the generation to go longer.

[RedWarrior0]

Who knows, a gobbo in a (scorching) desert might have been a degree over the flaming point or something. But with temp off, nothing happens because of it and you get a completely different worldgen.

[Holy Mittens]

Well, now I'm just completely baffled. I ran a World Gen to 150 or so and then stopped it to check it out, and Cacame was missing. Not totally a shock to me. But I also noticed another unit named Cacame Awesomething, who had appeared on the gen to 100 as well (a relatively unimportant frog person from another civ who killed a single Semi-MegaBeast). Confused, I went back and genned yet another world to 100. And Cacame was missing again! But the damn frog person was still there. Even though I had changed absolutely nothing at all. I regenned five more times with identical results. No Cacame except for the frog person.

Exact same parameters, exact same seeds, exact same raws and init... Slightly different results.

[Shima]

Clearly, Cacame has transcended Dwarf Fortress itself.   No matter how many times you gen, he'll be gone, because he decided Dwarf Fortress wasn't big and complex enough for him.  My god... he'll eventually work his way to reality, and then go past that into the next level, causing a black hole that will kill us all!

[Sensei]

Seriously speaking: Either you missed something, or the existence of your fortress/gameplay caused it.

[The13thRonin]

Clearly, Cacame has transcended Dwarf Fortress itself.   No matter how many times you gen, he'll be gone, because he decided Dwarf Fortress wasn't big and complex enough for him.  My god... he'll eventually work his way to reality, and then go past that into the next level, causing a black hole that will kill us all!

He will live on in the hearts and minds of those who knew him.

I shall put an obituary up for him on the main page of DIG DEEPER.

[Shima]

The fort wouldn't have affected it, unless either A: the fort is older than Cacame is, or B: he's had previous forts and played the world up to it's current point, all before Cacame was born.

I suggest looking up Cacame's relatives and see what's going on with them here.

[Holy Mittens]

Well, it does seem that the existence of a generated world is having some effect. Because I can only get Cacame to appear if I generate the world with it set to check for MegaBeast % at 100 and with 30% of MegaBeasts dead and it's the first world I've generated. Because if I do it otherwise, I get the world without him and the elf/dwarf war. The diverging point is some time after 45, when the frog-person appears.

Since it seems like I can't get the world to continue genning past 100 and still have Cacame, I guess we'll never know what he would have done otherwise.

[Sensei]

This is why I want a 'keep genning' button.

[The13thRonin]

I believe during worldgen battles and duels are still decided by %'s and RNG's. So you'll never have the same world, even after genning from the same seed. You will have a similar one, but never the same.