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[Nobody1225]

The distinction between Golden Age and Twilight Age particularly interests me, since both seem to be marked by a total absence of megabeasts, the yardstick for standard ages.  What's the difference in world gen between civilizations prospering and civilizations declining?  Do you get Twilight when civilization runs out of room to expand, and so stagnates, or when wars and old age (but mostly wars, since we're not looking for an age of elves here) cause the population to decline...?  Or is there some hidden flag that trips (random, simulated, or scripted) that says "and now intelligent life in this world is circling the drain"?  It's certainly not that Golden comes first and Twilight then follows, or at least, things can skip directly from Heroes to Twilight.

I know I've achieved the Age of Death, via a prolonged combination of adventurer killing sprees (followed by magma suicides) and miner assassination squads (for caving in Dark Fortresses, followed by self-termination of the embark team under the last cave-in).  I should experiment a bit, though.  (Besides, it sort of gives me a sense of accomplishment to embark with not just the last dwarves in the world, but the last civilized beings, and be told "The world has passed into The Age of Death".)

Under these circumstances it'd be fun and interesting to intervene with adventurers, etc, and then let history keep running "hands-off" for a while afterward to see the results.

[Doomshifter]

I know what I must do now.

I must bring about the age of death with a single adventurer.

[elizar]

I decided to test this out and genned several pockets to the year 10000.

In most cases, I got to the Golden age, one to the Age of Elven, one to the Age of Civilization. In the former, there were just elves left with one dwarf fortress. The latter was just humans.

I also got the Age of Indignation. I was pumped when I saw that, as I was seeing an Age no one had seen before.

It was then I learned that in rare cases, an Age of [Megabeast] doesn't always take the first name, but the first word in the title that was given to the megabeast.

Somethingsomething the Indignation of Something was a Hydra.

[Murphy]

Yeah, and those names can be amusing. There was a mention of an age named "The Age of Last Time" on the boards some time ago. Too bad "Last Time" was only a titan's name...

[Stargrasper]

The distinction between Golden Age and Twilight Age particularly interests me, since both seem to be marked by a total absence of megabeasts, the yardstick for standard ages.  What's the difference in world gen between civilizations prospering and civilizations declining?  Do you get Twilight when civilization runs out of room to expand, and so stagnates, or when wars and old age (but mostly wars, since we're not looking for an age of elves here) cause the population to decline...?  Or is there some hidden flag that trips (random, simulated, or scripted) that says "and now intelligent life in this world is circling the drain"?  It's certainly not that Golden comes first and Twilight then follows, or at least, things can skip directly from Heroes to Twilight.

I know I've achieved the Age of Death, via a prolonged combination of adventurer killing sprees (followed by magma suicides) and miner assassination squads (for caving in Dark Fortresses, followed by self-termination of the embark team under the last cave-in).  I should experiment a bit, though.  (Besides, it sort of gives me a sense of accomplishment to embark with not just the last dwarves in the world, but the last civilized beings, and be told "The world has passed into The Age of Death".)

Under these circumstances it'd be fun and interesting to intervene with adventurers, etc, and then let history keep running "hands-off" for a while afterward to see the results.

Yes, it's true both are more or less marked by the near total annihilation of the megabeasts...but the other criterium is different.  Namely, in the Golden Age, not only is there pretty much universal peace(usually) but all civilizations are in balance and expanding if there's room.  I believe it's that peaceful balance thing that triggers the Golden Age.

The Age of Twilight is the opposite...if it's peaceful, it's solely because there's nobody left to go to war with.  Civilizations the world over are collapsing.  There's plenty of room for expansion with all the civs falling, but nobody's in a position to expand into it.  The world is literally falling apart.  Don't be surprised if you see one civ per continent and they're so far apart neither knows the other exists.  This age is symbolized by the fall of pretty much all civilization into ruin.

[Pandarsenic]

He's asking how the game determines that the civs are collapsing, though.

[100killer9]

So, there's an age of death. But what if someone made a lever operated pump in fortress mode that could flood the world, which was then operated in adventure mode, killing every land creature not underground? What would that be?

[Nobody1225]

He's asking how the game determines that the civs are collapsing, though.

Exactly.  The game doesn't seem to track resource consumption or population constraints, and the only way to stop population growth is with killing, so with megabeasts removed from the picture, how can all civs be in a state of collapse?  If one was dominating the others in warfare, then it'd be the Age of the Winning Side, right?

But something must be happening, because in long world-gens, we see the Twilight Age.  Sometimes after a golden age, sometimes immediately after the last megabeast falls.

Theoretically, I guess, a period of mutual warfare could deplete everyone's population, and then the warfare ends (with no side really "winning") and everyone would look to be on the decline...but that would be a transient dark age, not a twilight age, because the population would always bounce back after a period without warfare, unless the world gen counts a lot of factors I don't think it does (yet).

EDIT:

So, there's an age of death. But what if someone made a lever operated pump in fortress mode that could flood the world, which was then operated in adventure mode, killing every land creature not underground? What would that be?

Strictly speaking, it would still be an Age of Death, unless the Dwarves held out (I don't have high hopes--the world gen'd Mountainhomes couldn't withstand a flood any better than a Dark Fortress, and a fortress mode fort would have to be abandoned and so wouldn't protect any dwarves), in which case it'd be the Age of Dwarves.

Truthfully speaking, it should be the Age Of The Merfolk's Ultimate Vengeance For All Those Air-Drowning Farms, You Sick, Sick, A-Holes.

[100killer9]

Well, you could technically completely seal in an elven retreat, a kobold cave, a dwarven mountainhome, a dark fortress, and a town in fortress mode before flooding the world. I wonder what would happen if you ran a bunch of adventurers to advance history? I can't imagine many wars would take place in isolation, and all megabeasts would drown.

[Haspen]

What I found here, I compiled and put here:

http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Calendar#Ages

But I keep having a feeling I missed something...

[A-chana]

I took a peek at the string dump page, and it seems to confirm an Age of Emptiness (I think it was mentioned in a few other threads). I'm not really sure what makes it different from an Age of Death, though (Age of Death kills off all (playable?) civs, Age of Emptiness kills the world? I'd have to mess around with the wildlife data itself to figure it out, because it seems making insane parameters to make desert forests or evil tundras only nets me things like zombie giants.)

I'll probably mess around with pocket worlds containing nothing but a megabeast or two (with cheating to make sure I don't die to random animals while I'm searching for the megabeasts) and see what happens. I haven't spawned any worlds with nothing less than one megabeast, usually no more than five if I'm lucky.

EDIT: I just spawned a world with a skeletal titan and skeletal ettin. That's awesome and I'll see if there's any way I can Not Die trying to track them.

[Doomshifter]

I took a peek at the string dump page, and it seems to confirm an Age of Emptiness (I think it was mentioned in a few other threads). I'm not really sure what makes it different from an Age of Death, though (Age of Death kills off all (playable?) civs, Age of Emptiness kills the world? I'd have to mess around with the wildlife data itself to figure it out, because it seems making insane parameters to make desert forests or evil tundras only nets me things like zombie giants.)

I'll probably mess around with pocket worlds containing nothing but a megabeast or two (with cheating to make sure I don't die to random animals while I'm searching for the megabeasts) and see what happens. I haven't spawned any worlds with nothing less than one megabeast, usually no more than five if I'm lucky.

EDIT: I just spawned a world with a skeletal titan and skeletal ettin. That's awesome and I'll see if there's any way I can Not Die trying to track them.

If you're doing it entirely for Science, then use Dwarf Companion to boost your shield/armour/weapon skills up to 95+ legendary, and put all your stats on 100. You'll be nigh invincible.

[100killer9]

Maybe agevof death is many deaths in a short time, age of emptiness involves very few deaths due to nothing being alive anymore.

[skaltum]

imagine the age of (dwarf or adventurer) better still if it's an elf. you kill it and then it's the age of the killer

[Doomshifter]

imagine the age of (dwarf or adventurer) better still if it's an elf. you kill it and then it's the age of the killer

That would be simply awesome if you could get an age named after you. It'd be even funnier if you went for the most ridiculous name you could, so the whole world proclaims, 'IT IS THE AGE OF ANUSANGER!'