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[Puzzlemaker]

This interests me greatly.  Hmm.

[darkflagrance]

But do you get migrants or sieges with no other civs around?

You shouldn't. I've personally experimented by capping the dwarven population at two, letting world gen run for 300 years (so the only two dwarfs on the planet die of old age), and embarking. You get seven dorfs cast by the hand of god, and then nothing further. No migrants, no caravans, no nobles. It's worth noting that these seven (and any descendants they might produce) must be killed off, otherwise they form a wandering civ, and further embarks will get migrants and caravans from...god only knows where.

Hmm. I've had a game where I picked a dwarf civ that had no sites (having been wiped out by the elves). I got migrants and caravans from...a refugee camp somewhere, I'm guessing. Perhaps a civ with no sites and scattered population is handled differently than a civ whose population has literally been made extinct. That was actually a fun scenario, since I was still at war with the elves and chose to build my fort on a very small volcano in the middle of the elven forest. (Unfortunately, the presence of a GCS and a metric buttload of troglodytes *and* fire imps *and* elf raiding parties proved to be a little too fun...)

This is true.

I once tried to play as a civ that had been wiped out in world gen (The Bronze Orbs, in case that rings a bell for anyone) but the game refused to list it.

It's likely that sometimes seemingly "extinct" civs have simply been reduced to wanderers.

Although that doesn't change the fact that people can still embark from civilizations that have truly died and therefore never send anybody.

[100killer9]

Could you set the boiling point of all stone and soil to be around 2, freezing everything everywhere to death instantly upon starting a new game?

[Sensei]

Unfortunately, you have to enter the area for that to take effect- this is why clothes that shouldn't exist in DF's atmosphere only burst into flames upon entering your fort.

[100killer9]

Could you add in a creature that can survive in any temperature? And does not need to breathe or anything? Then, you could walk through the clouds of evaporating death around the world, evaporating all you see.

[skaltum]

yeah you use

[FIXED_TEMP:30000]
[NOBREATHE]
[NOEAT]
[NODRINK]
[FIREIMMUNE]

etc

[Sensei]

I think the present method, Dwarf Companion, is more efficient and effective. If less entertaining.

[100killer9]

But you can't be sure to kill EVERYTHING like that. HFS would be hard.

[LegoLord]

Actually, can't you completely transform your character into another creature with Dwarf Companion?

[Pandarsenic]

This thread wins.

[KaelGotDwarves]

But you can't be sure to kill EVERYTHING like that. HFS would be hard.

Dwarf Companion has options to uncheck being's lives away.

[100killer9]

Yeah. But even finding the hfs might be hard. Boiling away mountains would be sure to do it.

[Nobody1225]

Experimentation has been delayed by a few days due to minor personal matters in researcher's life.  Data should be available on Monday or Tuesday.

Finding the HFS isn't a problem; for experimental purposes, the services of Visual Fortress have been teamed up with that of Dwarf Companion.  Visual Fortress can find HFS effortlessly.

I shouldn't need raw edits to kill things; Dwarf Companion can pull that off (I don't uncheck thing's lives, in case that makes Legends wonky; I do teleport them from wherever they're hiding directly into the awaiting arms of Datan Worlddoom); I just need the raw edits to restrict the populations so they can be killed manually (will game become scarce?) or so they go extinct on their own during world gen (what I feel is the most promising line of inquiry in the Age of Emptiness testing).

Not that there's anything wrong with boiling clouds of death...but this is straightforward.  Plus, I'm worried that if someone not recorded in Legends dies, but not at the hand of the adventurer, that they might not get properly noted and I'll keep getting those phantom entries.

[Puzzlemaker]

Alright, it's cool.  Looking forward to it!

[Nobody1225]

Further Testing Underway

• Phase 4: World Gen Age of Emptiness Death Better Respected than Adventure Mode Emptiness?  I'm embarking now.  It looks promising.
• Phase 5: Age of Really Utter and Total Death; Extending Extinction to All Animal Life? My first attempt was to gen a world with the raws pretty much purged of animal life; only the following were still in the files:
  Spoiler (click to show/hide)

  Dwarves, Humans, Elves (immortality revoked, max age set to 60:120, same as humans), Goblins (immortality revoked, max age set to 60:120, same as humans), Kobolds, Dragons, Demons, Spirits of Fire, Frog Demons, Tentacle Demons, Titan, Cyclops, Hydra, Mules (added WAGON_PULLER), and Wagons.
    The world genned just fine, got some pretty decent legends out of it, too, but I must have been missing something mission-critical because it consistently crashed on 'e: Embark'.  I'll delay further testing until getting some results on Phase 4.

The target world for the Phase 4 testing is Zilirrcth, the Eternal Domain.  Elves and Goblins were given life spans on par with humans, a pocket world was chosen, all civ entities were modified as follows:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[MAX_STARTING_CIV_NUMBER:1]
[START_GROUP_NUMBER:2]
[MAX_POP_NUMBER:2]

and world gen was run for 200 years--no stopping for megabeasts.

The legends played out as follows:

• The Age of the Hydra
• Humans and Elves went to war, the humans killed 3 elves and conquered their little retreat.  The war was declared over in 5, as the last elf alive was imprisoned and re-settled in the human capital.
• Curiously, the war was primarily over the fact that elves were willing to eat sapient beings.  Elves had never actually done so in this world...so I guess just the thought that they'd be willing to do it if it ever came up squicked the humans so bad that they went to war.
• Alternatively, the elves found the human taboo against eating sapient beings so utterly ethnocentric and oppressive that they launched the war, even though they'd never done it themselves.  I prefer this interpretation, because it reminds me of the American Civil War and how most soldiers in the Confederate Army were not themselves slaveholders, with slavery being the Legends-Mode equivalent simplification of that war.  ("I've never eaten an intelligent creature I killed in battle before, but I will defend to the death with force of steel pointy, elf-kosher wood the right of me and my kinfolk to do so!")
• Kobolds stole some stuff from the humans, several times.
• The hydra attacked the dwarven mountainhome for the first time in 12; two mules, a donkey, a cat, four dogs, and Sazir Rimdoor (a dwarf) were eaten.  Sazir Lancerbrush and Kogsak Pullcastles, working together, killed the hydra and ended the age.
• The Golden Age
• Between 13 and 80, the Kobold thieves Shilisayldis and Shodoloshlamin robbed the human town of Deskreined on forty-five seperate occasions.
• In 19, ?emeni Packreleased, a diplomat and the last elf in the world, escaped from her human captors (who had conquered her home retreat fifteen years earlier) and fled into the Swamps of Thinning.  In 20, she took for herself the title of leader of her civilization, and was therefore elected by a unanimous vote of all surviving civilization members: her.  She was unable to accomplish anything further in the next twenty four years and died of old age in 44.
• The Age of the Kobold
• No events are known to have happened during this era.
• Four humans, half the population, died between 31-50; the remaining humans died between 71-81.  All died of old age; no human in history fell to violence.
• Of six dwarves, one had been killed by a hydra in 12, and three died in 73, 79, and 84, leaving two dwarves (a married couple, in fact) left alive.
• One kobold died of old age in 68.
• Therefore, by 84, there were three kobolds, zero elves, zero humans, and two dwarves left alive.  84 or 85 is the probable start of the Age of the Kobold, for it is when one civilization dramatically outnumbered the others (3 kobolds against two of any other civilized being!).
• The Age of the Dwarf
• Presumably began in 89 or 90, when the kobold population dipped to one against the dwarf two.  The final nail in the coffin would have been 96, when the last kobold died.
• In 105, Sazir, who had queen of all dwarves since the beginning of recorded history, died.  Her husband, Olin, former guard, mayor, and outpost liaison, took on her title and became king.
• In 108, Olin Burnworks, king of all dwarves, last dwarf in the world, last known civilized being in existence, died.
• The Age of Death
• Nothing whatsoever has happened since 108.

Now, I'll be embarking to a site with HFS and flux in this world (sadly, no magma--however, when the time comes (soon, I hope!) for a succession game, the same principles used to make this world could probably be applied to a much larger world, allowing better choices of sites), which will give ample opportunity to experiment, including a probable end-game test: unleashing the HFS on the fort and thus trying to knock the world from the Age of Death to something else.

Also, based on current observations, we already seem to have learned something...but it'll take more testing to verify.

• The Age of Emptiness is a time when there are no civilized beings left alive.  This is a game state that can be achieved in adventure mode, because everything can be killed in adventure mode (Phase 1 testing, completed, says it is essentially possible to kill everything.  Phase 3 testing, still pending, will work on the nuances of that.)  However, the Age of Emptiness is not respected in dwarf mode; things will be re-popped.
• The Age of Death is a time when there are no civilizations left alive.  This game state probably cannot be achieved in adventure mode, and might not be achievable in dwarf mode, either (I thought I remember getting it, but I've no documentation and I might have confused it for the Age of Emptiness.  Testing required).  It may be respected in dwarf mode, though; this next game will test that, but I'm almost certain that the answer is yes.  The idea here seems to be that while fortress dwarves and adventurers can kill any historical figure (except for gods and forces), only the world gen history process can kill a civilization--and if civilizations are alive, then in fortress mode things will be popped for them.

Anyway, testing underway.