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[Lord Dullard]

For the benefit of those with TL;DR syndrome or who don't want to download gigantic image files, here's a much smaller screenshot of a segment of a world:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Nadaka]

Not sure due to low number of samples so far, but I think it looks a bit better when you cranked the number of rivers up. In the previous images there were a few big flat green patches that were very far from any rivers and several lakes that didn't have any feeders.

[Lord Dullard]

Yeah, I noticed this as well. I've set the number of rivers to be generated by default at a fairly high number that seems to create consistently pleasing results. Additionally, I made a couple of visual tweaks that (hopefully) improve the overall appearance of rivers/streams - namely, they darken the surrounding tile just a bit (I found this keeps them from looking 'pasted-on') and their last tile will no longer protrude into whatever body of water they terminate in.

Here's a quick example: Sample World

[Lord Dullard]

Probably the last update before I crash out for the night. I lowered the required terrain height for river source generation, so maps are now turning out something like so:

Map

It's not quite as realistic as having all rivers originate from mountains, but it covers a much greater area of the map and generally looks better. But I've been delayed by terrain for too long (yet again). Back to work on history gen!

[Outcast Orange]

This is one hell of a map generator.
It certainly looks like a graphical version of DF.

I am wondering if you will be able to contain yourself and limit the game to a religious war,
 and not a fortress sim.

;D

[Lord Dullard]

I'm not planning on having it be a 'fortress sim' - you'll be too busy exploring ruins and fighting pitched battles to spend the kind of ultra-detailed attention to design DF does. Cult will eventually have more of an Unreal World-ish sort of craft system. The building system will be considerably more expansive than URW's, though, allowing you to construct multi-leveled structures with the aid of your followers. I'd like to give players reasons to go and build these things - for example, building shrines will help spread your religion, or building a bridge between two continents will allow you to cross an army without requiring a ship. I have quite a few ideas about a more 'fluid' real-time roguelike world, as well - the battle system should ideally feel a little bit like... well, if you took Dragon Age's ability to pause and micromanage, made the battles more on the scale of Mount and Blade, and then translated it to text.

Of course, this is all a long way off, but I plan on finishing this project. 

[chaoticag]

When you say Unreal World, crafting and building in the same paragraph, that makes me cringe a bit.

Please tell me that deforestation is not the only option to build a monument.

[Lord Dullard]

The goal should be the same range of craftable items you see in URW, although necessarily a lot of them will be of a different nature (you probably won't be making many fur mittens - more along the lines of metal gauntlets). The skill system that governs what you can make will most likely be very different, however.

As for building:

The building system will be considerably more expansive

So no, you won't have to deforest everything.

[Outcast Orange]

It all sounds very interesting.
I'll definitely be trying this out at every possibility.

[Lord Dullard]

A quick pre-work update:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Rivers now fade seamlessly into one another so the colors won't look jarring. I have tomorrow off, so I'll likely spend most of it continuing what I've started with basic civilization setup.

ETA:
And thanks again to everyone very much for comments and feedback. I know I don't respond to every post, but I appreciate them a lot. 

[Jack_Bread]

It's looking great! Can't wait to see civs.

[brainfire]

This is relevant to my interests.

[Avaris]

Unreal World-ish craft system makes me a bit afraid of that notorious "wooden bowl economy". In URW you could just create dozens of trinkets to buy everything you want. Well, I guess that problem is in DF too with all these worthless andesite earrings... 

What are you going to do to avoid that?

And how trading would work anyway? How detailed economy is going to be?

[Bricks]

Implementing supply and demand shouldn't be too difficult, although it's not trivial.  If individuals (or communities, seeing as how you'd probably want to abstract some of this) have needs, resources, and the means to convert those resources into goods, a simple supply-demand model should fall into place.  Things like government intervention and resource distribution are trickier, but not impossible.  I'd be shocked if Lord Dullard went to all the trouble of making such a detailed world, and then ignored economics (which I would say are more important/a precursor to politics).

[Lord Dullard]

Those worrying about getting a URW-like economy are confusing craft with economy. Let me put it more plainly: I want the player to have a variety of creatable goods similar to that of URW or DF, but the production of these goods will be handled far differently than either of those games. I don't want to say a whole lot more on that subject as of yet because I still have a lot of ideas to sort out, but let's not get too much into speculation or comparison before any actual details are even hammered out (especially when these are matters that are going to have to wait until more important building blocks are coded first).

I will say this, though - not all economies in all civilizations will work the same way. The URW 'wooden bowl economy', as it has been dubbed, might well WORK for/on some civs. This is a good thing! What do you think large economies (like Britain, Spain, et cetera) did when they encountered less developed economies (Native Americans, African tribes, and so on)? They traded them tons of worthless trinkets for less easily producable/more desired goods like furs, foodstuffs, exotic gems and spices... the list goes on. So in a sense the 'wooden bowl economy' actually works, it just works in the wrong way.

See, more advanced societies should also ideally exist to contrast URW's problem, and this is what I'll be going for. You might be able to fool a bunch of hillbilly yokels into giving you their wealth for some fancily-woven blankets, but you sure as hell aren't going to fool a blacksmith in the fantasy equivalent of London that way. He'll want cash - cold, hard cash, or perhaps similar goods of an equal or greater value that he's used to dealing with and can reasonably estimate the value of, such as swords or armor or (you guessed it) a valuable artifact from an ancient civilization or temple. And he might only accept certain types of cash - not all nations should use the same currency, although exchanges should be possible (probably at a loss to the player in many cases).

And now I'm rambling. Back to work. 

Edit:
And as a note, you might be wondering why you'll even need to be trading Bob the Blacksmith for equipment if you can just go and yank it out of the undead hands of some Big Bad in a forgotten tomb. The answer is simple: you can reasonably expect to deck yourself and a few top-tier followers out that way, but you certainly won't be able to equip scores of followers in artifact armor/weapons without spending ungodly amounts of time playing the game. Count on getting one artifact out of a dungeon on average - and maybe a couple pieces of high-tier non-artifact equipment. At some point you'll need to bite the bullet and head to an economy that is able to produce high-mid level goods so that you can outfit your army properly.