Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[DarkDragon]

I just installed a copy of Dig Deeper, and am playing around with it.

A couple problems.

Mainly, I don't want orcs to be able to kill off everything in worldgen. Thus far, every single megabeast in worldgen has been killed off by orcs every time I do it.

So, I'd like some suggested tweaks to the orcs, megabeasts, or woldgen parameters so that the following is accomplished.

1. Orcs don't own EVERYTHING they come across. I don't mind challenge, but I also don't want sieges my first year from things I have no hope of fighting against without exploiting.

2. Similar to the above, I want some megabeasts to survive worldgen.


Any suggestions to accomplish the above are appreciated

Oh, and while I'm asking questions, where is the line I have to change so that the Mayday graphics pack doesn't display houses/levers/etc in the text for things?

Thanks.

EDIT - If this needs to be moved to the Modding section feel free. I figured I've seen plenty of discussion about Dig Deeper in this forum so I just posted it here, but if it's incorrect a mod can move it.

[Shrike]

Orcs aren't too bad. You can modify when they'll start showing up.

In the "Entity_orc.txt", look for the  "PROGRESS_TRIGGER" tags. They'll all be set to 1. Set them higher (up to 5, which is pretty much Large population OR very valuable fort), and they'll show up when you're a bit more prepared.
Personally, I use:
 
[PROGRESS_TRIGGER_POPULATION:1]
[PROGRESS_TRIGGER_PRODUCTION:2]
[PROGRESS_TRIGGER_TRADE:1]

And it's been very successful  in letting me get everything in and protected before they show up for the first time. Typically, they show up by year three, but not in year one.

In story terms, that seems more realistic than orcs waiting outside the mountainhome and invisibly tailing every dwarf wagon. Lets your fort get a bit more recognition and trade caravans for them to follow before they bring their buddies.

[DarkDragon]

Orcs aren't too bad. -snip-

Thanks, I've just heard horror stories, and while I've been pretty much convinced I can handle almost any challenge the vanilla game can throw at me, I don't want to have to exploit to defeat a challenge, which is what I hear a lot of people suggesting to defeat the default Dig Deeper orcs.

Plus, they keep killing off my megabeasts, (and occasionally wiping out almost every other civ on the map) which I consider much more interesting than sieges.

[Shrike]

Well, I've stopped using traps, anyway. Those elven short swords are great vs. orc steel, and easy on new recruits.


As for the megabeasts... well, hadn't been checking the histories to find out what happened to them. The typical answer would be to make megabeasts tougher, but it's a tricky thing to balance.

[Imp]

I've not had that problem with almighty orcs killing off all the megabeasts in my games of dig deeper.  Might want to adjust the world map parameters to make more/larger caves, that's one change I made (100 mountain caves, size 25 to 100), and that seems to shelter them quite well for me.

[Raphite1]

Regarding their threat to your embark party, Orcs are fine as long as you're willing to adapt your embark strategy from vanilla. A first-year siege will usually be only one squad, which can be defeated without much problem with hallway + chained pets + 7 wooden crossbows + 7 stacks of wooden bolts. Or, retractable access bridge + crossbows.

Or, if you think that crossbows are an exploit, bring a skilled mechanic and a couple seasons' worth of food and booze. With some efficient micromanagement you'll be able to set up a simple collapse trap, drowning trap, or even a spike trap that should deal with enough orcs that your embark party can handle any survivors in melee. (or just lock yourself in and do indoor industries while you wait for them to leave)

[DarkDragon]

At this point the main thing I need is suggestions for keeping the megabeasts alive, I'm not too experienced with tweaking worldgen parameters, I'll try the cave size thing, and see how that works.

I'll also see about increasing the # of megabeasts in the world from the start, that might help too.

[Raphite1]

You can't increase the number of total megabeasts, unfortunately.

But, before you generate the world, you can increase their size and/or damblock to be extremely high. (Ex: [SIZE:500].) Almost all of them will survive. If you don't want to fight them at this strength when they show up at your fortress, just set the size/damblock back to normal before you embark.

[Shrike]

That's right, you can mod like that... I forgot not everything requires regen.

That should take care of all the issues.

[DarkDragon]

You can't increase the number of total megabeasts, unfortunately.

But, before you generate the world, you can increase their size and/or damblock to be extremely high. (Ex: [SIZE:500].) Almost all of them will survive. If you don't want to fight them at this strength when they show up at your fortress, just set the size/damblock back to normal before you embark.

I heard that doing this can sometimes cause it to get stuck and they'll still be at that power upon final worldgen.

What about just getting worldgen to end sooner than year 200? Most die around year 150-175 for me, so maybe if I can start around 100-125 it wouldn't be so bad?

No idea how to do that either though.

Thanks for the help though.

Oh and Shrike, you wouldn't happen to be the same Shrike that plays EVE Online?

[Shrike]

Nope. My handle isn't all that uncommon; it refers to either a bird of prey, or a fictional mechanical death god thingy.

Likely the other Shrike is also a fan of Raptors or Hyperion.

I've been using Shrike because of Dan Simmons since 1999 or so.

[DarkDragon]

Nope. My handle isn't all that uncommon; it refers to either a bird of prey, or a fictional mechanical death god thingy.

Likely the other Shrike is also a fan of Raptors or Hyperion.

I've been using Shrike because of Dan Simmons since 1999 or so.

Yea, just had to ask.

[stormyseasons]

If you want worldgen to end earlier, one method is to tweak the percentage of megabeasts that must be dead down, and to change the year the game starts to checks this percentage. For instance, I believe default has 80% dead and checking starting around year 150 - 300. For a quicker end, tweak that percentage down and have them start checking around year 50 or something.

[namragog]

Don't want to kill your happiness, but all of those mods will be destroyed in the upcoming edition.

[Shrike]

Only for about a month.