-+= The Great CLIFF Challenges! =+-
Welcome all, to the great fortress challenges that await you! Here I have three embark locations upon this mountain: The Tower of Dying. Each of these embarks increases in difficulty, especially when held to challenge conditions. You can be tested on conserving water, engineering and constructing in limited horizontal space, and using mountain fortifications properly. These small, but awe-inspiring areas can all be found in a single region area at the base of The Tower of Dying, pictured on the collage of local maps below.
-Download of the map is Here, and at every challenge. They are all the same map, so only download it once.- This naturally generated cliff area spans vertically upwards very sharply, with an enormous horizontal cliff face, and two square based spikes which thrust up from the land some 50 z-levels. The general area is heavily forested, and all embarks contain flux stone in the form of marble. Water is only found in murky pools at one spike and the cliff, with no overground water on the right most spike, as it is in a badlands area.
The Goal:
In all these embarkments, your goal is to
only construct your fortress at ground level and up, within a spike or the cliff. You can mine down deeper than your spike/cliff, but you may not build workshops down there. Instead, bring magma or water back up to your Spike Tower of Fury to power the magma kilns, or create the Niagara Falls over your cliff face!
Other goals can be to turn your spike into a giant wizards tower, where the noble and pure live at the top, controlling the lives of all who live in the base. Or perhaps A massive military compound looms within the fortifications, ready to battle Goblin seiges with ease! Lastly, you could turn your fortress into a hotel resort: misty waterfalls and gem-studded nether-cap barrels for all to enjoy!
It's the cliff's and spike's which make this map unique, but feel free to break the only rule if you just want to see awesome towering spires, and establish a working fortress. It's just that there is a lot of enjoyment to be had confined within a stone spire.
The Sites:
There are three main sites within the region: The Cliff, the Grass Spike, and the Desert Spike. Information and pictures are available alongside each embark location. Please follow the instructions for embarking at each location, as some are different than others.
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(Easiest) CLIFF Challenge:
This cliff extends vertically over 100 Z-levels, with around 12 Z-levels of almost vertical wall at the base. This makes it an appealing location for a fortified cliff, with tons of room out behind the face for dining rooms, barracks and the like. Imagine what it would look like with a water fall extending across the entirety of the wall face?
Embark Instructions: Download the map,
here, and extract it into your "Save" folder. Start a new Dwarf Fortress, and hit {Shift+R}, the {-} key, then {Esc}. This should bring you to the area pictured in the spoiler.
The boxed area on the local region should be where you should embark. You may embark with whatever goods you want.
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(Medium) SPIKE Challenge:
(This embark location is susceptible to errors, so caution is advised here until a clear-cut fix is found.) This spike extends some 50 Z-Levels into the air, turning from a square base, to a circle, to a diamond shaped tip before ending sharply. These narrow confines make for excellent practice at cramming in lots of things to a small space. Embarking here often leads to your caravan being destroyed as the dwarves will land halfway up the side, but never fear: additional supplies and dead turkeys are provided.
These supplies (which I didn't want to give you, but oh well) consist of:
- A caravan and 11 logs of towercap.
- 24 barrels of booze, 4 barrels of meat, 2 barrels of plump helmets, 5 barrels of fish.
- 6 bags of seeds, one for each underground crop.
-Three pieces of Granite, an iron anvil and five pieces of Malachite (Copper ore).
-Roughly 20 or so rotton carcasses of various animals, including dogs, turkeys and horses.
Due to these supplies, you may wish not to bring any articles of your own food, or bring resources which would otherwise cost too much. You will still want to give skills to your peasents though.
Embark Instructions: (IMPORTANT, THIS EMBARK IS DIFFERENT TO THE OTHERS) Download the map,
here, and extract it into your "Save" folder. Start a new Dwarf Fortress, and hit {Shift+R}, the {-} key, then {Esc}. This should bring you to the area pictured in the spoiler.
The boxed area on the local region should be where you should embark. However, the game
will not let you embark until you use the "just embark" software. Simply download "just embark",
here, and then run it once with Dwarf Fortress open. If it works, it will not give any confirmation of doing so. Instead, the 'e' on embark will highlight as per normal, allowing you to embark.
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(Hardest) DESERT SPIKE Challenge:
Similar to the other spike challenge, except there are no extra supplies, virtually no grass, no trees, no surface water, and the only real food sources are two bee hives and the herds of camels. Farming space is difficult to find as there is no way to grow above ground crops for a while, and the only water is located underground. Space is severally limited in this challenge, and efforts should be made to negate starvation at all costs. Remember that Dwarves almost always arrive at this site via Dwarven catapult, so virtually never have their caravan intact. Remember this, as that is three less logs to build from.
Embark Instructions: Download the map,
here, and extract it into your "Save" folder. Start a new Dwarf Fortress, and hit {Shift+R}, the {-} key, then {Esc}. This should bring you to the area pictured in the spoiler.
The boxed area on the local region should be where you should embark. You may embark with whatever goods you want.
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I hope there are members out there who want to give the challenges a go! When you download it, feel free to reply to this thread saying which embark you are taking, and post images later of whatever architectural/industrial/engineering/militaristic wonders you create on it!
World Gen info can be found here:
[WORLD_GEN]
[TITLE:CREATE WORLD NOW = 4133454]
[SEED:1274773148]
[HISTORY_SEED:2945830708]
[NAME_SEED:3663377032]
[CREATURE_SEED:3599988464]
[DIM:129:129]
[EMBARK_POINTS:1274]
[END_YEAR:5]
[BEAST_END_YEAR:5:-1]
[REVEAL_ALL_HISTORY:1]
[CULL_HISTORICAL_FIGURES:0]
[ELEVATION:1:400:1600:1600]
[RAINFALL:0:100:200:200]
[TEMPERATURE:25:75:200:200]
[DRAINAGE:0:100:200:200]
[VOLCANISM:0:100:200:200]
[SAVAGERY:0:100:200:200]
[ELEVATION_FREQUENCY:4:2:0:1:0:1]
[RAIN_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[DRAINAGE_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[TEMPERATURE_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[SAVAGERY_FREQUENCY:3:1:2:3:4:5]
[VOLCANISM_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[MINERAL_SCARCITY:500]
[MEGABEAST_CAP:27]
[SEMIMEGABEAST_CAP:55]
[TITAN_NUMBER:13]
[TITAN_ATTACK_TRIGGER:80:0:100000]
[DEMON_NUMBER:28]
[NIGHT_CREATURE_NUMBER:28]
[GOOD_SQ_COUNTS:6:63:0]
[EVIL_SQ_COUNTS:6:63:0]
[PEAK_NUMBER_MIN:3]
[PARTIAL_OCEAN_EDGE_MIN:0]
[COMPLETE_OCEAN_EDGE_MIN:4]
[VOLCANO_MIN:1]
[REGION_COUNTS:SWAMP:66:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:DESERT:66:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:FOREST:264:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:MOUNTAINS:528:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:OCEAN:528:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:GLACIER:16:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:TUNDRA:33:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:GRASSLAND:528:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:HILLS:528:0:0]
[EROSION_CYCLE_COUNT:250]
[RIVER_MINS:25:25]
[PERIODICALLY_ERODE_EXTREMES:1]
[OROGRAPHIC_PRECIPITATION:1]
[SUBREGION_MAX:2750]
[CAVERN_LAYER_COUNT:3]
[CAVERN_LAYER_OPENNESS_MIN:0]
[CAVERN_LAYER_OPENNESS_MAX:100]
[CAVERN_LAYER_PASSAGE_DENSITY_MIN:0]
[CAVERN_LAYER_PASSAGE_DENSITY_MAX:100]
[CAVERN_LAYER_WATER_MIN:0]
[CAVERN_LAYER_WATER_MAX:100]
[HAVE_BOTTOM_LAYER_1:1]
[HAVE_BOTTOM_LAYER_2:1]
[LEVELS_ABOVE_GROUND:15]
[LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_1:5]
[LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_2:1]
[LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_3:1]
[LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_4:1]
[LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_5:2]
[LEVELS_AT_BOTTOM:1]
[CAVE_MIN_SIZE:5]
[CAVE_MAX_SIZE:25]
[MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN:15]
[NON_MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN:22]
[ALL_CAVES_VISIBLE:0]
[SHOW_EMBARK_TUNNEL:2]
[TOTAL_CIV_NUMBER:40]
[TOTAL_CIV_POPULATION:15000]
[SITE_CAP:1040]
[PLAYABLE_CIVILIZATION_REQUIRED:1]
[ELEVATION_RANGES:8000:1056:528]
[RAIN_RANGES:528:1056:528]
[DRAINAGE_RANGES:528:1056:528]
[SAVAGERY_RANGES:0:2080:4160]
[VOLCANISM_RANGES:528:1056:528]