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[Eric Blank]

I agree as well. They wouldn't necessarily work as strict do-or-die rules, but they would be good suggestions.

[DS]

When I get a chance, I'll draw up a list of recommended guidelines to make fortresses more easily explorable. I think most people will follow them, since everyone WANTS their fortress to be explored, after all.

[Feb]

Will be be using the new release for this?  If so, count me in, hopefully I remember this thread when it's finally my turn!  (The wait is gonna be almost 2 years  )

[Eric Blank]

alrighty then!

Oh, and poindexterity; here's the list from 50 onward. Appears you missed Yoink.

50)   Orius
51)   Brotato
52)   Vehudur
53)   bucketHoolave
54)   Yoink
55)   Scion-of-Fenrir
56)   Japa
57)   Deadmeat1471
58)   Crustypeanut
59)   Feb

[DS]

Tossed these together - I couldn't think of any more than these two, but if anyone has any other ideas to make things more adventurer-friendly, they're totally up for discussion (as well as the rules, which are included in the OP).

Recommendation 1: Embark on an area that is the minimum size necessary for you to construct the fort you have in mind. In adventure mode, players will only be able to see the general size and location of your embark site, but not the location of your actual fortress. If your fortress only uses up a small portion of your embark site, you run the risk of a player not being able to find the site you've constructed for them - or, even worse, you run the risk of frustrating players who spend unnecessary amounts of time searching for your site. In this way, smaller embark sites are almost always preferable. (Along these same lines, smaller embarks keep the raw size of the save file comparatively smaller, which is gonna be a big help to anyone following after you.)

Recommendation 2: Make the entrance to your site obvious, and ideally at the center of your embark. Nobody wants to spend a half hour hunting around for the single downward ramp or stairwell you've made the entrance to your fortress. Make things big, grandiose, and/or obviously artificial. Along those same lines, if you make the entrance to your fortress as close to the center of your embark as possible (more or less exactly where your wagon is when you start), players can navigate quickly and easily to your site.

Recommendation 3: Use heavy bins for item storage - especially item storage you want adventurers to find. Heavier bins (lead, gold, iron, etc.) are less likely to scatter after your fortress is abandoned or crumbles, and thus are perfect for stockpiles which you want adventurers to discover intact. Obviously this doesn't apply if you're using utilities to keep your fortress in an inhabited state.

[Girlinhat]

We're up to 60 on this?  52 weeks a year it'd take hella long time to get moving, assuming you're still using the 1-week deadline.  I kinda missed out on what the thread did...

[Poindexterity]

Recommendation 1: Embark on an area that is the minimum size necessary for you to construct the fort you have in mind. In adventure mode, players will only be able to see the general size and location of your embark site, but not the location of your actual fortress. If your fortress only uses up a small portion of your embark site, you run the risk of a player not being able to find the site you've constructed for them - or, even worse, you run the risk of frustrating players who spend unnecessary amounts of time searching for your site. In this way, smaller embark sites are almost always preferable. (Along these same lines, smaller embarks keep the raw size of the save file comparatively smaller, which is gonna be a big help to anyone following after you.)

I second this idea as i love it.

Recommendation 2: Make the entrance to your site obvious, and ideally at the center of your embark. Nobody wants to spend a half hour hunting around for the single downward ramp or stairwell you've made the entrance to your fortress. Make things big, grandiose, and/or obviously artificial. Along those same lines, if you make the entrance to your fortress as close to the center of your embark as possible (more or less exactly where your wagon is when you start), players can navigate quickly and easily to your site.

I like this idea with an exception. If one plans to make the "main" entrance to one's fort super dangerous, perhaps one could make a second, less obvious and less dangerous way in. This sort of thing would have to be at LEAST hinted at in the fort notes however.

Recommendation 3: Use heavy bins for item storage - especially item storage you want adventurers to find. Heavier bins (lead, gold, iron, etc.) are less likely to scatter after your fortress is abandoned or crumbles, and thus are perfect for stockpiles which you want adventurers to discover intact. Obviously this doesn't apply if you're using utilities to keep your fortress in an inhabited state.

I second this idea as well because i love it dearly.

[Eric Blank]

We're up to 60 on this?  52 weeks a year it'd take hella long time to get moving, assuming you're still using the 1-week deadline.  I kinda missed out on what the thread did...

Oh hey! It's GIH! I thought you died!
The decision on the turn time is 10 days maximum, which begins as soon as your turn comes up. If you don't respond within 48 hours of being pm'd, you're skipped. You're expected to upload and post the save within 48 hours of either acknowledging the death of your fortress, or on the last day of your turn, or you're skipped. So, there's not much leeway in how much time you can waste, even though you've got up to 10 days to play.

Anyway, DS;

#1 seems to work. I'd suggest though using paved roads/towers or somesuch leading to the edges of the site to help guide adventurers in if your fortress plan calls for a rather slim superstructure but a very large subterranean area. Not everyone is going to be planning ahead and thus won't have much clue what they want to make, but having a 4x4 (16) or possibly 4x5 (20) or 5x5 (25) cap set on the maximum size is probably a good idea.

#2 is certainly a good idea, as long as keeping the actual entrance in the center, rather than some massive structure with an entrance(s) on the side(s), is a suggestion. I love to use a massive, open pit with an equally grand superstructure above-ground as the central plan of a fortress, and it can have several entryways around the exterior of that. That being said, making the fortress entrance obvious, or repetitious yet leading back to the same area like a trade depot, is most certainly a good idea. Perhaps in the event there isn't a structure in the center yelling "Here I am! Walk into me!" then you should make one that includes the fortress' entrance.

#3 seems doable, but puts a heavy economic strain on the overseer in the event they don't have much metal to spare for bins (kinda like all the crap the US government mandates harhar.) It's probably best kept as more of a suggestion.


I'm so excited for the new release anyway eeeeeeee


Not a whole lot I can do now mod-wise for this project, because I still don't know what will be covered/available/changed in this release, or what else to do that will definitively make adventuring through this world and these forts more enjoyable. I'd suggest using wanderer's friend, but it may need to be updated as well. Oh, and I'm not *quite* sure how well the general community will take to a heavily modded game if it doesn't at least look and function like unmodded DF. The turn list is already set up though, so they better feel guilty for dropping out, and it's certainly not supposed to be too intrusive on the adventure mode front.

Any more ideas for the landscape? I'm going to be uploading another variant soon. I made the region between the great valley and the mountains and around that inland sea quite a bit more mountainous in itself. It's still low enough elevation wise that it uses non-mountain biomes, though. It also forces rivers to suddenly take on a low elevation and subsequently cut through higher elevations, meaning a higher chance of some really cool canyons.

[DS]

I'm not sure there's anything else we can do at this point, except wait for the next version to be released. I fully expect a week or two before we actually get started with this project, during which time we can contact the developers of the mods we're planning on using - or update such mods ourselves (in particular, the display case shouldn't take too much effort, and can be done by one of our own).

As for the recommendations, they're just that. Of course, there will be exceptions, depending on individual participant's visions - and this is a good thing, for variety's sake - but they are good guidelines, I think.

Girlinhat, it's good to see you're back - the past 40 pages will be a bit much to read through, but Poindexterity's OP contains the rules and turn list that we've developed.

[Eric Blank]

Oh look! The new version!

[Pranz]

Sweet, what preperations need to be made before we can get this launched?

[Garath]

Yay!

[Spish]

You most likely missed the small test world we did to get an idea what some of these fortresses would be like, with a two-day deadline instead of ten (I kind of bent that rule).
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=5456
Mine is a fully populated 100-man elf-hating fortress with bugged-out circus tent (30 floors deep), in case you've never actually seen one of those for yourself.

Speaking of circus tents, we came to the conclusion that turning off Cavern Layer 3 prevents a world from having them. Might have to bump the layers back up if we want them in (assuming they end up being less glitchy than the one at my Mountain Hall site)

In retrospect, artifacts might also be safe in bins, and can maybe even be carried offsite in them. Wouldn't make much of a difference with item scattering though, and from what I saw of Earthcheerful, lead bins don't seem to help that much. I don't feel like testing this right now

Edit: Oh hello there. Go ahead and generate us a prototype with the new version. Make caves visible. Before we launch, I'm going to want to test a bunch of things for integrity. There's no way in HFS we're settling for a world where it takes 15 seconds just to open conversation with any random NPC (ala Prototype XII).
Yo Blank, did you ever find a better way to handle goblin pets? If not, just disable them. We don't want gobbos riding in on war cheetah mounts or anything like that, that would be silly. And get rid of those custom expedition leader names.

We have a whole lotta new worldgen parameters.  Night Troll types, Bogeyman types, Vampire Curse types, Werebeast Curse types, Secret types, Regional Interaction types, Disturbance Interaction types, Evil Cloud types, Evil Rain types. I have no idea how to balance these at the moment.

[Armeleon]

So are we good to go? Let's get this new world genned and ready. I can't wait.

[Poindexterity]

So are we good to go? Let's get this new world genned and ready. I can't wait.

are we diving RIGHT in?
I was thinking we'd wait till the first couple bug fix updates came out.
thoughts?