World generation - Revision history

173.0.157.8: /* Basic world generation menu */

2026-01-16T11:12:28Z

Basic world generation menu

Ziusudra: /* Finishing */ added key template for "wasd" too

2025-12-29T23:32:12Z

Finishing: added key template for "wasd" too

Ziusudra: /* The generation process */ replaced old key with button

2025-12-29T23:29:47Z

The generation process: replaced old key with button

Ziusudra: /* The generation process */ added pause button responsiveness explanation

2025-12-29T23:26:43Z

The generation process: added pause button responsiveness explanation

Silverwing235: /* Trivia */

2025-10-22T17:05:00Z

Trivia

Hittemvvvhard: /* History length */

2025-05-29T12:25:44Z

History length

Ziusudra: /* Mineral occurrence */ updated for v50+ default

2025-05-29T00:31:13Z

Mineral occurrence: updated for v50+ default

Ziusudra: /* Finishing */ updated for v50, added seeds in gamelog.txt

2025-05-16T05:44:06Z

Finishing: updated for v50, added seeds in gamelog.txt

69.172.166.73: Corrected link to interview with Tarn Adams

2025-04-27T16:57:46Z

Corrected link to interview with Tarn Adams

69.172.166.73: Fixed a broken link to Toady One's developer interview at Gamasutra (now Gamedeveloper)

2025-04-27T16:53:57Z

Fixed a broken link to Toady One's developer interview at Gamasutra (now Gamedeveloper)

@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 === World size ===
-"This controls the size of the world map."   Using basic world generation, the size options are:
+This controls the size of the world map.   Using basic world generation, the size options are:
 * Pocket (17×17 region tiles)
@@ Line 48: / Line 48: @@
 === History length ===
-[[File:history_gen_steam.gif|thumb|right|278px|Animation of a pocket world's land and history being developed.]]"This is the (maximum) length of pre-generated history." The number of years for the currently selected length will be shown in the lower right. A longer history allows more time for civilizations to grow, attack each other, and starve to death before the player can start playing. It also determines the amount of time that [[megabeast]]s will have to roam and kill things, get killed, etc. The longer the history, the more historical events will be generated by the time gameplay begins.
+[[File:history_gen_steam.gif|thumb|right|278px|Animation of a pocket world's land and history being developed.]]This is the (maximum) length of pre-generated history. The number of years for the currently selected length will be shown in the lower right. A longer history allows more time for civilizations to grow, attack each other, and starve to death before the player can start playing. It also determines the amount of time that [[megabeast]]s will have to roam and kill things, get killed, etc. The longer the history, the more historical events will be generated by the time gameplay begins.
 Note that history generation can be interrupted and the world saved far short of the selected history value. (Players might choose to do so if they are trying to reach a certain [[Calendar#Ages|age]], if they want to embark near a [[Tower (necromancy)|tower]], or if worldgen has slowed to a crawl, for instance). The actual length of history generation determines the details of the world; the history configuration setting only establishes a maximum year at which generation will stop automatically.

@@ Line 255: / Line 255: @@
 === Finishing ===
-Once everything is complete, you can take a look around using middle mouse or the wasd [[controls|keys]], {{k|Shift}}+wasd key will move farther. If you find yourself confused about what all the things actually are, check out the [[map legend]]. At this point you can either '''Play now''' to use the world immediately, or exit to the main menu; both will save the world to disk.
+Once everything is complete, you can take a look around using middle mouse or the {{k|wasd}} [[controls|keys]], {{k|Shift|wasd|sep=+}} keys will move farther. If you find yourself confused about what all the things actually are, check out the [[map legend]]. At this point you can either '''Play now''' to use the world immediately, or exit to the main menu; both will save the world to disk.
 Unfortunately, the post-generation-process viewer doesn't give you a way to view much information about the world, so unless you really hate the look of the map or something, you probably want to just save the world and load it up in [[Legends]] mode to view more information.

@@ Line 218: / Line 218: @@
 == The generation process ==
-Once you're satisfied with your parameter selections, hit {{k|y}} to proceed.
+Once you're satisfied with your parameter selections, click {{DFtext|Create world|7:2:1}} to proceed.
 The screen will show something like this:

@@ Line 224: / Line 224: @@
 [[File:worldgen_anim_steam.gif]]
-The name of the world will be randomized in basic world generation mode.
+The name of the world will be randomized in basic world generation mode. The Pause button will not immediately stop the simulation, since the game will only pause at the end of a year; to ensure that the game registers the pause request, click and '''hold''' the button until it pauses.
 === Rejections ===

@@ Line 270: / Line 270: @@
 * World generation is where [[Main:Toady One|Toady]] invests most of his time, this is the [http://www.moma.org/collection/works/164920 piece of art] that makes ''Dwarf Fortress'' unique enough for the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
 * The maximum size of the world is comparable to that of the state of Minnesota.
-* On the 86th rejected world an error report will appear with four options, this is in reference to the term "86ing" something, which is defined in the Urban Dictionary as "To remove, end usage, or take something out or away." <sup>[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=86]</sup>
+* On the 86th rejected world, an error report will appear, with four options, this is in reference to the term "86ing" something, which is defined in the Urban Dictionary as "To remove, end usage, or take something out or away." <sup>[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=86]</sup>
 {{D for Dwarf}}
-* It is universally known that the world is flat. Anyone who says otherwise has to be [[Unfortunate accident|treated with magma]].
+* It is universally known that the world is flat. Anyone who says otherwise has to be [[Unfortunate accident|treated with magma]] (''or simply is the sort of [[Elf|hippie]] whose attitude in such matters would require such treatment, anyway'').
 {{World}}

@@ Line 54: / Line 54: @@
 Longer histories will cause world generation to take longer, both because there are more years of events and because there tend to be more events in subsequent years. Conversely, shorter histories will take much less time to generate, but may limit some features (civilization size, sites, knowledge, historical artifacts, and necromancer towers).  Longer histories will also increase the number of abandoned (sacked) towns and fortresses, which can matter for adventure mode, but conversely, doesn't matter that much for fortress mode. The recommended values for worlds you plan to use for adventure mode are Short or Medium.
-History will still progress after world generation, concurrently with normal gameplay, but this will, of course, be much slower (around two weeks per session start, in either fortress or adventurer mode). Therefore, it is recommended to set the history length so that the number of sites, megabeasts, and historical events is roughly what one wants it to be during gameplay.
+History will still progress after world generation, concurrently with normal gameplay, but this will, of course, be much slower (around two weeks per session start, in either fortress or adventurer mode). Therefore, it is recommended to set the history length so that the number of sites, megabeasts, and historical events is roughly what one wants it to be during gameplay. During play, the world and its history will continue to develop, but it is unclear to what degree that corresponds to regular world-gen.
 The youngest world possible to generate is 2 years old. This can be done through custom world-gen parameters. For more information on the history aspect of the game, see [[Legends]] and [[Calendar#Ages|Ages]].

@@ Line 215: / Line 215: @@
 === Mineral occurrence ===
-This is a rather important parameter for [[fortress mode]]. Sparse means that many areas will only have one or two types of metal ore, if any, which could be very annoying to people until the [[40d:Dwarven_economy|economy]] is fully (re)implemented and other metals can more easily be obtained via trade. New players should probably turn this up to Frequent. See [[Advanced_world_generation#Mineral_Scarcity|Mineral Scarcity]] for more details.
+This is a rather important parameter, new players should probably leave it at ''everywhere''. It determines the how often ores and gems appear in an area, including wherever you try to build a fortress. It also determines the types of metals that [[civilization]]s have access to, which can limit types of items that are available at embark preparation, [[adventure mode]] character creation, and in most generated sites. See [[Advanced_world_generation#Mineral_Scarcity|Mineral Scarcity]] for more details.
 == The generation process ==

@@ Line 237: / Line 237: @@
 [[File:resources_worldgen_steam.png|thumb|320px|right|Location and resources section of the screen.]] First ''Dwarf Fortress'' generates the map topography. This process is generally much faster than history generation (unless you've specified parameters that lead to constant map rejections).
-In an interview{{cite|gamedeveloper|https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/interview-the-making-of-dwarf-fortress}}, [[Main:Toady One|Toady One]] described map generation:
+In an interview{{cite|gamedeveloper|https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/q-a-dissecting-the-development-of-i-dwarf-fortress-i-with-creator-tarn-adams}}, [[Main:Toady One|Toady One]] described map generation:
 :"It allocates the memory for the map. Then it chooses what sort of pole (e.g. north, south) it is going to have (or respects the parameters fed by the player, throughout.) The basic map field values (elevation, rainfall, temperature, drainage, volcanism, wildness) are seeded along a grid of variable size, respecting various settings (oceans, island sizes, other variances, etc.), and then filled in fractally. The poles vary the temperature, and it selects some points for the highest peaks. Here it does a first pass to see how it is doing, and attempts to adjust some altitudes to fit the map within the desired parameters if it missed. The world can be rejected at this point if it is unfixable, and it tries again.

@@ Line 237: / Line 237: @@
 [[File:resources_worldgen_steam.png|thumb|320px|right|Location and resources section of the screen.]] First ''Dwarf Fortress'' generates the map topography. This process is generally much faster than history generation (unless you've specified parameters that lead to constant map rejections).
-In an interview{{cite|gamasutra|https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/343859/}}, [[Main:Toady One|Toady One]] described map generation:
+In an interview{{cite|gamedeveloper|https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/interview-the-making-of-dwarf-fortress}}, [[Main:Toady One|Toady One]] described map generation:
 :"It allocates the memory for the map. Then it chooses what sort of pole (e.g. north, south) it is going to have (or respects the parameters fed by the player, throughout.) The basic map field values (elevation, rainfall, temperature, drainage, volcanism, wildness) are seeded along a grid of variable size, respecting various settings (oceans, island sizes, other variances, etc.), and then filled in fractally. The poles vary the temperature, and it selects some points for the highest peaks. Here it does a first pass to see how it is doing, and attempts to adjust some altitudes to fit the map within the desired parameters if it missed. The world can be rejected at this point if it is unfixable, and it tries again.
@@ Line 252: / Line 252: @@
 After generating the world, ''Dwarf Fortress'' will generate a history for that world, tracking civilizations, sites, populations, and other events. This can take a ''very'' long time for large, heavily populated worlds with very long, 2,000-year histories. History generation can be interrupted and the world saved before reaching the maximum year selected on the configuration menu.
-In an interview{{cite|gamasutra}}, [[Main:Toady One|Toady One]] described history generation:
+In an interview{{cite|gamedeveloper}}, [[Main:Toady One|Toady One]] described history generation:
 :"History itself can begin at this point. Civilizations and caves are placed. It's a bit complicated to go into what happens after that, but the basic idea is that there's a giant zero-player strategy game going on with somewhat loose turn rules and bad AI (but thousands of agents), and history is just a record of that. Procedurally generating stories by recording a log of a simulation is a valid enough approach, though it has drawbacks, of course. It's a lot of work, you need to do post-processing or investigation to find any good moments you'd like to highlight, and if you don't have enough dynamics and mechanisms, the output can be boring (in any number of ways.)"