Dwarf Fortress – How To Improve Your World Generation

Before you can enjoy the customization of the inside and the outside of your fortress, there are still a few things that you must learn. You will not immediately jump into mining tiles and assigning zones as you boot the game.

Dwarf Fortress lets you have your own world wherein all the processes and mechanisms are controlled by you. However, since the game just recently joined Steam and there are several players that are still new to the game, we provided a guide to help you out in discovering how to make the most of your world.

How To Improve Your World Generation in Dwarf Fortress

When you first boot the game, you will be welcomed in this main menu which is the starting line and the birth of your world.

As you create your own world, you might feel clueless about what is happening and what is the correct thing to fill in the boxes. But we are here to talk about the things you can do to improve your world generation.

Basic Settings

The first thing you would notice is the size of your world. Aside from the size, your choice here is also linked and related to the values of the other options.

The next thing you need to know is the length of history. As implied in its name, this will stop the generation of your world once it reached the limit according to your choice here.

Next up will be the number of civilizations. This will indicate how many distinct civilizations will exist in your world. This includes dwarves, elves, humans, and goblins.

Choosing low will surely exclude some races, but choosing high or higher increases the diversity in your world and the possible events that may happen due to several interracial interactions.

Now, this next one is kind of related to the first one. This is the way civilizations expand. As you lower the site, the size of each race also decreases. And vice versa.

Moving on, the number of beasts will indicate how many mega beasts and titans will appear at the beginning of your world. The higher the number of beasts in your world, the lower the number of civilizations you will have.

Here, the natural savagery will indicate the number of savage biomes you will have in your own world. Usually, players choose the medium setting here, but if you prefer a more challenging environment, you can change it to high.

In terms of mineral occurrences, it indicates what rocks and minerals each race can access and to what extent. For this, it is recommended to just leave it Everywhere so that there will always be a chance of randomness of minerals.

Using World Templates

If you are not that meticulous when it comes to having your own world, you can also import some templates from Dwarf Fortress.

Simply go to Program Files > Steam > steamapps > common > Dwarf Fortress.

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Once you are there, go to the folder names prefs and open the world_gen.txt. Scroll down to the bottom.

Now, what you have to do next is open another player’s template, then copy everything. After that, paste everything in your world_gen.txt, then save it.

Go back to the game, click Create new world, and then proceed to Detailed Mode. From there, you will see a drop-down box on the left side. You can scroll all the way down and you will see your edit template there.