0008544: Worldgen rarely makes it past "Age of Myth"

Notes
(0030972) smjjames (reporter) 2014-11-13 16:40	What are your worldgen parameters?

(0030974) CEHA (reporter) 2014-11-14 02:53 edited on: 2014-11-14 02:56	Standart no change. Jast unzip and run. In 0.40.15 all ages is OK.

(0030975) ptb_ptb (reporter) 2014-11-14 05:06 edited on: 2014-11-14 05:27	Gen'ed a small world in DF 0.40.16. Got 'Age of Legends' at 1050 years. It seems to take a lot longer to kill off the megabeasts? Maybe the new combat win/loss system is dampening down the civilizations fighting spirit?

(0030996) smjjames (reporter) 2014-11-14 15:59	I'm seeing this as well in a worldgen which usually goes to age of legends pretty quick in 40.15, or flips between successive ages of myth for a while and then age of legends and then heroes. Here's my worldgen parameters for adventure mode worlds: [WORLD_GEN] [TITLE:ADV MODE MED REG] [DIM:129:129] [EMBARK_POINTS:1324] [END_YEAR:300] [BEAST_END_YEAR:200:90] [REVEAL_ALL_HISTORY:1] [CULL_HISTORICAL_FIGURES:0] [ELEVATION:1:400:401:401] [RAINFALL:0:100:200:200] [TEMPERATURE:50:75:200:200] [DRAINAGE:0:100:200:200] [VOLCANISM:0:100:200:200] [SAVAGERY:0:100:200:200] [ELEVATION_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1] [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:1:1:1:1:1:1] [VOLCANISM_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1] [POLE:NONE] [MINERAL_SCARCITY:100] [MEGABEAST_CAP:18] [SEMIMEGABEAST_CAP:37] [TITAN_NUMBER:9] [TITAN_ATTACK_TRIGGER:80:0:100000] [DEMON_NUMBER:28] [NIGHT_TROLL_NUMBER:14] [BOGEYMAN_NUMBER:0] [VAMPIRE_NUMBER:28] [WEREBEAST_NUMBER:28] [SECRET_NUMBER:28] [REGIONAL_INTERACTION_NUMBER:28] [DISTURBANCE_INTERACTION_NUMBER:28] [EVIL_CLOUD_NUMBER:28] [EVIL_RAIN_NUMBER:28] [GENERATE_DIVINE_MATERIALS:1] [GOOD_SQ_COUNTS:0:0:0] [EVIL_SQ_COUNTS:50:503:1006] [PEAK_NUMBER_MIN:24] [PARTIAL_OCEAN_EDGE_MIN:1] [COMPLETE_OCEAN_EDGE_MIN:1] [VOLCANO_MIN:3] [REGION_COUNTS:SWAMP:260:1:1] [REGION_COUNTS:DESERT:260:1:1] [REGION_COUNTS:FOREST:1040:3:3] [REGION_COUNTS:MOUNTAINS:2080:2:2] [REGION_COUNTS:OCEAN:2080:1:1] [REGION_COUNTS:GLACIER:0:0:0] [REGION_COUNTS:TUNDRA:0:0:0] [REGION_COUNTS:GRASSLAND:2080:3:3] [REGION_COUNTS:HILLS:2080:3:3] [EROSION_CYCLE_COUNT:250] [RIVER_MINS:100:100] [PERIODICALLY_ERODE_EXTREMES:0] [OROGRAPHIC_PRECIPITATION:1] [SUBREGION_MAX:2750] [CAVERN_LAYER_COUNT:3] [CAVERN_LAYER_OPENNESS_MIN:75] [CAVERN_LAYER_OPENNESS_MAX:100] [CAVERN_LAYER_PASSAGE_DENSITY_MIN:0] [CAVERN_LAYER_PASSAGE_DENSITY_MAX:0] [CAVERN_LAYER_WATER_MIN:10] [CAVERN_LAYER_WATER_MAX:50] [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:25] [NON_MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN:50] [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:2080:4160:2080] [RAIN_RANGES:2080:4160:2080] [DRAINAGE_RANGES:2080:4160:2080] [SAVAGERY_RANGES:2080:4160:2080] [VOLCANISM_RANGES:2080:4160:2080]

(0031162) rmblr (reporter) 2014-11-24 23:42 edited on: 2014-11-24 23:42	On Linux v0.40.16, I am seeing this issue too on a number of worlds I generate, both with advanced parameters and not. Here is one genned to 5000 years: Created in DF v0.40.16. [WORLD_GEN] [TITLE:A Long Age] [SEED:I0O8wkYwy2sOya8QCyg8] [HISTORY_SEED:im4ciC8QIWcMe8cQiw8S] [NAME_SEED:omgcUa6SOYQwAYcwaaCe] [CREATURE_SEED:semMcAqOEogoiQUyqQGI] [DIM:257:257] [EMBARK_POINTS:1324] [END_YEAR:5000] [BEAST_END_YEAR:250:-1] [REVEAL_ALL_HISTORY:1] [CULL_HISTORICAL_FIGURES:1] [ELEVATION:1:400:1600:1600] [RAINFALL:0:100:400:400] [TEMPERATURE:25:75:400:400] [DRAINAGE:0:100:400:400] [VOLCANISM:0:100:400:400] [SAVAGERY:0:100:400:400] [ELEVATION_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1] [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:1:1:1:1:1:1] [VOLCANISM_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1] [POLE:NORTH_AND_OR_SOUTH] [MINERAL_SCARCITY:500] [MEGABEAST_CAP:75] [SEMIMEGABEAST_CAP:150] [TITAN_NUMBER:33] [TITAN_ATTACK_TRIGGER:80:0:100000] [DEMON_NUMBER:52] [NIGHT_TROLL_NUMBER:26] [BOGEYMAN_NUMBER:26] [VAMPIRE_NUMBER:26] [WEREBEAST_NUMBER:26] [SECRET_NUMBER:52] [REGIONAL_INTERACTION_NUMBER:52] [DISTURBANCE_INTERACTION_NUMBER:52] [EVIL_CLOUD_NUMBER:26] [EVIL_RAIN_NUMBER:26] [GENERATE_DIVINE_MATERIALS:1] [GOOD_SQ_COUNTS:24:244:0] [EVIL_SQ_COUNTS:24:244:0] [PEAK_NUMBER_MIN:12] [PARTIAL_OCEAN_EDGE_MIN:0] [COMPLETE_OCEAN_EDGE_MIN:4] [VOLCANO_MIN:8] [REGION_COUNTS:SWAMP:252:1:1] [REGION_COUNTS:DESERT:252:1:1] [REGION_COUNTS:FOREST:1008:3:2] [REGION_COUNTS:MOUNTAINS:2016:2:2] [REGION_COUNTS:OCEAN:2016:1:1] [REGION_COUNTS:GLACIER:63:0:0] [REGION_COUNTS:TUNDRA:126:0:0] [REGION_COUNTS:GRASSLAND:2016:3:2] [REGION_COUNTS:HILLS:2016:3:2] [EROSION_CYCLE_COUNT:250] [RIVER_MINS:100:100] [PERIODICALLY_ERODE_EXTREMES:1] [OROGRAPHIC_PRECIPITATION:1] [SUBREGION_MAX:3500] [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:100] [NON_MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN:200] [ALL_CAVES_VISIBLE:0] [SHOW_EMBARK_TUNNEL:2] [TOTAL_CIV_NUMBER:40] [TOTAL_CIV_POPULATION:15000] [SITE_CAP:1500] [PLAYABLE_CIVILIZATION_REQUIRED:1] [ELEVATION_RANGES:33000:4032:2016] [RAIN_RANGES:2016:4032:2016] [DRAINAGE_RANGES:2016:4032:2016] [SAVAGERY_RANGES:2016:4032:2016] [VOLCANISM_RANGES:2016:4032:2016]

(0031300) smjjames (reporter) 2014-12-09 07:41 edited on: 2014-12-09 07:45	Just posting an observation. After killing enough titans (most of them) and a couple of BCs, some semi-megas, then letting the new year go by, it changed to age of legends. So, it's not that it can't change, it will change when the conditions are right. So, that means that it's something with the conditions, that is, the number of megabeasts and semi-megas. Not sure if the necromancers in the one tower I attacked getting killed had any influence. If anybody wants to look at a save for legends reference or to compare, heres one after it went age of legends: http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=10208 [^] (it was posted for a different bug report, but it can be used as a reference here) Some further observations: I've noticed in the worldgens that I do (same worldgen params as above, except that I lowered the number of secrets when necro towers started proliferating a little), theres always lots of surviving megabeasts and semimegabeasts after 300 years, whereas before, they'd get mostly killed off by 300 years (occasionally Rocs would thrive and breed in numbers.. I've also noticed that there are LOADS of sasquatches and giant dingoes for some reason. Where minotaurs used to generally thrive, they now rarely survive 300 years, and if they do, it's always one that is far from civilization somewhere.

(0033053) Witty (reporter) 2015-09-16 22:07	Could forgotten beasts be inflating the megabeast populations? Since they're now more active in worldgen and all.

(0034923) chaosvolt (reporter) 2016-03-26 11:31 edited on: 2016-03-30 14:36	Here we go again, another bug I was looking into concerning .42.06, only to discover is an ANCIENT one. I've personally exterminated every megabeast of a Monster Island (caveat: these days you need to do some modding to play on monster islands, see discoveries in http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=9151 [^] ), and it remained in the age of myth despite a legends check. EDIT: Reserving my use of "long-standing bug" tag for DF2012 and earlier bugs that are still around.

(0034940) jwoodward48df (reporter) 2016-03-30 12:33	You DO have to wait a few years for it to take affect and be visible, you know. Every single recorded observation of an Age change has taken place on the 1st of Granite.

(0034942) chaosvolt (reporter) 2016-03-30 20:15	Hmm. Has anyone grabbed a save or screenshot confirming this though? Otherwise I'll have to exterminate another island for testing purposes. >.<

(0035593) chaosvolt (reporter) 2016-07-10 18:46	Alright ye drunken little beardlings, gather round while Papa Chaos tells ye a tale. I did a repeat of my earlier shenanigans, generated a monster island and purged it down to the last megabeast. Already you're in modding territory, because in a time before time (or in a time before recent versions), Toady broke the ability to play as outsiders in a world with no extant civilizations. Given the heretical power of savescumming, cleansing the isle was easier than it should be. No, the HARD part was generating and starving adventurer after adventurer, just to while away the time so I could confirm whether era transitions took place on new year's. And so I entered the final night, sitting around in my first adventurer's crude little hut as an elf, modded to not have to eat or drink, to facilitate that last bit of waiting. And with great care I saved, and waited. Found that yes, the transition occurs exactly at midnight, and will even display the message while waiting. But I wanted more, to time my wait so you could get that transition with but a press of the period. And so I did. Save here: http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=12251 [^] We can finally close this bloody thing. Fuck me, my finger's sore from hitting . to get the timing just right.

(0035604) m-logik (reporter) 2016-07-11 14:31	I almost feel bad for posting this after the work you put in, chaosvolt, but that doesn't resolve this bug. The reported bug isn't that the age won't change during the course of normal gameplay, it's that it won't change during the course of a normal worldgen. If you go back to ancient history and download version .40.15 or earlier, you'll see the age changes in worldgen pretty regularly in default worldgens or advanced worldgens without huge increases to the number of megas/semimegas. From .40.16 or later, age changes during worldgen are very rare even for very old worlds. The only way I've managed to reliably see age changes in worldgen is by generating pocket-to-small worlds with very high numbers of civs, which will cause the age to quickly change to an age of the [beast] or an age of the [beast and beast], which usually remains for the rest of the worldgen. Default worldgens with very low beasts and high civs will start out as an age of three powers, and either stay that way indefinitely or change to age of beast/s very quickly, and then almost never change again. In .40.15 or earlier something similar would often happen at the beginning, but the age would change as expected afterwards as beasts died and the relative power of different entities rose and fell. This can be reproduced and observed easily by running worldgens with identical parameters for any recent version side by side with a version from before .40.16.

(0035606) chaosvolt (reporter) 2016-07-11 21:16	Hmm. Ah. Crap. The minimal explanation given in the issue post itself does not help. -_-

(0035630) chaosvolt (reporter) 2016-07-14 19:09 edited on: 2016-07-14 19:25	Well. This is derp. I had gone back to modding tests, this time some dragon-related ones. By sheer luck I got a worldgen that made it into the age of heroes on its own. Save here: http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=12261 [^] EDIT: All signs point to mundane civs being such tiny babies that megabeasts win most of the time. In contrast, every duel involving an intelligent dragon has ended with the dragon victorious. To paraphrase Toady: I think I made dem durgons too hardcore. Regardless, this suggests that era advancements are possible, but duels involving megabeasts are weighed heavily in favor of the larger combatant.

(0036014) chaosvolt (reporter) 2016-10-31 00:09	It has been beyond 2 months. Barring the issue of balancing (world era only advanced in worldgen if populace can hold their own in a fight), this issue has been confirmed as resolved, assuming it was ever an issue to begin with.

(0036016) Loci (manager) 2016-10-31 11:49	I disagree. When you indicated that "always" was technically incorrect I modified the title to reflect that the game "rarely" makes it past the age of myth, and to my knowledge that is still an accurate description of the problem.

(0036021) chaosvolt (reporter) 2016-11-02 10:10	That does make sense, when you put it that way. It does clarify now that the issue is balance, not an outright bug. Which leaves me unsure what a fitting resolution would be.

(0036023) FantasticDorf (reporter) 2016-11-02 12:57	Dragons already have skills and the unit.soul capabilities (that allow it to have skills) to learn and expand those skills which at base are level 6. More experienced soldiers may take time to properly train and combat megabeasts but if the megabeast is active and non-dormant within the first 10 or so years as standard it has free reign to defeat the world-start competent duelists and plunder/slaughter wherever else while developing its own skills. From my own personal observations, elven civilisations are usually the first to die from a combined use of poor materials (wood even enchanted will not do much against a hydra) and poor combat training vs superior beasts for the rock-paper scissor engagements that world-gen battles are. I do not expect a dragon with higher biting/melee statistics and ranged combat skills to really challenge a elf duelist to a biting match, though without elaboration that may be precisely what is happening if they square off on skills.

(0039670) jtheisen2 (reporter) 2020-01-20 08:19 edited on: 2020-01-20 09:03	I found this issue after reading about the expected progression on the df wiki and generating a couple of worlds. It appears to be still the case that if there are enough beasts to begin with to have an Age of Myth, it virtually never ends. I'm a bit confused as to why this is still the case so many years later - I got the impression that the point of the expected progression is to mimic the common story telling device of placing a story in an age long after most individuals of some type of magical creature have died out (think dragons and balrogs in lotr). EDIT: More generally, I can't get any kind of interesting age progression. If it starts with megabeasts it stays in the same age forever (Age of Myth for more than three) and if I set the number of beasts to lowest on a small map, I always get the Age of Goblins quickly, which also never ends. EDIT2: I found that I can get no-power progression (Golden Age, Age of Dwarves/Elves/etc., Age of Twilight) when choosing a small map with very low number of beasts and civilizations). Unrelated, I have also seen an Age of Three Powers progress into an age of two powers, so megabeasts can be slain at least sometimes (colossus slain by a shrew monster).

(0039682) therahedwig (reporter) 2020-01-25 09:50	jtheisen2, probably, the original intend may have been indeed to mimic LotR, but the devnotes seem to suggest the idea is to switch to something a little bit more cyclic. Regardless, it seems primarily a balancing issue. Perhaps this balancing issue will go away once either the civilized creates are given access to magic, or whenever the worldgen combat changes so that multiple creatures can participate in a duel (meaning a small army might be able to tackle a dragon and just wear it down). Either way, this is one of those bugs that needs to be resolved by adding more to the game as the mechanic itself is working as intended, there's just no nuance to it (age of goblins being caused by the goblins being a tad overpopulating atm as well).

(0039734) jtheisen2 (reporter) 2020-01-31 05:22 edited on: 2020-01-31 05:26	therahedwig, thanks for the response. I also since found that I do get progression when the world is bigger, at least at "small". So what I wrote only applies only to the two smallest sizes, which is probably why it doesn't matter so much and hasn't been addressed.

(0041239) acuerdox (reporter) 2022-04-02 18:47	I think I managed to get to the core of this bug, I modified the raws to make the elves much more dangerous and ran a few world gens in SMALL REGION, it worked almost every time in 40.02 but in 47.05 I only managed to get the age of legends. I just modified the elf creature to give it max agility and some more traits in the entity file to make them much more aggressive. In the 40.02 version I got one with 7 Ages of Myth and Legends and finally an Age of Heroes at year 235. On Another Try I got Myth, Legends, Heroes, Golden and finally a Goblin Age at year 500. So in conclusion either the Mega-beasts are too hard to kill or nobody is looking to end them, and so they keep going and the Age of them never ends, if the races would be stronger or the beasts weaker the problem gets solved, but that's not a very elegant solution since you'll be left with some unbalanced world either way, and it doesn't really work on 47.05.

Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2014-11-13 14:48	CEHA	New Issue
2014-11-13 16:40	smjjames	Note Added: 0030972
2014-11-14 02:53	CEHA	Note Added: 0030974
2014-11-14 02:55	CEHA	Note Edited: 0030974	View Revisions
2014-11-14 02:56	CEHA	Note Edited: 0030974	View Revisions
2014-11-14 05:06	ptb_ptb	Note Added: 0030975
2014-11-14 05:27	ptb_ptb	Note Edited: 0030975	View Revisions
2014-11-14 15:59	smjjames	Note Added: 0030996
2014-11-24 23:42	rmblr	Note Added: 0031162
2014-11-24 23:42	rmblr	Note Edited: 0031162	View Revisions
2014-12-09 07:41	smjjames	Note Added: 0031300
2014-12-09 07:45	smjjames	Note Edited: 0031300	View Revisions
2015-09-16 22:07	Witty	Note Added: 0033053
2016-03-26 11:31	chaosvolt	Note Added: 0034923
2016-03-26 11:31	chaosvolt	Issue Monitored: chaosvolt
2016-03-26 11:33	chaosvolt	Tag Attached: calendar
2016-03-26 11:33	chaosvolt	Tag Attached: long-standing bug
2016-03-26 11:34	chaosvolt	Tag Detached: long-standing bug
2016-03-26 11:36	chaosvolt	Note Edited: 0034923	View Revisions
2016-03-30 12:33	jwoodward48df	Note Added: 0034940
2016-03-30 14:36	Dwarfu	Note Edited: 0034923	View Revisions
2016-03-30 20:15	chaosvolt	Note Added: 0034942
2016-07-10 18:46	chaosvolt	Note Added: 0035593
2016-07-10 18:46	chaosvolt	Tag Attached: CLOSE THIS
2016-07-11 10:40	chaosvolt	Tag Attached: RESOLVED
2016-07-11 14:31	m-logik	Note Added: 0035604
2016-07-11 21:16	chaosvolt	Note Added: 0035606
2016-07-11 21:16	chaosvolt	Tag Detached: CLOSE THIS
2016-07-11 21:16	chaosvolt	Tag Detached: RESOLVED
2016-07-13 20:01	Loci	Priority	immediate => normal
2016-07-13 20:01	Loci	Summary	Allways "Age of Myth" => Worldgen rarely makes it past "Age of Myth"
2016-07-14 19:09	chaosvolt	Note Added: 0035630
2016-07-14 19:24	chaosvolt	Note Edited: 0035630	View Revisions
2016-07-14 19:25	chaosvolt	Note Edited: 0035630	View Revisions
2016-08-20 00:45	chaosvolt	Tag Attached: RESOLVED
2016-08-22 03:07	Hinaichigo	Note Added: 0035801
2016-08-22 03:07	Hinaichigo	Note Deleted: 0035801
2016-10-31 00:09	chaosvolt	Note Added: 0036014
2016-10-31 11:49	Loci	Note Added: 0036016
2016-10-31 11:49	Loci	Tag Detached: RESOLVED
2016-11-02 10:10	chaosvolt	Note Added: 0036021
2016-11-02 12:57	FantasticDorf	Note Added: 0036023
2020-01-20 08:19	jtheisen2	Note Added: 0039670
2020-01-20 08:38	jtheisen2	Note Edited: 0039670	View Revisions
2020-01-20 09:01	jtheisen2	Note Edited: 0039670	View Revisions
2020-01-20 09:02	jtheisen2	Note Edited: 0039670	View Revisions
2020-01-20 09:03	jtheisen2	Note Edited: 0039670	View Revisions
2020-01-25 09:50	therahedwig	Note Added: 0039682
2020-01-31 05:22	jtheisen2	Note Added: 0039734
2020-01-31 05:26	jtheisen2	Note Edited: 0039734	View Revisions
2022-04-02 18:47	acuerdox	Note Added: 0041239

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