What's your style?

[Sunsence]

Tell me your style!

Valley builder, Hillside builder or Mountain builder?

Tell me your pro's and cons!

[tdsdave]

Hill, valley or Mountain , its a Morlock life for me, I can't see any advantage other than aesthetic to being above ground more than necessary(food, perimeter walls and archery spots) in the early release.
It maybe that I've yet to see trebuchet ground penetration or other mechanics of the game to dissuade me of this.

[Sunsence]

Originally posted by day90:

Hill, valley or Mountain , its a Morlock life for me, I can't see any advantage other than aesthetic to being above ground more than necessary(food, perimeter walls and archery spots) in the early release.
It maybe that I've yet to see trebuchet ground penetration or other mechanics of the game to dissuade me of this.

So basically you turned Going Medieval into Dungeon Keeper?

[ploppo]

Mountain builder - once I realised there was a ton of easy to access iron.

I'd never seen iron until I tried a mountain start.

I now only do mountain starts because there is always plenty of space for farming. So, the only loss is hunting for leather/meat.

Mountain is a now a no-brainer for me - it's almost cheating - I'd rather have a ton of iron than a ton of meat/leather.

[theaaronone]

I prefer Valley for now; materials haven't been an issue on my current map, fortunately. I have avoided digging up surface stuff since I can't replace the ground with dirt. I am starting a big trench all the way around the map about 8 blocks in which will yield some goodies and force raiders to a choke point, hopefully - I'm trying to make things as tidy as possible and hope to build up a village of sorts with a big stone keep in the middle.

[Caesar]

HIllside. Best of everything.

But in saying that - once you have a farm and know how to not get trebs spawning, games rather easy in any map. Basically just turns into a building/crafting simulator. But its fun so who cares.

[tdsdave]

Originally posted by Sunsence:

So basically you turned Going Medieval into Dungeon Keeper?

I imagined dwarf fortress ( not that I played it ) would look like the direction I took , but dungeon keeper , now you remind me of it, is not far off what I did.
Well it was mainly a solution on how to defend against the trebuchet , I'd dealt with all the other nasty events , heat waves, cold snaps , and lived with it , but trebuchets I had to find something else.
I built nice house they trashed it very quickly , and repairing something complex is more tedious than designing it from the outset, especially staircases. I built it again in hardest materials in the game ( as yet ) and they trashed it again pretty quickly , I thought maybe occasional bounce off the clay brick, but no, devastation! . Even learning that sallying out against them would stop the bombardment often did not stop them getting a few really damaging shots in.
In the process it occurred to me that the worst weather events were mitigated by being underground , production rooms are warm , and though in a heat wave scalding I still got less personal collapsing than when they were exposed outside. Same with cold snaps , my personnel mainly in the production areas were comfortable and toasty whilst the food storage and outside dropped to frostbite temperatures.
At this time I think the mechanics of the game drove me to this , I'm a systemizer and due to the current limited content not finding much value in the aesthetic approach.

[Orclover]

Hillside for the last 3 games, it's just too easy for defense. It allows you to quickly set up with natural defense of one sort or another blocking 1/2 or 3/4 of your starting area. Iron is incredibly easy to find if you plop down near limestone deposits (under limestone is everything else). Wildlife is waaay more plentiful than moutains and there is almost as much farming land as valley.

Next game I might do Mountain just for challenge.

[sf]

I find that different terrain brings about very different play style.

Valley is mostly flat and has mostly soft soil and lots of trees vegetation, so it is much easier to get food (lots of forage and usually more animals), and wood as materials and you can build decent housing and dig a cellar very fast (within a season). But because the land is mostly flat, basically enemies can come from any side without hindrance. Stone is lacking, so buildings will have to use wood/clay mainly

Mountain on the other hand has less arable soil (so you have to pick your site carefully). There are also less wood (and planting trees will take up precious land that can be used for crops). and the ground is mostly limestone, which is damn slow to dig (at least 4x). On mountain games, I can usually only build a decent cellar after 2nd year. But it has one feature that valley lacks: lots of height differences. One of the fun thing I like about mountains is to study the terrain carefully to try to build very unique fortresses suited to the land, often making use of the terrain. Also, by carefully removing ramps, creating walls and building your own stairs, it is possible to "section off" part of the map to be used as your "private gardens". Also, you have so much limestone that you can build a fully limestone brick fortress.

Hillside is probably just in-between. though I started on Hillside, I find it less ... characteristic. On the flat valley, it is fun to design a standalone settlement without restrictions, and on mountain, the terrain is more pronounced, so much more interesting. After trying out those two, I never went back to Hillside...


I would recommend Valley for the "abstract architect", who wants to design/build on flat land without restrictions. Mountain is prob for more experienced players (survival is tough) and require more time, but brings opportunity to create settlements unique to the map only.

[MTBear]

"The art of fighting, without fighting." - Bruce Lee

[mizugori]

I have played valley several times. I like it the best because there is usually a ton of flat land which goes well with my style of building several buildings in a giant square region (kind of like a small city.)

Frankly I have *never* run out of resources yet so have not seen any reason to go for the other types. There is plenty of iron, limestone, salt, clay, etc. on every single valley map I have seen so far...

And what do you even need that much iron for? I have only dug up a small amount of it on my current map and I have like 1200 pieces sitting in storage wasting space.

[Father Damien]

Originally posted by MTBear:

"The art of fighting, without fighting." - Bruce Lee

Ha you beat me too it. I read this post and It made me think of that scene from Enter the Dragon. RiP Bruce.

[lawenzo]

I'd recommend hillside for a first play through, just so that you get access to a good amount of every resource and then can decide if you prefer clay and vegetation over limestone and iron.

[TehJumpingJawa]

Originally posted by lawenzo:

I'd recommend hillside for a first play through, just so that you get access to a good amount of every resource and then can decide if you prefer clay and vegetation over limestone and iron.

Agreed.

Valley is short of ores, and the flatness can make defence more difficult.

Mountain is short of clay, the large differences in height can interfere with walls & archers, and digging is slow because almost everything is limestone.

Hillside is the happy medium. Just enough of everything.

[Sunsence]

Originally posted by day90:

Originally posted by Sunsence:

So basically you turned Going Medieval into Dungeon Keeper?

I imagined dwarf fortress ( not that I played it ) would look like the direction I took , but dungeon keeper , now you remind me of it, is not far off what I did.
Well it was mainly a solution on how to defend against the trebuchet , I'd dealt with all the other nasty events , heat waves, cold snaps , and lived with it , but trebuchets I had to find something else.
I built nice house they trashed it very quickly , and repairing something complex is more tedious than designing it from the outset, especially staircases. I built it again in hardest materials in the game ( as yet ) and they trashed it again pretty quickly , I thought maybe occasional bounce off the clay brick, but no, devastation! . Even learning that sallying out against them would stop the bombardment often did not stop them getting a few really damaging shots in.
In the process it occurred to me that the worst weather events were mitigated by being underground , production rooms are warm , and though in a heat wave scalding I still got less personal collapsing than when they were exposed outside. Same with cold snaps , my personnel mainly in the production areas were comfortable and toasty whilst the food storage and outside dropped to frostbite temperatures.
At this time I think the mechanics of the game drove me to this , I'm a systemizer and due to the current limited content not finding much value in the aesthetic approach.

Do you think its systematic because of the map type or not? Like would you come to the same conclusion on a valley map?

[Sunsence]

Originally posted by Orclover:

Hillside for the last 3 games, it's just too easy for defense. It allows you to quickly set up with natural defense of one sort or another blocking 1/2 or 3/4 of your starting area. Iron is incredibly easy to find if you plop down near limestone deposits (under limestone is everything else). Wildlife is waaay more plentiful than moutains and there is almost as much farming land as valley.

Next game I might do Mountain just for challenge.

I spawned into two hillside maps and the chaotic terrain turned me off. My last 4 maps were all in the mountains.