mountain-dwelling

[fuzzzbutt]

how do you guys get big enough mountains to build your whole house into them? I always end up with small bits all over the map, surely not big enough for anything proper to be build in

[snadbox]

Not? Just a fridge under a mountain with tiled roof and tiled floor with a bunch of filled frozen jugs on pallets to keep the lot cool != winter and the 1 wide road towards the entrancce is littered with traps for rats to not let the buggers in.
It's Scotland, not Jordan or Turkey Türkiye :)

[sakasiru]

Have you set the stats of your map for more mountain?
Personally I always take my time to find/create a good map. I started a few games by now and location is a huge factor for a good settlement. I've had mountains full of ore on one map and barely any on another, I have had three huge lakes in the middle of the map and nearly only smaller ones all the way at the corners of the map, I have had good, huge patches of grassland and a separate forest on one and a useless mix of all kinds of terrains and grass on another, making it difficult to create a pasture. So decide what kind of settlement you want to build, look at a few random maps and play with the sliders until you have one that fits your needs.

[dissent]

Yeah, one of my biggest jobs in each play-through is rolling a map I like. It can take 50-60 rolls sometimes. But then other times you get lucky. On my latest play-through, this was the FIRST map that rolled:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2863646411

Just look at that location. Huge mountain ringed with 4 x 100% lakes. There is also a giant grassland due west of my base, and the map is covered with trees. Admittedly, it took a lot of tweaking with the sliders to get it like this. But it worked out nicely. If anybody wants to try this map, it is:
189378488
Lakes +1
Mountains +1
Forests +2
Grasslands 0
Wildlife -1

[dissent]

To give you an idea of how much space there is in that mountain:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2863649921

[joness42]

@dissent - What's the temperature like in winter in there?

[dissent]

It's the same as in a house. I replaced the mountain roof with straw. That removes the chilling effect and makes it the same as any other enclosed space.

Edit: I just did a check on interior temps. I have two stone block dwellings with hay roofs just south of the big mountain, which are visible in the first screenie I posted. On day 10 of spring, with no heating in operation anywhere in the settlement, the room temps in the two stone block dwellings are 19.1C. The room temp in the mountain rooms is around 19.8C. So they are functionally the same. I'm not sure why the mountain is slightly higher. Maybe someone cooked a meal in the kitchen recently, which bumped up the temp slightly. Or possibly some iron was smelted in the Bloomery room.

[skmt999]

RNG, I guess. Even on maps where I decreased the mountains I still ended up with big enough spaces to hollow out. Mind you, I have a ritual where every new map I hit the random 'seed' button three times before accepting, no matter what. Unnecessary? Perhaps.

Personally, I only use the mountain caves for my starting home, then expand out. It doesn't have to be big enough for my future family - just big enough to survive the first winter. Any part of a structure I don't have to build is more time spent on unlocking things.

[dissent]

Yeah, that's my feeling too. The key to surviving the first winter is to work efficiently, make the most of any tasks that you do, and eliminate any tasks which are unnecessary. You need to hollow out the mountain to get iron, unless you want to spend the winter melting ice jugs and not having a bathtub for your people. It seems sub-optimal to not put that hollowed-out space to good use. Putting down five small bedrooms in a row is quick and simple, and gets my people out of sleeping rough by night 2 or night 3 at the latest. Grouping the bedrooms together also allows me to remove the walls between them after the first winter and repurpose it into a single larger production or storage room.

When winter sets in, I put the clan to work building their permanent living quarters. For this, I use what I call the Southfork layout as it mirrors the Southfork ranch from the old TV series Dallas. That ranch had a central dining-room where the family convened, but had dwellings that were separate from the main farmhouse.

I keep my production and food in the mountain. This becomes the central hub of the fief, where the clan spend most of their working day. Keeping all the food inside the mountain, which only has two narrow passage entrances, makes it very easy to counter rats. Just three traps in each passage, six total, gives me 100% protection without needing a cat.

The living quarters consist of modest family units, each about 50 tiles in floor area, which can be heated effectively with just one fire. Each unit has 3-4 bedrooms and a common room with access to a well, a jug pallet, a bathtub or two, water dipper, flute rack and branch pile for firewood. There is also usually an adjoining poop terrarium.

The living quarters are spaced around the perimeter of the mountain, so workers can shuttle to and fro easily from work areas to living areas. This is what the settlement looks like in year 2 fall:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2865408554

There are three family units completed already, and space for at least three more. That will give me around 22 bedrooms, which is enough for a clan of 30+.

Having smaller family units also allows one to tailor each unit to the needs of the residents. This, for example, is the maternity wing:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2865414396

It is reserved for couples with newborns. Two babies can be accommodated in the bedroom with the fireplace, alleviating Afraid of the Dark. It's not a Private Room for either baby but they don't get the Private Room buff anyway. The parents are close by for night feeds and also have nearby amenities like bathtubs and a poop terrarium for effective babycare. Housing them in this unit also prevents night feeds from disturbing other clan members or travellers who are overnighting in the mountain.

[dissent]

It's a poop-hole surrounded by seven trees in the middle of a 3x3 walled structure. The poop-hole fertilizes the trees, the trees make the poop-hole more scenic and pleasant and environmental. in the screenie of the maternity wing above, the poop terrarium is at the bottom left of the maternity wing.

[Jaasrg]

Originally posted by dissent:

I replaced the mountain roof with straw.

Just casually replacing mountain roof with straw? Clanfolkians are badass.

[dissent]

It makes for awkward conversations on shopping trips to the big city.

"Where do you country folk live?"
"Inside a hollowed-out mountain."
"Aren't you worried with all that rock above you?"
"Oh, we don't have rock. We took it all out and have straw."
"Wait, you live in a mountain that doesn't have rocks and snow on top, it has... straw?"
"Exactly."

...


"I see."