Low Population Tweaks
Tweaks a number of values in the game to balance the experience for smaller population forts.
This is useful if you are keeping your population lower to manage fps issues, or just like to be able to track your dwarfs more easily in a smaller group. Current values are balanced around a population cap of about 80 with a strict cap of 120 (compared to 200 and 220 as the default) and aims to offer a similar progression curve as the base game.
You could also use it with the default cap to just have things start happening earlier!
- Mayor, Captain of the Guard and Dungeon Master now become available at 35 dwarfs, instead of 50
- Monarchs demand 40% less
- Population numbers at world gen lowered by about 20%, as well as site populations cut by about the same
- Goblins will now start to visit your fort at a population of 20 rather than 50
Additionally, event triggers for sieges that are tied to populations have been lowered by one tier. In most cases this takes the population at which sieges start from a default of 80 to 50, though this does depend on your difficulty settings.
Q: Is the mod compatible with <insert mod here>?
A: It should be compatible with most mods, but it will not be compatible with any that make changes to the default civilisations in the entity_defaults.txt (so – dwarfs, elves, humans, goblins and kubolds). Unfortunately there’s no way to edit default civs without replacing their entire section in that file. A mod that ADDS new entries to it will work, but not any that change it.
Q: Can’t you just do this via difficulty settings?
A: Some of it yeah… but you have to set them up every single time you start a new fortress… which is pretty annoying tbh. Also, you can’t change the population limit that triggers the mayor and other nobles like this mod does.
Q: Er… I have more than 80/120 dwarfs with this mod. What gives?
A: The mod doesn’t actually cap your population – you do that through the in-game settings (Settings > Game > Population Cap and Strict Population Cap)… This mod aims to bring the same sort of progression-per-dwarf that you get with the default settings if you lower the caps to about 80/120.
Q: I have 35 dwarfs but no mayor… YOUR MOD IS BROKEN AND I WANT A REFUND
A: Nah… the way DF works you become eligible for a mayor (and by extension, captain of the guard, etc.) once you hit the population defined. So once you hit 35 you will get a mayor when the next election period happens.
Q: Why does the Messenger noble description say something about testing if the mod works.
A: Yeah… that’s my bad… Because you have to get a fortress to 35 dwarfs to even start to see any of this mod working I added in a little thing to make sure it was loaded… I forgot to remove it. I’ll remove it whenever I update the mod but in the meantime it doesn’t change anything else. There was only placeholder text there before anyway.
Q: Can you make it so that migrant waves are smaller? After a few waves I’m already at the cap…
A: Unfortunately not. I’d love to change this too but as far as I know this isn’t exposed for modding currently.
