Maharin

FYI: If you create a map without towns/cities then it will also not have any traders. That can also add a bit of challenge to your game.

Option 4: Mod the game

I'm pretty sure it breaks up the size of biomes into smaller pieces the higher the random value is. But then, it could just be social experiment trying to figure out what value most people use.

A lot of farmland near or in heavily populated areas are there because they were there before those areas became heavily populated. Most recently, though I've had MANY experiences like this, I lived on the outskirts of a city. For simplicity, if my house were on the "border" then everything south of me was city and it was all farmland to the north. The farmland outside my back door went up for sale at a very high price per acre (and no, you couldn't buy some of it, only all of it) in the hopes that it would attract a developer. It did eventually but we moved before that happened, thankfully. I can recount many stories like this from my past since I always preferred living in the country or as close to it as possible when that wasn't a real option for me. Anyway, cities end up surrounding farmland all the time until the price of the land goes up so high that the farmers sell out because it makes no sense not to. No point from me, really, just sharing something that is probably obvious to some of you. Carry on.

The game is still in alpha... but one would hope that by the time TFP gets to a release candidate they're happy with, they will have fully tested the game on default settings to make sure it is difficult but not impossible. If the OP is playing on anything other than the default difficulty then they need to take that into account. Most newbies will play on default settings and then adjust it based on how hard it feels to them after or during their first play through.

Oral laxative or... nevermind.

So... angrily extruded? Like constipation?

I spent 30+ years in IT solving all kinds of problems (the most recent 18+ for a small-ish manufacturing company), much of which had nothing to do with computers. I've spent the last several years as a farmer/homesteader and have learned a lot of skills good for short to long term survival. I'm also in the best physical condition I've been in decades. I own several guns with 1000's of rounds of ammo and I'm a decent to good shot with all of them. I've built entire buildings from lumber and screws/nails, complete with electrical wiring and some other things like plumbing and insulation. I'm also very resourceful and can MacGyver a whole lot of stuff for real and in nearly real-time. I'm not really trained as a fighter or a killer, though, so that would likely work against me. I'm comfortable leading or following so I'm sure I could find my place in the apocalypse. So I gave myself 31-40 points but it could be higher, depending on if there is a curve to this scale. As others have said, though, this game's skills don't translate well to real life unless you assume the story includes many of the basics leading up to the start of the game. In other words, there really isn't a skill you start off with as completely unskilled. I know a lot of people that wouldn't be able to dig much of a hole or break up stone with even steel tools at their disposal, for instance.

I sense a disturbance in the force. It's as if a million opinions were suddenly trying to become facts. I guess that also includes the real world and is probably also an opinion. If you don't believe in the real world, my apologies, and carry on.

It's not precisely a quote, but... “The world is full of @%$#s, the number increasing rapidly the further one gets from Navezgane, Arizona.” - Rekt Maclean This post is apropos of nothing. Carry on.

A new movie, "Field of Blades... build it and they will come!" Maybe they could get Kevin Costner to be a zombie in it.

Make a cube base and you won't have this problem.

This is probably the best anti-rant there is against threads like this that also don't want to mod. TFP makes their game and includes the tools to make it OUR game, if we want to put in the effort and/or wait for someone else do it.

And they likely will... just not while they're still making big changes. We get a lot closer to release and you'll see that go back in along with a lot more options. Until then, they would have to reprogram what that slider does every alpha release and that would mean wasted resources. In other words, "Too soon!"