A friend recommended it to me years ago, and I thought I’d try. On my second fort, I thought I was going ok, we got attacked but my unarmed and untrained dwarves fought off the attacker and I was rebuilding. I told my friend and he asked if it was goblins. No, it was a Titan. I thought it was normal, but I haven’t seen one since in the thousands of hours I’ve played.

Rock and stone!

There’s a free demo 😉

(the first hit is free)

In a very real sense, the game is only intended to be played in the manner that makes it actually fun for you.

The fauna is an integral part of the game only in the sense that the pollution produced by your machines makes them angry and makes them evolve, and a lot of work has gone into balancing the pollution/evolution rates to provide a sort of tension and pressure that adapts to how fast you are progressing. If you care a lot about experiencing things “as the devs intended them” then I understand not wanting to cut off an entire system and set of mechanics. In that sense, dealing with the attacking fauna without completely stalling or falling apart is one of the first hurdles you are “meant” to struggle with.

There are intermediates between keeping the attacking fauna and removing them: you can disable their expansion, you can make them only attack when damaged, and you can tweak the numbers that determine how your factory’s pollution affects them. You can also change the amount of “safe space” the game forces the map to give you around where you spawn - this alone can be the difference between the early game being anxiety-inducing or quite relaxed. These can only be done at map generation (unless you don’t mind using console commands to change things on an existing save/map).

Without changing any map settings, it’s not immediately obvious how many options you have to address the problem in-game, but here are some pointers if you ever do give it another try:

• trees will absorb pollution, preventing it from reaching biter nests. They can absorb a decent amount but will eventually die and stop absorbing. Starting in a forest can be a bit more cramped than in a desert but at least you don’t have to fend off as many attacks early on.
• avoid overproducing just to fill up buffers - you probably don’t need to have 2k green circuits sitting in a chest as soon as you can make them. avoid emitting all of that pollution until you actively need those items.
• try to set up defences before they are needed. You can build a new production line first to know what space it requires, but set up walls and turrets before you turn it on. This should help prevent you being interrupted by attacks on undefended machines.
• researching damage upgrades gives you more damage output per unit of pollution produced, helping keep the balance in your favor
• only a nest that is exposed to pollution will send attack parties. You can toggle displaying pollution in the world map (now called “Remote View”) and proactively clear out nests before the pollution his them. You’re essentially choosing between proactive defensive efforts vs reactive efforts.
• reloading a previous save to change your approach without restarting an entire game is totally legit and nothing to be ashamed of.

At the end of what I would call the early game, you unlock even more options.

• efficiency modules reduce the pollution a machine emits. They also reduce the amount of electricity the machine consumes, which will indirectly lower your pollution by making you burn less coal
• solar power is a great way to lower the amount your factory is polluting once your panels and accumulators are already made. Making enough to power your whole base, however, takes a lot of steel and other ressources, whose refinement emits pollution. So don’t expect solar power to automatically fix your fauna problems - it’ll take a little bit of thought
• laser turrets do away with the need to produce ammo and get it to the front lines, though the spikes in power consumption they cause keeps them from being a total, immediate fix. Similar to solar power, you’ll need to plan a bit.
• flamethrower turrets are much easier to supply than gun turrets, and can be waaaaaaaay cheaper depending on how much crude oil you have available to you

Finally, you could also first play the game through once without the fauna to get familiarized, and then do a second run with them activated. in my experience, it’s a lot more fun to deal with them once you know your way around the other mechanics.

I always turn the enemies off. I just want to automate. But the tech tree existing for weapons and being useless really bugged me so I got really in to Dyson Sphere program. But enemies have been added there too.

Turn these biters of or set them to peaceful mode. I bought the game in beta and disliked the biters, like you i just wanted to build in my own pace. Some years ago i heard about the option of peacefull mode and got hooked so hard to this game.

What’s a paradox game? I assume that’s some sort of studio?

I’m the opposite. Love automation (literally a programmer by trade lol), hate hate hate base building.