What options should I change to get more plains

[TheCurmudgeon]

I started 3 new worlds and each placed me in mountainous biomes. Is than natural random world generation? I haven't change any settings at least that effect world gen for biomes, I think. I like mountains but not as a starting point.

Thanks for any help.

[sushieater]

I'm not a fan of the vanilla world generation, it's way too disjointed and mountainous. There are various mods that improve the world gen, do a search for 'worldgen' at the mod page.

[Thorfinn]

If you play with map, crank view distance way up, as high as your machine will handle, and let it mapgen. There's usually plains not far from any starting location.

If you don't play with map, head in a random direction (though south is usually a good decision) and you will probably find one by nightfall. Maybe not as large as you like, but then again...

On the positive side, with more cliffs and mountains, you are much more likely to spot outcrops of desired stone and material. Some games it's been the only black coal or gold or marble or halite that found. (Of course, once I found it I didn't keep looking elsewhere, so there's that bias.)

My experiences fiddling with vanilla settings have been underwhelming. If you just can't get past it, the suggestion @sushieater made is probably the way to go, though I have zero experience with the alternate mapgens.