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[teabing]

I think I might be the only Dwarf Fortresser in history that can't stand to manage a fortress placed on a mountain.  I have no clue why, but navigating through the mountainous maps just frustrates me, which leads me to almost always pick forest/glacier/desert or basically anything as close to flat as possible.

I'm having enough fun doing this, but it also means I miss out on lots of cave features and usually a metal industry.  How much am I missing out on for refusing to start a mountain fortress and does anyone else have this obsession with flat starting locations?

[Xehon]

I used to do the same thing. Different reasons through. Mountains just didn't appeal to me. No wood or grass. No large rivers or other interesting landmarks. I liked to play on a forest volcano, but eventually got bored and now I'm back at the mountains again. The gameplay isn't horribly different. Sure, you get more z-levels that allow interesting architectural solutions and more metal, but that's about it. There is less soil to farm and less trees, the map features can be nice to have, but I personally think that a evil river + volcanic forest is a better starting point. I haven't done a glacier map for some time, maybe I should.

[nil]

I think I might be the only Dwarf Fortresser in history that can't stand to manage a fortress placed on a mountain.  I have no clue why, but navigating through the mountainous maps just frustrates me, which leads me to almost always pick forest/glacier/desert or basically anything as close to flat as possible.

I'm having enough fun doing this, but it also means I miss out on lots of cave features and usually a metal industry.  How much am I missing out on for refusing to start a mountain fortress and does anyone else have this obsession with flat starting locations?

You could try foothills... the fort I'm working on now straddles a mountainous zone and jungle, so I get the best of both worlds.

[Skizelo]

I had a run of choosing mountainous areas with a volcano and a river. The dwarves always pitched their wagon on some ledge with the river running far below them. So I had to dig straight down till I reached the level of the brook and then build the "real" fortress from the inside out.
But navigation's never really been a problem with a lot of hot keys. And they're so easy to wall  off from sieges.

[Brdn666]

The environments that have the most resources are forest volcanos. They mostly have sand, soil layers, magma (duh), stone, freshwater, wildlife, fish, and other things. Mountains can have chasms, more likely have that shiny pretty blue stuff and flux. If you can find a mountain region that borders a forest and has a river, that is probably the best place you can find.

[Talith]

This is something that bothers me aswell.  I cannot stand starting in an area that is not relatively flat.  Due to the way features are generated, i feel that most of the world, in my eyes, is useless.  I think HFS should be able to be found in any location, regardless of mountains or not.  I don't see why if you dig down -13 z levels in the middle of a forest, you cannot find chasms or adamantine.  This is why i wish there were a map editor or something, so those of us that don't care about anything but dwarf mode, can just make a nice plot of land to play on, with the features we want.

[Doppel]

Well, can't say that i really agree, i love huge mountain peaks (also love flat surfaces though, mostly don't really like hills) if it wasn't for the crappy FPS (read, impossible FPS, its already hard enough to have a flat 2x2 fortress smoothly running with 100 dwarfs). I once embarked on the literal peak of a mountain, an awesome impressive sight wich i will revisit once i've bought myself a new rig. An other time i embarked on a extremely high and flat ledge, about 30 or so tiles wide going from south to north, the edges were perfectly vertical and on the left of the ledge some 30 z levels down there was a icy forrest, on the right some 40 z levels down a glacier. It also had adamantine and an underground river comming in from the north. The thing that bothers me most with mountains are brooks, i don't like them.

[Wolfius]

Flat is un-dwarf-like, but if you insist, then by Armok do it the dwarfy way!

Channel that mountain flat!!

 

[Reasonableman]

I usually have to build in flat areas, because I feel like carving a huge fort out is cheating almost. Plus, it results in floors with streaks of odd colors through them. I find mountain tiles annoying because it's too easy to just make a fort sunk deep into the mountain with a single entrance, and too hard to make a castle. What we need is a system of races with specializations: dwarves find it easy to burrow into the mountainside and live out their entire lives therein; humans are aces at constructing buildings from stone and wood; and elves *shudder* can 'grow' entire cities just by sitting very still and singing to the plants *vomit*

[Neoskel]

I once had a great idea of how to make a 'flat' area much more dwarfy. Dig straight down, and make your own giant cavern. Preferably a huge dome. And then build a castle in the cave out of stone blocks. I started a fort like this under a glacier, but i think i make some sort of stupid mistake and abandoned it.

[Skizelo]

Was the mistake starting a fort on a glacier?

[slMagnvox]

My favorite site is the edge of a gentle mountain range with cliffs no more extreme than 2-3.  Mountain features are critical and I use regional prospector (best DF app) to find someplace appropriate.  Besides lacking features, flat maps don't appeal to me as much because the first move is to dig down.  Maybe its old 2d habits, but I like my first entrace to be dug into the face of a cliff.

I will check the relative elevation screen and sometimes move past a site if the cliffs are 4-5+.  It does hurt framerate and more importantly its harder to visualize, harder to plan out a surface build, when every screen is split in multiple z levels.  Also, planning routes for migrants, depot access for traders and defense vs siegers can confuse the hell out of me on a map with too many surface z levels.

Also, I love colored floors and walls.  Making a bedroom with a hematite floor really pleases both my expedition leading miner and my own aesthetics.

[Dasqoot]

High cliff's can be entertaining, I recommend carving out a mountain pass sometime. They're fun in sieges too.

[Brdn666]

I find mountains slow, because of the low chance of a soil layer... You do get a lot of different rocks though...

[bigmcstrongmuscle]

What I usually end up doing in mountains is picking a really cliffy area, building my main fort into the peak of whatever mountain my wagon happens to land on, and then channeling away any portion of the peak that isn't used in the fort. You get a nice organic-looking fort without a lot of weird, thick walls, and you usually have to have several entrances for caravans. Farming is tough, but when it comes up, you can just tunnel to the nearest soil layer.

I've come to really like the chasms too - so many possibilities!