Hey guys. My first fort was/is in a canyon, half in a mountain biome and half temperate swamp, which was pretty easy to defend and had lots of ore but no magma.
But, I got tired of it and started a new one way up in some hot mountains (I used Embark Anywhere).
I play 40d, by the way.
River in southeast, magma pipe in northwest, chasm in middle, underground pool in the north.
It turned out that there was no water left in the underground pool, but it still let me grow towercaps and there's a little patch of sand. I have a minimalist entrance/courtyard right in the middle of the map where the wagon was, and a hillside entrance in the southeast next to the river.
So, my ultimate plan is to make an obsidian farm. Originally I was going to use the underground pool but then I realized I can just floor/wall part of the chasm and use that for a huge multilevel obsidian chamber. It makes sense since the chasm is right in between the river and magma.
Here's a map of my plans (1600x1600)
http://i36.tinypic.com/o796ye.jpgSorry, the image exporting is broken for me so I had to kind of fill in some bits, and I also mashed together 2 layers (160 and 163) so you can see the river and the "pool" together. The chasm only goes up to 163, so there's no sunlight. And since it's 40d the map only goes down to the 140s or so.
As you can see I've hardly built anything yet, I just have a triangular dining hall, a farm, and the beginnings of a residential/office complex. There's a little more stuff (the temp fort) up higher near the top entrance. I've had visits from dwarven and elf traders so far but I just stole all their shit because the farming still isn't stabilized yet and I had nothing to trade for supplies.
So, there is a ton of experience and knowledge floating around on this forum. What do you guys think about this plan?