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[AlienChickenPie]

Is it possible for a fortress to successfully take root and become independent (or profitable enough to survive on trade) in an area that's 100% glaciers? If not, is it possible on a tundra biome?
Having an ice fortress would be incredibly awesome.

[Zorromorph]

You can survive on a glacier(but they aren't 100% ice, you'll eventually hit something if you dig down far enough).

[RedWick]

Somehow, I think Dwarves on Ice wouldn't be all that big of a hit with the kids...

Seriously though, yeah.  The bigger industries (like metalforging) require a bit more infrastructure to support and might not be viable everywhere, but pretty much any location can become profitable eventually, even if the only thing you're doing is growing pig tails and turning them into cloth for export.

[Shooer]

My current fort that I am working on is settled on a glacier with a magma vent.

The magma plus the limestone and plentiful magnetite means once we are settled we should have plenty of steel to work with.

[RustedAxe]

quote:Originally posted by RedWick:
<STRONG>Somehow, I think Dwarves on Ice wouldn't be all that big of a hit with the kids...

Seriously though, yeah.  The bigger industries (like metalforging) require a bit more infrastructure to support and might not be viable everywhere, but pretty much any location can become profitable eventually, even if the only thing you're doing is growing pig tails and turning them into cloth for export.</STRONG>

I'm never treid this, but couldn't you also break ice chunks, and then make those ice chunk/stones to make crafts out of?  ...  And sell em?

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

From my limited experience with a glacier/tundra fortress...

Water will show up to build with on certain menues, but you cannot move it to any stockpiles. This is inconvenient, to say the least. I haven't actually tried using it, however, as I skirted southward another biome and bypassed a local aquifer that way.

Check those layers! Some glaciers come with a aquifer, some don't. There is a trick dependent on freezing to bypass the aquifer, but it requires some materials.

I've gone back to a glacier map... Here's what I've seen:
For fun, watch your new stairs upward melt... some of them survive, but it makes reaching the stone a pain. You can build a mason's workshop out of 'water'. As well as a butchery, which will be quite helpful when all your mules bleed to death.

Ooh, there are zombie polar bears and sasquatch. In addition to the above deaths, another reason to set up a meeting hall ASAP. Without hatches, you may need to channel yourself a defense in the ice.

Ice behaves pretty much like peat or silty clay did when I could order it from the embark screen. No growing in it, though. But it does mean you _can_ get a trade depot up even if you do run out of stone/wood.

You cannot craft water... Though you can build walls and floor out of it, handy if you're short of material, especially for that trick of getting past an aquifer.

So... for a real challenge, take no aquifer, no soil, just ice and stone. No way to grow crops either.

So you need either and aquifer or soil to survive.

You can smooth ice, and probably engrave it as well.
You can pave the featureless ice with an ice road...

There is unfortunately nothing very interesting about pure glacier... its an unending sameness. I recommend mixing with other terrain for variety's sake, if nothing else.

[MyBeardIsOnFire]

You can't make crafts out of ice, or pretty much anything else except rough rewalls and workshops. On the bright side, there's always only one layer of ice - the rest of it is usable rock.

I have just completed a tower out of 12000+ ice boulders, and it was surviving rather well. I could have used a magma caldera to melt ice boulders and make water, but I didn't do that. I didn't start any farming, heck, I didn't even dig down into the rock. Most of my dwarves were dying because of goblin sieges, as opposed to other dangers. I traded the junk left after battle for drinks, meat, plants and seeds. Then brewed plants, cooked meat and seeds and if that ran out cooked alcohol. In the end, I only had to abandon it once because of something completely unrelated. I'm sure I could have done better and supported a larger population if I dug down into the rock to make useful items.

So, making forts on a galcier isn't impossible if you know what you're doing. The biggest challenge is of course food and drinks, but it's possible to buy out human caravans to the point where they will supply you with everything you need.