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Author Topic: How To Check What Biome You're In After Embark?  (Read 1195 times)

BelligerentlyLiterate

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How To Check What Biome You're In After Embark?
« on: September 14, 2022, 03:51:43 pm »
So I've dusted off an old save file and have had fun getting back into the swing of things after a DF hiatus, but I'm facing a bit of a food crisis. I accidentally cooked a bunch of my seed-bearing plants and am trying to rebuild my farms, but the few seeds I've bought from traders (cowpeas, pecans, and soft wheat) aren't viable in either my above ground or subterranean plots. After checking on the wiki I think it's because they have some biome requirements not met by my fort.

My question is, is there any way to check the biome of my fortress from the fortress screen before I waste more time and money buying seeds my little guys can't plant? It's been so long since embark that I can't remember what the site selector said. I'm on a mountain tile that is adjacent to what I think might be grassland? Not sure of the temperature either.

I'm playing vanilla Fortress Mode, no DFHack or anything. Any tips are appreciated!
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doublestrafe

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Re: How To Check What Biome You're In After Embark?
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2022, 04:46:53 pm »
Nothing grows above ground in a mountain biome. Try putting a farm plot in the grassland area. Also, try gathering plants there.

Only underground crops, the six kinds you can embark with, grow underground. You can harvest more of those from the caverns.
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anewaname

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Re: How To Check What Biome You're In After Embark?
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2022, 09:24:56 pm »
Yeah, anywhere your herbalists can gather surface plants is a place you can surface farm.

If you want to find out more about your non-mountain biomes, there is a dfhack script that will give details about the biomes present on your map.
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muldrake

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Re: How To Check What Biome You're In After Embark?
« Reply #3 on: September 15, 2022, 01:21:07 pm »
Quote from: anewaname on September 14, 2022, 09:24:56 pm
Yeah, anywhere your herbalists can gather surface plants is a place you can surface farm.

If you want to find out more about your non-mountain biomes, there is a dfhack script that will give details about the biomes present on your map.
You can also turn underground tiles into "aboveground" tiles by channeling into them and then grow aboveground plants in plots on them, even if you later build a ceiling over the whole thing.  This sometimes has odd results like plots where you can grow seemingly incompatible plants, sometimes as a result of the "biome shear" that script will also reveal.

(Biome shear is also occasionally the cause of odd results like undead generation on a biome that "shouldn't" have that happen, because you can have something like a reanimating biome several z-layers in the air or otherwise invisible to things like the embark screen tools.  I recently had that in a supposedly good biome where undead albatrosses kept appearing and attacking.)
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