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[Noobed2696]

For my second fort it sounded like fun to try a FROZEN climate.

I used some sand/meat tricks on my embark.

I had problems from the get-go though.  The snow must make dwarfs lazy because it took two years for most (not all) of my wagon stuff to be moved out into my stockpiles.

Food was an incredible problem.  A little was my fault, I forgot to setup any plants to grow for the first 6 months after I made my plots.  Even after that though, half the food would just die on the vine, despite properly setup stockpiles, I just couldn't get enough haulers.  I tried to setup hunting parties with my military, but no one would bring the corpses back to the butcher.  I'd have to get rid of my normal dump, set it up in the bucher's stockpile, and then dump the corpse, and reclaim it.  I was lucky I picked a spot with soil, otherwise I would have been dead quickly, there's no water to make mud out of.

Then no one would move the meat from the bucher to the kitchen!  I had 70 walrus meat frozen in my butcher shop.

Everyone left all of their stuff in the workshops after they finished makng it!  Including my biscuits and meat.  Nothing would be transferred to my pots, so I'd have food rotting in my kitchen workshop.

Everything was frozen and I couldn't find any underground rivers, if anyone became bed ridden, they would die of thirst.  Babies would die as well.

That eventually brought down the fort, a mother lost her child and there weren't enough nice thoughts to keep her from tantruming endlessly.  Then there was another bought of miasma out of the kitchen workshop and I gave up.  I had to trade for all of my wood.  Nothing would grow on my dirt floors.

I built a pretty nice tower out of ice.  Frequent minerals was way too much, but it was the first time I could make iron.  There were still stacks of stuff in the wagon's squares. (I deconstructed it for wood.)

So much 'fun'.

can't figure out how to get pics without reclaiming the fortress...  I didn't make it long enough for my fort to show up on the legends map so i have to adventure there.

[misko27]

If you want water, dig deeper. Theres always caverns with the stuff, unless you extremely unlucky.

[efraker]

I used some sand/meat tricks on my embark.

Not sure what you mean?

The snow must make dwarfs lazy because it took two years for most (not all) of my wagon stuff to be moved out into my stockpiles.

Did your tricks mean things like bringing one of every meat, so that you have a hundred or more barrels, far more than you usually do? One good way to deal with this is to cave-in the wagon point and set the crash-landing as a stockpile. Practice safe channeling.

A little was my fault, I forgot to setup any plants to grow for the first 6 months after I made my plots.  Even after that though, half the food would just die on the vine, despite properly setup stockpiles, I just couldn't get enough haulers.

I usually set three Dwarves to do nothing but haul food, and have one be the planter, one be the brewer, and one be the cook. They will have some down time, but if you're a Legendary maker of something so necessary, you can have as much downtime as you want.

I tried to setup hunting parties with my military, but no one would bring the corpses back to the butcher. I'd have to get rid of my normal dump, set it up in the bucher's stockpile, and then dump the corpse, and reclaim it.

Do you know that by default Dwarves ignore outside refuse? Hit 'o' then 'r' to toggle this.

Then no one would move the meat from the bucher to the kitchen!

If the butcher was outdoors and you left ignore outside refuse to default, people won't haul some things from it, but this sounds like a stockpile problem. The dead-simple troubleshoot for this problem is to remove all your stockpiles and problematic shops and recreate them.

Everything was frozen and I couldn't find any underground rivers, if anyone became bed ridden, they would die of thirst.  Babies would die as well.

That is a problem with frozen biomes, but at least you save FPS with the reduced wildlife... and personally, I think most injured Dwarves aren't worth saving.

A good way to end anguished-mother tantrum spirals is to sequester her in a room and lock the door. If her body is never (never, never) found, no-one will get upset about her death, and the spiral will be contained.

I'm curious to know what exactly happened. Next time you try, let us know if it works out any better!

[jimy]

Well, it's more fun if you embark on an evil glacier like I did.
I got the same problems.

I tried to farm and I had enough seeds but I was using the harder version of farming thanks to Masterwork and so I couldn't grew enough plants to brew drinks for my thirsty dwarves.
50% of them died due thirst and the rest went throwing tantrums because they saw how their friends corpses rot infront of them it seems they were too busy making parties.
Also I got visited by some nice wolfs who killed my cats (They didn't even eat them but just KILLED THEM).
I send a single military dwarf to avenge their death and he actually did very well but I forgot to give him any weapon so he just hit a poor wolf some weeks until it got a lucky hit and bit him his head off. Poor guys... if he would have killed the wolves I would have given him the nickname Wolfy.

Well, so like 7 of 14 dwarfs are dead and the only way to safe them was to buy something to drink from the elves.
But it seems 300 bucks weren't enough profit for them so I just killed them because I'm never gonna give them 1000 bucks profit.


At the end I got 6 dwarfs (One has been wounded at a tantrum and dehydrated because I got no water) and everyone was unhappy but at least they didn't killed themself.
I'm not sure if it is a happy ending but then suddenly in the next imigration wave 36 dwarves joined my fortress!
And then even more.
Right now I'm not sure if I should continue this fortress because I don't like spending a half hour giving those dwarfs jobs etc.

[thegoatgod_pan]

keep in mind water will unfreeze if entering a space marked underground (below soil and never exposed to a vertical shaft of sunlight).

[GoombaGeek]

My favorite embark is a volcano in a glacier.

Pop a hole through the caldera and bam! Instant fertile farmland and also probably some inaccessible cliffs.

[Noobed2696]

I almost forgot, I got a vampire book keeper in my third wave and walled him into a rather large office.  He was still quite content with work and admiring his nice table after two years.

>keep in mind water will unfreeze if entering a space marked underground (below soil and never exposed to a vertical shaft of sunlight).

So I could make water by causing a collapse of the glacier and then putting a floor over the top of it?

[misko27]

No, you would expose it to the sun by doing that. I think.

[Urist Da Vinci]

I almost forgot, I got a vampire book keeper in my third wave and walled him into a rather large office.  He was still quite content with work and admiring his nice table after two years.

>keep in mind water will unfreeze if entering a space marked underground (below soil and never exposed to a vertical shaft of sunlight).

So I could make water by causing a collapse of the glacier and then putting a floor over the top of it?

No, you would expose it to the sun by doing that. I think.

However if you have 2+ z-levels of ice, you can dig out the one just below the surface (leaving the natural glacier "roof" intact) and collapse the other solid levels of ice into the depths. The ice that caves in to the rock layers that have never been exposed to the sun should melt.