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[Kibstable]

In the previous version I once embarked (using 'Embarkanywhere') on a Slade pillar with sheer drops all around to the magma sea.  I couldnt dig up any stone to make a bridge across to the green pasture I could see across the chasm
That wasn't the whole problem. There was an exposed map wide aquifer pouring down 200z levels, so fps dropped so fast that the dwarves never even got the chance to have a drink.  That was probably the hardest embark I've had.

[Flarp]

I feel we need to establish firmly whether we're talking about embarks that are technically impossible to create a successful fort on (c.f. an all-gem map, slade pillar, etc.) and ones that are just extremely difficult, but not literally undoable.

The former case is probably only possible with direct intervention in the game somehow, whether through dfhack or raw modification. Without enough social ties to cause tantrum spirals, a group of seven dwarves is actually pretty resilient; even in the worst circumstances, as demonstrated in this thread, it's not unlikely at least one dwarf will survive long enough to burrow underground, at which point they can probably access enough resources to stay alive.

In the latter case- I've had fairly benign embarks turn sour (and once, I think, result in an instant crumbling) due to embarking on a frozen river just before the spring thaw. That's literally just chance, though, so I won't count it. A freezing/glacier biome with no cavern/magma/clown layers would certainly be up there- at the very least, severely restricted drinking sources would limit your stable population to maybe 80 dwarves tops. As pointed out in the OP, without water most injuries (and definitely most infections) become a death sentence. You can achieve this without modifying the raws (but you do need to mess around with gen params), so I say it counts. If you make it an Evil glacier, that also curtails any hunting for meat you might do, so basically all food and drink would have to be imported. If you could pump out enough trade goods to keep everyone fed and watered, you could probably carry on for awhile, but without flux stone, fuel, or magma, sieges would eventually force you to choose between defence and provisions...

Alternatively, if you're not above modifying the raws, playing as a race without mining or woodcutting labors enabled would make hard real quick.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

Glacier drop used to give a source of (exhaustible) water; haven't had to use since caverns were implemented, but I imagine it would still work.  Stupid freezing tricks can be used to dupe water once you have any magma access.

Don't need to spend much time on the surface to take advantage of wildlife.  I once ran a fort based on the capture, breeding, and drop-slaughter of wild camels.  Wild animals still don't need pasture, right?  And can still breed?  And some animals can be extra handy to have around.  Even without magma, I know of at least one way to sustainably melt ice...

[scionkirk]

I found an embark that seemed just about perfect, only part aquifer, tons of iron and flux, sand, a very high magma column, and a river that ran through the middle of the map.  Unfortunately, the river was teeming with alligators and the game kept popping me down next to it.  The miners survived for a little while, but pretty soon they had to come up for food.

[Sutremaine]

The game will try to plonk you down in the middle of the map, though it'll go off to the side a little if the biome you had showing upon embark wasn't in the centre. Could you have moved the embark so that the middle of it wasn't so close to the river?

[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

1 dwarf and embark on the ocean.

Instant game over FUN.

[Necrisha]

Lets see, Husking dust, killing rain, reanimating Biome, and starting on the second tick, undead ravens.

It was a tropical forest embark with a sliver of ocean, and a volcano.

[Doktoro Reichard]

But I think "no stone" is cheaty.  I don't think that's possible, is it?

Maybe only with raw editings. Making the gem clusters spawn in sizes bigger than magnetite clusters or else increase their frequency. That would also need to be coupled with DFHack to remove traces of everything.

In the previous version I once embarked (using 'Embarkanywhere') on a Slade pillar with sheer drops all around to the magma sea.  I couldn't dig up any stone to make a bridge across to the green pasture I could see across the chasm.

I don't know how the old version worked so I'm biased in knowledge but I assume you could deconstruct the wagon and get a pair of wood logs. Also, nothing prevented you from reclaiming with better preparation, as to cross the chasm.

I feel we need to establish firmly whether we're talking about embarks that are technically impossible to create a successful fort on (c.f. an all-gem map, slade pillar, etc.) and ones that are just extremely difficult, but not literally undoable.

As established, dwarfs are incredibly resilient, so what constitutes as impossible is indeed a matter of discussion and part of the reason I posted this. A gem-only map wouldn't be impossible, only very dependent on trade and careful preparation, as previously stated. If we take civilizations from the equation, trade no longer plays a factor, but still with preparation is is possible to have a fortress running.

Even a slade pillar is doable, if enough material is brought to turtle the fortress...

I find that syndrome and/or evil weather and unfriendly wildlife as temporary setbacks (then again, I have yet to play such maps). It isn't that hard for dwarfs to dig to the ground and then lock the front door.

But from what I've seen from all discussion, a waterless soil-less bee-less and trade-less embark makes it impossible to have a lasting fortress - in other words, in this setup booze can't be made and so dwarfs will eventually die from dehydration, unless a vampire or a were-beast appears and manages to infect the populace.

[Larix]

It's cheaty as hell. You have to massively mod the game for a no-soil-no-stone map, and you'll need to fiddle with worldgen parameters (no rain, no cavern water) to get it properly waterless, possibly extra modding to prevent dwarven civs from starving to death. And in the end you'd be getting a map that'd play fundamentally different from an unmodded embark, so it'd be not so much of a hard embark but rather a gameplay puzzle - how can you get a fort to live if so many standard features have been removed?

[Merendel]

I've yet to find a syndrome from rain that was severe but not instantly lethal,

I've had one that took a week or so of game time.   moments after exposure light bruising appeared on every body part.  These bruises became more and more severe until the dwarf basically bleed out internally.  Ran into that one doing a freezing aquifer pierce.  wasnt untill I lost the second miner to it that I figured out what happend.

[Button]

I've yet to find a syndrome from rain that was severe but not instantly lethal,

I've had one that took a week or so of game time.   moments after exposure light bruising appeared on every body part.  These bruises became more and more severe until the dwarf basically bleed out internally.  Ran into that one doing a freezing aquifer pierce.  wasnt untill I lost the second miner to it that I figured out what happend.

I had a rain of mucous once that blistered flesh on contact. Which I wouldn't normally classify as "severe", except that the blistering was permanent, so if it got on a dwarf's eyes (which can only be covered by robes, IIRC), that dwarf would go permanently blind.

[Godlysockpuppet]

I had noxious goo that caused mass vomitting once. My fort was painted a lovely shade of green. As for an all gem embark, go to the raws and delete every other soil/rock/ore type but gems, and add the appropriate layer tags to gems. Voila

[smurfingtonthethird]

The hardest embark I've done would be an evil one with thralling clouds, auto reanimation and blue goo that instakills dwarfs (rots their nervous system). I got a grand total of 27 dwarves underground before the mountainhomes stopped sending migrants. Then it just became a sealed off surface game. Kinda boring.

[nekoexmachina]

For me it was:
(prehistory)
1) Embark in Terrifying tundra/glacier
2) Right after miner team (2 beards) are inside, the evil rain shows up, generating "filth rain thralls" from everybody who were, errr, not miners. (First time for me to see the _evil_rain_ thralls, thought it was only the evil cloud thing)
3) Die in 10 seconds.
The embark itself:
Okay.jpg,
1) embark again in ~2 big map tiles from there.
2) get everybody except 1 dorf a thrall from the very beginning.



Reminds me of a joke-map from Warcraft II (map was named "You win- you're a WC2 god", and consisted of 1 your peasant plus an assload of enemy forces covering all of the map)

[BoredVirulence]

2) Right after miner team (2 beards) are inside, the evil rain shows up, generating "filth rain thralls" from everybody who were, errr, not miners. (First time for me to see the _evil_rain_ thralls, thought it was only the evil cloud thing)

I try to deconstruct the wagon immediately, and create meeting areas in the incredibly small hallway the miners manage to dig before the rain starts. I can typically get all of the dwarves crammed into 3 mined tiles before the rain of doom. After that its a game of questioning if its safe to try hauling, or just abandon it until later. That's usually the problem, instead of playing it safe, and collapsing the area when its safe, then covering it up, I try and sneak a few things inside. Cue the insta-death rain, and reanimation soon after.

I've never seen evil rain thralls, I've been lucky with thalls in general. Although things were questionable on my 500 dwarf army embark, which consisted of 2 evil biomes with towers and goblins nearby, the walls we built up for defense were very close to not containing the clouds.