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Evil

21 (3.5%)

Nuetral

37 (6.1%)

Good

19 (3.1%)

High Savagery

75 (12.3%)

Medium Savagery

13 (2.1%)

Low Savagery

3 (0.5%)

Tundra

5 (0.8%)

Deserts

15 (2.5%)

Forests

61 (10%)

Plains

8 (1.3%)

Mountains

25 (4.1%)

Wetlands

3 (0.5%)

Glaciers

5 (0.8%)

Caves

5 (0.8%)

Waterfalls

26 (4.3%)

Volcanos

58 (9.5%)

Nearby Towers

25 (4.1%)

Rivers or Streams

70 (11.5%)

The Intersection of Multiple Biomes

62 (10.2%)

Tropical

23 (3.8%)

Temperate

23 (3.8%)

Cold

8 (1.3%)

Other: Special Regional Features Not Mentioned Above

18 (3%)

Total Members Voted: 168

[Panando]

I have a quite consistent preference for flat maps with aquifers and trees, swamp is my ideal biome. I also normally go for warm through scorching climates. If I do have a river, normally I only include it on a corner, so I can tap it for water, but it doesn't divide the map in half. Normally rivers are inconsequential because there is an aquifer anyway.

[nimbus25]

I have a quite consistent preference for flat maps with aquifers and trees, swamp is my ideal biome. I also normally go for warm through scorching climates. If I do have a river, normally I only include it on a corner, so I can tap it for water, but it doesn't divide the map in half. Normally rivers are inconsequential because there is an aquifer anyway.

Are Aquifers actually good? They sounded like a terrible thing to me, because Rivers seem more convenient.

[joeclark77]

I like the challenge of glaciers and deserts, but I hate the monotony when you get a map where only one or two types of animals ever spawn.  My current map only ever has:

capybaras
wild boars
ducks
eagles
barn owls

I've had desert embarks where nothing ever spawned but camels.  Nothing.  Ever.
I don't know what the secret is to having lots of varied wildlife, but I imagine that warm and well-forested environments would tend to have more.

[greycat]

Are Aquifers actually good? They sounded like a terrible thing to me, because Rivers seem more convenient.

A river is far easier to deal with, for most players.  Piercing through an aquifer presents a challenge, and takes time and labor and resources (depending on which way you do it).  Doing so while under attack from undead giant animals could be quite Fun.

Once pierced, an aquifer is an excellent source of high-altitude wells.  You just channel one tile down into the aquifer, and it fills up with water, and stays filled forever.  Place a well on it, and voila.  As long as you wanted your main fortress areas to be up in the near-surface layers, you're all set.

[m-logik]

and a circus tent or two.

It's impossible to have more than one tent on a single embark; only one gens per 14x14 world square.

Good to know. Honestly, I have enough trouble just finding one.

I've never really minded animalmen myself; why do people seem to have such a hatred for them?

My personal dislike for animalfolk stems mainly from the flying ones. The bug that causes them to remain on the map indefinitely if the 'leader' is caged is a real pain on very vertical maps, combined with marksdwarves' insistence that there is "no valid target." Incidentally I dislike giant thrips, giant sparrows, and albatrosses for the same reason. The landbound animalmen are easily dealt with as long as you aren't in a reanimating biome or near a husking cloud or something like that.

[xxseuzxx]

anywhere giant animals spawn and also those animal men are good to use tweakmakeown.
to have idiotic slaves that are only usefull as cleaners and fishers.
or cannon fodder

[§k]

I usually embark on savage wasteland or badland totally without trees or other vegetations, preferably without surface water. A moderate or high elevation is preferred. If it permits, I will have an adjacent biome taking a corner of the map to increase biodiversity. But I never dig into that corner. It's a small superstition that a fort should not cross region border, or unexpected ambush weird things may happen.

Animal people are interesting. I deliberately leave a stack of fish outside of the yard every year in Slate and Sandstone. Kea people will happily take that.

[Panando]

Are Aquifers actually good? They sounded like a terrible thing to me, because Rivers seem more convenient.

Aquifers normally only take a few minutes to pierce if you know what you're doing. Single layer ones, and ones in frozen biomes are particularly swift, I believe a single layer aquifer in a cold climate can be pierced in about one minute if you make no designation errors. Multi-z aquifers take 4 or 5 minutes using pumps. Like many things in Dwarf Fortress, aquifers are not difficult per-se, it's just that you need to be fairly precise, if you only half understand what you're doing it's really easy to stuff things up so you end up with a system which consumes considerable time and resources and outputs dead dwarves. In that regard, they are like minecarts... you can do fun things with minecarts, but it's considerably easier to make a system that does not work at all but does a superb job of maiming and killing dwarves.

If I'm feeling not-lazy one day I might write the definite guide to raping, pillaging and utterly humiliating aquifers because the wiki article is not that good.

Putting aside the fun factor of conquering aquifers they give you limitless water from above and below. For example with an aquifer map, if you want to to tap water underneath, you just make an up/down stairs until you hit the aquifer, the miner then runs back down the stairs (dwarves outrun falling water, don't ask). If you want a greater volume of water flow, you punch the staircase clear through the aquifer and the miner exits through the top (water is also incapable of flushing dwarves down stairs), if you want even more flow, you can channel out a wider 'collection pit'. If you want water from above, a simple channel is all it takes, you can then pump water out. While a river is limited in the water it can output (and if you want more water per second, you have to store it), an aquifer is virtually unlimited, it's just a matter of opening up more tiles to get more water. If you pump water into a channelled out pool in the aquifer, then the pool gains the 'flowing water' attribute and will power water wheels automagically even if the pump is removed. You can dispose of water directly into aquifers which is helpful for drowning traps. For me the aquifer is so little bother it's worth having one just for the hospital water supply, but if you want to do some serious waterworks then aquifers are all sorts of good fun.

The final thing is when digging enemies finally come, the aquifer will be an equally big wart for them as it is for most players.

[Melting Sky]

The final thing is when digging enemies finally come, the aquifer will be an equally big wart for them as it is for most players.

Very true but imagine the horror of fast diggers piercing down into your base through an overhead aquifer.

[Mapleguy555]

I enjoy embarking on towns with Embark Anywhere.

[Panando]

The final thing is when digging enemies finally come, the aquifer will be an equally big wart for them as it is for most players.

Very true but imagine the horror of fast diggers piercing down into your base through an overhead aquifer.

Well they wont be able to out-dig an aquifer flow rate, even a legendary+5 miner can't do that.
However as a matter of principle I usually make my fortresses self-draining (this can be done with strategic use of hatches in the central staircases, the hatches should divert water along a short corridor and through a grate into the caverns - water can push dwarves through fortifications, but not grates), this is because I like to do stupid things like accidentally flooding my fortress. I compensate with smart things like drains.
Toady would not implement no-breathe swimming diggers, but if he did, they would not be a greater threat to the fortress than I already am .

[Wimopy]

I'm enjoying embarking on Evil, High Savagery areas, strictly with rivers/streams. I also try to add a nearby tower or volcano on top of that, but that doesn't usually work out.

Did I ever mention I'm terrible at fortress mode even in easier biomes?
Also, I need the water to make a waterfall for my dwarves to keep them from tantruming.

(I'm trying to find the perfect evil biome where bodyparts reanimate AND there are *dust* husks. The husks already kill me, but I'd like to take it to the max.)

I had a guy make me one of those in a thread once. Want me to send you a DFFD link?

Bit of a late, possibly off-topic reply: Maybe I could do with the worldgen parameters, but a save in itself wouldn't help because I'd like to combine it with the mod I'm working on.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Animal men visibly outnumber giant and even normal animals due to the population numbers.

For example,

Sloth bears have [POPULATION_NUMBER:2:3]
Sloth bear men have [POPULATION_NUMBER:30:50]
Giant sloth bears have [POPULATION_NUMBER:2:3]

A similar pattern repeats for other animals. In savage biomes you are more likely to have animal people appear than giant animals, unless you modded the raws prior to worldgen.

[Wimopy]

Animal men visibly outnumber giant and even normal animals due to the population numbers.

For example,

Sloth bears have [POPULATION_NUMBER:2:3]
Sloth bear men have [POPULATION_NUMBER:30:50]
Giant sloth bears have [POPULATION_NUMBER:2:3]

A similar pattern repeats for other animals. In savage biomes you are more likely to have animal people appear than giant animals, unless you modded the raws prior to worldgen.

Well, Savage Biomes SHOULD be about difficulty, I guess, so getting animalmen which are of no use to your dwarves seems okay.
Still, I generally get overwhelming hordes of giant birds. Actually quite useful, when they aren't turning into various forms of undead. Not so much for FPS in the long run, but having giant birds accompany dwarves in their everyday activities lends me a false sense of safety. And eggs. (Though my Giant Thripses [?] don't lay eggs, they are also potential decoys for enemies)

[Culise]

Evil and/or Good, and almost always High savagery.  I like rivers and intersecting biomes, but they're not essential; the fourth major geographical feature I look for is aquifers.  Yes, I do enjoy aquifers for some reason. 

Animal men visibly outnumber giant and even normal animals due to the population numbers.

For example,

Sloth bears have [POPULATION_NUMBER:2:3]
Sloth bear men have [POPULATION_NUMBER:30:50]
Giant sloth bears have [POPULATION_NUMBER:2:3]

A similar pattern repeats for other animals. In savage biomes you are more likely to have animal people appear than giant animals, unless you modded the raws prior to worldgen.

Hmmm, this is really interesting to know; I never looked at the raws for them.  I might have to tweak that for my next game.  Thank you for clarifying the matter. ^_^