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[Zuglarkun]

I like varied terrain and elevation on my embarks for the defensive potential it offers, holdover from 34.11 days when enemies did not climb I suppose. I like to incorporate embark features into my fort design, like fortress on top of an isolated hill or a fort caved into the cliff face of a valley, that sort of thing. I always embark with some sort of megaproject in mind, for the challenge. Hoping to recreate a minas tirith like fort one day (elevated tower built into a free standing mountainside).

[Max™]

I've never managed to find a sinister glacier beside a 100+z exposed volcano tube. Haunted, Terrifying, lots, never sinister though, why.

[angelious]

never have i ever embarked on desert of any kind..i just hate heat so even in games i try to indistinctly stay away from hot areas...


i do love me some cliff side embarks. and glacier embarks. the novelty of them is so great..

[cochramd]

I always embark in warm or hot places with a fresh water source and deep soil plus lots of trees and surface plants, for a number of reasons:

• I hate having my water source freeze over and it's not always easy or convenient to set up a cavern well quickly.
• I rely on above ground plants as my primary food source early on in my fort's life.
• Fisherdwarfs always show up in the first few migrant waves, and I like being able to use them to secure a large food surplus. They drive the vermin fish to extinction in good time, so they provide a huge surplus for only a few years, after which they can be reassigned to mining.
• I like to use wood for storage because it reduces hauling times; 'storage' includes pots, bins and cages.
• I always mine out the first layer, no matter what, and use it for my food industries, wood industries and related stockpiles. The faster I can mine it the better.
• I like to use underground tree farms and animal pastures, but I also like to use the first all-stone layer as temporary housing and then proceed to channel out every layer beneath it until I hit the firs cavern.
• I like capturing lots of animals just for the sake of gaining training levels with them; sometimes they even turn out to be useful livestock too!

I also always pick areas with flux and sedimentary layers for the same reason everyone else does, and try to pick a savage biome because those always have more interesting animals. I've never gone anywhere evil because I don't want to have to deal with the weather.

I've never ever tried tundras, deserts, glaciers or coasts because of the lack of fresh water and trees. Maybe, though, if I found one with a volcano, flux layers and sedimentary layers I'd be willing to give them a try...

[Immortal-D]

I think the straight-up coolest site I have ever seen is when a river cuts through a Mountain, creating elevations of 0-3, then 9.  I'd love to see Wagons bypass that

[angelious]

I think the straight-up coolest site I have ever seen is when a river cuts through a Mountain, creating elevations of 0-3, then 9.  I'd love to see Wagons bypass that

i had something like that.

3 seperate mountains with like 10z drop,a water fall flowing from atop one of the mountains and dropping to a huge underground lake. too bad i got fucked by husk around year two..otherwise i would still be playing that map..

[omega_dwarf]

So I think the basic concensus of this thread is as follows: rivers cutting through s**t is awesome.

@the guy who doesn't like coasts...I have a coast embark with a brook and a multi-level aquifer I only got through by chance. No fresh water shortage here!

[Kneenibble]

Deserts are kind of neat because you get saguaro instead of trees.  I like the idea of building furniture out of cactus wood.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If it's an evil desert, you also get glumprongs -- and if you're looking for sliver barbs, all the evil deserts I've embarked in have had them.

@the guy who doesn't like coasts...I have a coast embark with a brook and a multi-level aquifer I only got through by chance. No fresh water shortage here!

Coasts are neat: I like the waves and the sea life.  But I wish you could use driftwood for building!

[Baffler]

I like coasts too, but the waves are murder on my FPS so I generally avoid them. Besides that, I like to center my embark on some local maximum in elevation, so I can site my fortress entrance at the top of a hill and not have to worry about nasties coming down the mountain where I can't see them. I also like being able to see the treetops instead of the trunks.

The only type of embark I know for sure that I've never done properly is a good biome. I've had my embarks with one edge on them before, but I mostly kept my fort away from them. Sure I enjoyed the unusual wildlife that sometimes drifted in, but it wasn't really a good embark.

[Snaake]

I embarked in an evil biome once.  A flock of undead ravens spawned on the edge of the map an instant after I unpaused the first time, and slaughtered my entire expedition before I was able to dig out even 40 tiles.

Sometimes you get unlucky, but you should just get underground ASAP. Bring a stone block and a pick on embark, then you don't even need to dig a 10-tile tunnel before you can order the mouth of it walled. Technically you only need 1 dwarf to survive, although at least 2 (the miner and the builder) is likely, and to be honest designating a meeting area as soon as you have a 3-5 tiles or so dug underground should let you save the whole expedition + pack animals. You may want to bring a couple extra blocks or logs for a butcher's workshop and then a kitchen after that (dump the skin, bones etc. in a pit and maybe floor it over - I don't know if reanimated remains can climb). Then it's down to the caverns ASAP, or if you have an aquifer, you have a bit more time since you won't die of thirst, and if you have meat from the pack animals, that'll last a while.

Getting through the aquifer may seem daunting with just a pick, but it's not actually hard if you know ho: the Single Pick Challenge thread a couple of years ago worked on a method for aquifer pierces using just 1 pick and soil cave-ins. This was my final version of the method, although you should probably read up on the few preceding pages too, if not from the start of the thread. I don't remember if there were any real improvements to that afterwards, but there are some limitations even to this: it does require at least 1 level of soil above the aquifer, 2 if you want to do the whole process safely underground, and the aquifer has to be 2 deep for the exact method in the linked post, but apparently there were a couple of posts on 1-deep, and 3+ deep aquifers right afterwards too.

I have never tried to play a glacier, I guess it would be pretty cool, never played in a swamp/wetlands either.  can anyone tell me what they're like?

I did that, it's easier than it seems. Just tunnel into the caverns and you're laffin. Just remember that you have to construct a stair at the bottom of the ice sheet.

Why is the constructed stair necessary?

Sunberries and Unicorn bone are my primary reasons for seeking out Good-aligned, but Giant Eagles & Turtles are fun as well.  When I want to make above ground contructions, I prefer serious Hills or a Mountain.  Building into and around an existing vertical structure is much easier than needing to do the whole thing yourself.

I wanted to check off a Biome from my to-do list.  My latest Fortress straddles 2 Deserts, 1 red and 1 yellow.  No sign of Giant Scorpions thus far, but I did discover a Magma Pipe in the first Cavern layer   I am now sending my Miners out in all directions in an attempt to find some magma safe stone   I will laugh (cry) if there is nothing magma safe in a Desert.

You're in a desert, make some green glass blocks.


And to reply to the original question, I, too, prefer elevation differences, and gorges are also cool. I once built my cavern entrance so that dwarves and the caravan (I dug a ramp down the edge of one of the gorge faces) had to pass through the waterfall to get in. Automatic decontamination shower + happy mist. Waterfalls do have some effect on fps, too, even if it's not as bad as waves on coasts. I also built a bridge across the gorge halfway up from the river to the top, so I could dig in to the cliff face on other side as well (was cooler than just digging underneath the river for that access). Tropical forests, swamps or sometimes savannas are nice for animals.

[omega_dwarf]

I thought the deal with oceans was the sheer volume of fluid, not the waves. The waves are small continuous changes, clearly largely pre-programmed, so there shouldn't be much of an fps impact from just that.

[PatrikLundell]

@Snaake:
The bottom of a glacier is weird, so when you channel the bottom tile you don't get a ramp, but a hole, so to get down you need a stair. If you're unlucky, you'll get an ice boulder at the bottom of the hole, in which case you'll have to try again (since the boulder blocks the building of the stair).

Is it even possible to get an aquifer in the first layer below ground?

I've embarked on an evil glacier once. The first expedition was slaughtered by an undead yeti before either of the miners even started to dig, as they succumbed to despair due to an evil rain. For the second attempt, i had to save scum many times to firstly race underground before the remains of the previous expedition got me (I didn't expect to have any chance if additional expeditions were slaughtered), and then to secure a well in the aquifer as well as build a butchery for the pack animals (I also moved, by digging, to the top right embark tile which was non evil, so butchering would be safe). It's really frustrating to see the buggers abandon the building of the butchery to hunt vermin and die of starvation...

Ocean: I like ocean embarks because it reduces the amount of land for trees to grow on and for moronic (mostly undead) invaders to aimlessly mill around without finding my fortress. I can't say I've seen any effect of the surf on FPS (no significant drop while looking at the surface compared to underground). The surf consists of water (which can flood), but it's not normal flowing water (no water depth), so I agree with omega_dwarf there.

There is always something magma safe in every embark that has water somewhere. It's called obsidian... A desert may be devoid of sand, but be covered by clay instead, so you might not actually be able to get glass with a reasonable effort (magma flow flooring over/remove floor can often yield sand).

[Snaake]

@Snaake:
The bottom of a glacier is weird, so when you channel the bottom tile you don't get a ramp, but a hole, so to get down you need a stair. If you're unlucky, you'll get an ice boulder at the bottom of the hole, in which case you'll have to try again (since the boulder blocks the building of the stair).

Is it even possible to get an aquifer in the first layer below ground?

What about if you dig up/down stairs through the glacier, or dig down stairs instead of constructing them once you reach the bottom of the glacier?

Regarding aquifers just below the surface, I recall someone saying they had that once in a swamp. I haven't played that often with aquifers: I find them easy enough to pierce, but I haven't played much in general recently (after I learned to pierce), and the pierce area messes with my fort aesthetics, even though endless water is nice.

And my experience with oceans/shores the last time I tried them was that it did feel like I got less fps. And the main theory there is that it's due to flowing water; the large volume of fluid just sits there like lakes or cavern lakes, not even draining off one end of the map and in through the other like everything from brooks to major rivers does. The waves may not have traditional depth values, but their movement is calculated somehow, since I've also read about dwarves being pushed/pulled around by the surf, and I think I saw this myself back in my last ocean embark. It's not a "small continuous change" and "largely pre-programmed" in my opinion, it looked to me like the flow pattern was random and calculated separately each time. If it's a flow, even if it's not the normal 2/7 etc. kind (as PatrikLundell said, you don't see depth numbers, but it can flood areas inland that it can reach), it will use up CPU cycles whether you're looking at it right then and there or not, much like dwarven water reactors will impact fps when they're on, even if you're not looking at the z-level they're at. Maybe try embarking on a cold-climate ocean or lake shore which freezes part of the year to see the difference? On a related note, waterfalls also impact fps, which you can easily test by building a raising bridge above the waterfall, so you have the ability to shut it off.

Finally, yes there's always something magma-safe if you have water, but manufacturing obsidian before you have anything magma-safe to begin with can feel tricky and at least dangerous for a newer player (I know it's not hard, just channel a trench from the side of the magma tube and dump some water into it with buckets from 2z up). For making glass, you can first use a regular workshop to make the first blocks if you have even a bit of wood to spare for charcoal and something fire-safe, like any stone or even ash. Also, just regular floor construction and subsequent removal can (used to be able to, at least) yield sand from other soil, magma flows shouldn't be necessary.

[PatrikLundell]

If I recall correctly, you'll still get a hole where the last glacier layer should have yielded a stair, so you still have to build a stair (with the associated risk of a blocking boulder). It's not that difficult, but it's still awkward, and, like hitting the SMR, the miner just leaves without any notification when it happens, so you have to monitor the bugger, and the miner can get stuck if piercing an aquifer from below, requiring a rescue from above. Again, it's not that difficult, but if you're not aware of the risk it can take some time to detect.
 
I've tried the build floor/remove floor method to get sand (to get a sand deposit beside my magma glass furnace, I think I gave up in the end), and I've also encountered it "naturally" as a side effect of reconstruction. Sometimes a wet rock surface turns into sand, and sometimes not. I can't try it in my current embark, though, since the "soil" is sand already (and caverns seem to frequently be yellow sand if you remove the vegetation e.g. via the dirt road method [construction/deconstruction works as well, of course, but it's more work]).

[cochramd]

So I think the basic concensus of this thread is as follows: rivers cutting through s**t is awesome.

@the guy who doesn't like coasts...I have a coast embark with a brook and a multi-level aquifer I only got through by chance. No fresh water shortage here!

How are you for trees and animals?