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[Thomascpp]

I started a fort on the base of a volcano with the vent in the North East corner of the map but most of the map is covered with trees and medium sized pools of water(in the south west). The volcano contains lots of stone soil and gems. Is the map able to support a fort?

Also when pressed Shift+D to check to see if caravans would be able to come to my (incomplete) trade depot, the whole map became covored in red X's. Is this a problem?

Thanks

[Thomascpp]

WTF is my username "admin"? It was supposed to be "Thomascpp". Stupid autocomplete, can't tell the diference between my forum and this one .

toad: I've fixed it...  hopefully it emails you your password properly.

[KrataLightblade]

I started a fort on the base of a volcano with the vent in the North East corner of the map but most of the map is covered with trees and medium sized pools of water(in the south west). The volcano contains lots of stone soil and gems. Is the map able to support a fort?

Also when pressed Shift+D to check to see if caravans would be able to come to my (incomplete) trade depot, the whole map became covored in red X's. Is this a problem?

Thanks

The Depot has to be finished first, I believe.

And surviving without a river is tricky, but doable.

[Zorgn]

Have to have a depot to get that view, iirc.

But do it. Make a reservoir from all the pools, and cut a road to the edge of the map.

[Magua]

Surviving without a river is easy. 

Now, having a river does allow you more options -- drowning chambers, making obsidian with the magma, and the like -- but if you're playing your first few fortresses, I wouldn't worry about it.

[Ezuku]

Your map will be more than adequate to sustain a fortress. To put it in perspective, you could sustain a fortress in a desert with absolutely no trees or water. All the rest are just "luxuries".

Trees will let you make beds, and make charcoal

Magma will help you with smelting, give you obsidian, and give you some fun (especially since it refills)

The lack of a river isn't really a big deal, but if the map is hot enough those pools could dry up. Dwarves only require water to treat their ill, since normally they just drink alcohol which magically doesn't require water. Most of the uses for a river are "just for fun", ie making huge elaborate and needlessly complicated traps, making unlimited magma (by combining it with obsidian), fishing, etc, etc. If you have an aquifer you have an unlimited water source mind you.

The other two things which are nice to have which you don't (or at least didn't mention) are sand and flux. Sand is a completely optional, but you may hit very slight problems later if a noble requests something made of glass (but similarly they could request some stupidly rare item and you'd be in pain anyway).

Flux is useful for making steel, which is much sexier than regular iron (although it doesn't really do that much more).

Regarding the trade depot, you're misunderstanding how Shift-D works. Shift-D lets you see the paths wagons (guys can come on foot easily anyway) can take to your trade depot. If the whole map is red Xs, you need to clear a route. Wagons require a 3x3 space, so if your depot is indoors you'll need to widen your fortress entrance. The other easy things that may block the route are small annoying stones, which you can just build a road on top of and they'll disappear, or a river (which you don't have, brook is okay though) which you'll need to cross with a bridge (also must be 3 squares wide).

Anyway, sounds like you have a perfectly adequate place to start your fortress. Have fun!




edit: noooo, quadruple ninjaed

[Thomascpp]

I try finishing the depot and creating a road.
However how do you create a reservoir?

Thanks again!

[Magua]

Look at the wiki under "Cistern".  Essentially, build a large room underground, with a tunnel linking the bottom of the pool to the top of the cistern. 

Some method of keeping it from overflowing is optional, but encouraged.

[Ezuku]

You don't really need a reservour. But if you want to do one, the easy way is to just dig out a large hole next to one of the lakes, and then dig into it. Dig into it from the top that is . There's not really much of a point in doing so unless you think the lakes are going to dry up (eg, if the map is "scorching"). By the way, be careful with water, it's easy to flood yourself, especially a problem if the pools are big.

You don't actually need a road for wagons either, just a clear path. It's just that making a road is an easy way to get rid of all those stones that may be blocking your path (the ones on the surface that is, the ones you get from mining aren't a problem).

[Magua]

Don't dig a cistern from the top -- any square exposed to the surface gets treated as "the surface", even if it later gets a ceiling over it.  This means if you dig out your cistern from the ground down, even if you put a ceiling over it later, it'll still be considered "the surface" and so have the temperature of the surface...so if it's hot enough on "the surface" that lakes evaporate, so will your cistern.

Also, you can smooth boulders to remove them, if you don't feel like putting a road over them.  Trees can also block the route to your depot.

[Ezuku]

I meant dig a cistern from underground (if it's at risk of evap) and dig the joiny thing between the lake and the cistern from the top. Instead of, you know... from inside the cistern where the water's going to go...

[Thomascpp]

The lakes are in a temperate biome, the main issue is that any lava based traps I will probably build, could boil the lakes.

[Thomascpp]

Yay I fished the depot and tons of the red X's turn green

The dwarf caravan appears...      and they can't get to the stupid depot because they came from the North with the steep cliffs  instead of the south with the flat plains. Dang!

[Ezuku]

Bleh, that's unfortunate about the stupid wagon. Try building a tunnel / series of ramps (stairs won't work) to it. My opinion is that if it happens once, it's likely to happen again.

Magma's more helpful for making forges though than traps, which are actually just a luxury. You can make the magma channel underground to forges underneath the level of the lakes if that's your problem...

[Vicomt]

Don't forget, if you use ramps to get the caravan down the cliff, you must have at least a 3x3 square of floor between every ramp, otherwise the caravan will not be able to get down.