Or embark in an area close to a freezing biome? I don't know. Again, I didn't expect the water to freeze.
The 3rd winter is about to pass. I've continued work on the first basement, erecting walls of ice to hold as temporary boundaries. Of course, I forgot the floors, so I'll still need to mine it out next year. At least I know where the floors are this time.
My residential zone is on pause because I ran out of microcline blocks halfway through the winter. I'll spend the next year making more of them so I can continue next winter.
The errors I made in pathways have been fixed, and now in the last week of The Freezing, all my dwarves are taking refuge in the outpost, drinking beer, building more blocks, and waiting for the ice to melt before it's safe to go out. granted, this is just to keep them off the ice so they don't fall through along with half my livestock. One dorf even found the balls to sleep ON THE ICE last year. Visual Fortress still doesn't want to work for me. This year, I'll be working on the completion of the walkway to the Northern Continent, and the beginning of the Noble Tower. I have a few ideas for what to make it out of *Magma is not an option!*. What do you all propose?
Here is what I have currently readily available. The floors will always be made of Marble, and it's the most abundant stone in the region.
Marble
Mica
Green Glass
Clear Glass
Wood
Ice
Ash
Potash
Pearlash
Charcoal
Soap
Ice will only be able to be harvested in the winter, and I'd need to stop all mining for rocks in order for the masons to work on making ice blocks *if that's even possible. If not, I'll have to be content with a rough Noble Tower, which would break my challenge of only using blocks.