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[aurixdarastrix]

I am looking for a 2x2 embark with NO special features, completely flat surface, and access to human and dwarf caravans.  z-1 being sand would be nice, but not critical.  I use unedited 40d.  Any ideas on how to get such a site? 

[Blaze]

The sitefinder should be able to find an area like that pretty easily.

If you're looking for sandy flat areas, I'd suggest embarking in a badland area, but trees won't grow in badlands.

Riversides should give you similar results, but there will probably be aquifers in the 2nd and 3rd ground levels.

[smjjames]

Just pick some random spot in the middle of a swamp or jungle or a desert, not that hard to  find.

It really isn't that unique...

[aurixdarastrix]

You'd think so, but I have had HORRIBLE luck.  Sitefinder won't let you specify the embark to be TOTALLY flat.  As in, no pools, hills, or anything. Meh, whatever, giving it a few more tries tomorrow. 

[smjjames]

You'd think so, but I have had HORRIBLE luck.  Sitefinder won't let you specify the embark to be TOTALLY flat.  As in, no pools, hills, or anything. Meh, whatever, giving it a few more tries tomorrow. 

For no pools, your best bet is a desert, however, you're going to want a river or some other source of water just in case.

A savanna could also work if you can tolerate a few.

Really though, it will be MUCH easier to just scout around using the relative elevation and cliff indicator windows on the embark screen because the site finder is not all that great.

A good place to look is near rivers, its usually totally or near totally flat in those areas.

[Blaze]

Areas far enough from a brook/river probably won't have any pools either, and hills can be easily collapsed with a single miner. Plus, since it's sand, there won't be any residue for your dwarves to clean up.

[Blargityblarg]

Deserts, the TAB key and manual sitefinding are all your friend.

Press TAB a few times when over a site, until the screen with all the numbers comes. They're how much the elevation varies in that embark tile. 0 means that tile is flat, excluding pools and overlap with other tiles.

If the embark isn't in contact with any non-0 elevation-change tiles, you're golden. If it's in a desert, you're almost guaranteed no murky pools, and if you want trees, you can find deserts like that.

If you have no specifications regarding magma, flux et cetera, you shouldn't have much trouble at all.

Rmeember kids: The site-finder is terribly clunky!

EDIT: semi-ninja'd by SMJjames, but I'd like to contradict Blaze, who also posted whilst I was typing: Waterways have no effect on the number of pools in an area. I've had deserts with rivers and nothing else, and tropical jungles with tonnes of pools and no river/brook.

[denito]

Maybe fooling with the elevation settings will help you here?  Raise the min and lower the max height.  Min height = max height by definition would seem to give you flatland, but I think the world will refuse to gen in that case due to no mountain regions.  But what you could do is use a weighted grid for elevation frequency and pile on the probability in a small range, leaving only 1 or 2 probability in the others, like this:  [ELEVATION_FREQUENCY:1:1:20:1:1:1].  Gen a large world so that even though the high elevations have a low probability, they will appear somewhere, but turn down the expected amounts for mountain tiles and such like, and make oceans = 0.

[smjjames]

No need to capitalize the first three letters of my name, but eh whatever.

Anyways, like blargityblarg said, the site finder is barely functional and in the next release I wouldn't be surprised if it was rendered non-functional.

[SkyRender]

I found a Mirthful white sand desert that fits your description perfectly ages ago.  It also has almost no drainage, meaning even though it's a desert, the pools of water remain year-round.  It had a massive amount of valuable resources under the sands, and plenty of "wood" from the fastest-growing Saguaro cacti I've ever seen.  Will that do?

Also, if you're looking for no water, good luck.  Even the most arid desert starts out with at least a few oases in it.  I've yet to find an embark that doesn't start with a few ponds.

[Blaze]

The 4X4 badland area I'm playing in right now is bare, aside from a small hill on the southern edge and a lava pipe to the southeast. No pools in sight.

So yeah, try looking up a badland area. If it comes to it, you could just use a tile editor to clear up the area.

[aurixdarastrix]

So, if I understand the advice correctly:  Start in a desert/badland, just keep trying, mess with the world-gen options a little, and keep trying?  Thanks. 
I've pre-planned a fort with paint, and want to see how it works.  That, and I'm a total perfectionist. 

[smjjames]

Yea, generate a couple of worlds with promising looking deserts and then scout them out, you're bound to find a few good spots.

I really advise that you at least have a brook for a source of water, you can make it be in one corner of the embark, but hey its your choice.

[Satarus]

If you want flat embarks, then just mess around with the world gen params.  Set minimum and maximum elevations to about 280-310 and drop that elevation variability down.  Be sure to remove all ocean params (or you get infinite rejects) and all mountain peaks.  I can't remember if there is minimum low or mid elevation counts as well.  You'll need to zero those out as well.

I haven't tested it, but modding your drainage to be a bit low should give more sand.  However that may increase the number of aquifers.  Remember this bit is conjecture and I can't prove it.  I only know how to make flat lands.

[Lav]

I am looking for a 2x2 embark with NO special features, completely flat surface, and access to human and dwarf caravans.  z-1 being sand would be nice, but not critical.  I use unedited 40d.  Any ideas on how to get such a site?

I'm currently playing on such a map. A 4x4 desert, with a magma pipe and a small bit of aquifer in one of the corners. Flint for sediment (no flux but tons of bauxite and iron), then gabbro+granite (the best possible combination for minerals and gems).

Of course, strictly speaking the site was not 100% flat, there was a difference of 2 z-levels between map edges. So I went the dwarven way and simply made the site 100% flat in half a year or so. Got 7 legendary miners as the result. Now I'm building a system of underground-connected catapult bunkers which will be able to cross-fire the entire surface (and train an army of siege operators to man those catapults).