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[BladeBerserker]

Starting a new fortress in an evil glacier!  Credit goes to Nist Akath for the inspiration.

This goes along with two dicussion topics.

What do you take when embarking to a glacier?

What is your preferred method of dealing with a glacial aquifier?

And one question; Making a well from an aquifier, how do I do this?

[Lav]

I take pretty much the same as I take to any other site. It's not like the game demands you to take wintercoats or whatever.

Dealing with aquifer is extremely easy when temperature is below freezing point. You dig it, it leaks and freezes, you make a large enough area of ice, dig in the center, wall out. Then repeat if there's more than one layer.

[Kidiri]

What do you take when embarking to a glacier?

Wood, next to the usual stuff (except for axes). Being on a glacier, you'll have no trees growing. This is rather annoying, as you have to rely on caravans for your wood. It's also best to take a couple of wardogs with you. They will breed and supply you with a (near) infinite source of meat, leather, bones, skulls and fat. Those can then be made into cooked meals, armour, weapons (crossbows and bolts) and trade goods. Next to the breeding function, they also work as an early defence mechanism against kobold and goblin thieves.

What is your preferred method of dealing with a glacial aquifier?

Use the ice method from the wiki. But with a small change. Seeing how it's permafrost, you can skip the building of walls to keep water out, and just use the frozen water to keep it all out.

And one question; Making a well from an aquifier, how do I do this?

Just designate a hole to be channelled out on the level above the aquifer and build your well there. That's the easiest way. Otherwise, you can have water on the lower levels, by having a tile of the level below the aquifer opened up (but not where you built you stairs). water will leak in there, and you'll be good to go.

[BladeBerserker]

Oh aye Lav? Makes sense.

And Kidiri, I like the extra dogs plan.
But moar moar! I wanna hear tales of crazy ice forts!

[Grendus]

If you have magma but no aquifer (so obviously not this time) you can build a water repeater. You need a magma proof drawbridge and a pump, simply pump the magma under the ice to melt it, siphon off some of it, then drop the water back into a cistern. 2/7 or higher water will produce an ice wall which melts back into 7/7 water. I built an ice tower like that once, though it wasn't very tall.

[Kidiri]

And Kidiri, I like the extra dogs plan.

Just be sure to wait until the puppies are fully grown. They'll provide more meat and fat (maybe bones, I don't know this). And cage them. So they don't murder your fps.

[BladeBerserker]

That water repeater sounds fun, I might just try it if my ice-fort menaces with spikes of fail.
And it will, the first 4 z-levels are solid ice.
Followed by claystone.
Followed by jet. -.-
And for the lulz; I brought a swordsdwarf along, in case of an early attack be skelephants, or zombie wolves or w/e, and he ran off to fight 2 ice wolves and DIED  . At least one of the wolves bled to death....

Anybody want me to put it's log up on here?

[wagawaga]

Wolves? I had skeletal mammoths from DD.

[darthbob88]

And Kidiri, I like the extra dogs plan.

Just be sure to wait until the puppies are fully grown. They'll provide more meat and fat (maybe bones, I don't know this). And cage them. So they don't murder your fps.

Correct, they will provide more meat and bones. The difference in fat between puppies and dogs is negligible; young animals provide 2/3 as much meat, bones, and fat, rounded up, as do adult versions. Though, considering that dogs are only size 5 and provide one fat, the difference between the two is minimal.

[BladeBerserker]

I'm not claiming the wolves were awe-inspiringly terrible. Just that it's a pathetic death for a proficient swordsdwarf. Not like my entire fort being murdered by skeletal mammoths, which would be AWESOME.

[BladeBerserker]

Just as an update on my tundra fort. (as the glacier one was fail)
There is no water.
NONE.
Unless there's an underground lake hidden in here....
Anyway, I'm also digging out pretty much half of the map, thus making a straight sheer cliff, the only irregularity of which is the fort entrance, which is a wall with a gate in it anyway, thus leaving the straight cliff. Bwahahahaha.
First none construction project, and I'm doing it with the 4 miners I embarked with, as I want it done BEFORE any thing happens. (Traders, goblin's, zombies, land-carp)
Woot for insane fortress . I'm giving it until I try to train my military.
Also, I don't have any metal ore, yet. Not even copper.

[Deon]

It's a common problem of non-mountain biomes. And sadly underground water appears in mountains only.

[GL12]

You can actually collapse ice to get water at glaciers.  It's preferable to get 2+ z-levels of ice untethered and connected to a single support (which you then connect to a lever) and cave them in so they end up at least 1 z-level into the bedrock. After a minute or so, it'll melt and you'll have water. I'd suggest collapsing a big chunk, and leaving a 1z-level cap of ice over the spot so you don't have to worry about any of the ice refreezing.

Keep in mind that wells don't work in the ice z-levels of glaciers, the water freezes before the dorfs can drink it. I've lost a fort due to that.

Finally, switch out your axes for wood, and possibly a 3rd pick, since if you're used to having a woodcutter you'll have a dorf you can use for mining. If you go for the cave in thing, realize you'll occasionally have to drop new chunks to get more water, and perhaps try to set it up so the ice melts on one area, then flows into a cistern so you'll get farmable land (which is normally a massive challenge on glaciers)

[Grendus]

Bring 6-7 picks. It's 140 embark points, cheaper than bringing dedicated miners, and will speed up all of your fort's work as your founding 7 will gain stats like crazy. Very powerful.

[wagawaga]

Mmmhh, now I really want to find a way to have an embark between a freezing glacier and a scorching desert. It would make anything possible!