Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Murphy]

Both in 40d and 31.01 I could hardly find a place where water would be frozen only part of the year. If the climate is freezing, sure all the water is solid ice. But if it's not, then water is unfrozen year-round. It seems that the temperature changes too little between seasons - thus only in cold areas that are 1-2 degrees warmer than water melting point will one find a site with seasonal freezing.

Why so? Aren't even temperate climates supposed to freeze over in the winter? Can I affect this?

[Proteus]

Cannot say the same for me.
In 40d at almost all of my fortress locations it was rather the norm than the exception,
that the brook would be frozen over in winter and have liquid water during the other seasons.

Seems to be similar in DF 0.31

Maybe there was something with your generated world/s  (for example temperature and size of the world/s [I for my part always use the largest world size available [which  leaves enough room for all climates] as  well as default temperature settings]) that made you experience such oddities, or maybe it was because of the fortress locations you chose   

[Caz]

For me, water freezes some of the year in temperate and cold climates. Freezing is all year, and warm-hot-scorching are always thawed.

[Garrie]

Why so? Aren't even temperate climates supposed to freeze over in the winter? Can I affect this?

It seems the temperature in the Northern hemisphere temperate zone tends to be colder than temperature in the Southern hemisphere temperate zone.

Snowfall between the tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic circle is usually restricted to higher elevations.

So I guess that means "almost always liquid" is what you should expect from surface water in a "temperate" biome?

[Rastaan]

I generally favour temperate valleys, and I have never encountered seasonal freezing in biomes like those.

[Interus]

I don't remember the temperatures, but there was one area I settled in where the brook was partially frozen during the winter and completely thawed in the summer.  I was on the edge of a mountain range, and there was basically a large rock field that transitioned to an equally flat dirt plain.  The brook flowing through the rocky biome would freeze in the winter, but the brook in the dirt biome continued to flow.  It made it look like the rocks were causing the water to freeze, but it was probably just because the plains(actually woods I think) had a higher temperature.

Plus that may have been in the last version.

[Hyndis]

Biomes still have different temperatures, so it is possible to embark in an area where water only freezes on one section of your map.

Freezing is below 0, all year round.
Cold is below 0 most of the time but there is still some liquid water.
Temperate usually freezes only during the winter, flowing water rest of the year.
Anything above temperate has no freezing water, and your ponds will probably dry up as well.

[Dave Mongoose]

Find a temperate biome that borders a cold biome and you should get seasonal freezing. Temperate on its own is not a guarantee, because those at the higher end won't get cold enough.

[Marconius]

In one recent game, I settled into a cold biome. Rivers and ponds were frozen about half the year, from early autumn to early spring. There was also snowfall and even snowstorms.

I now play in a temperate biome, though it was close to cold biomes. Now water freezes for about 2 months every year during the winter. I've never seen snow, but it does rain often.

[Hyndis]

I love the snowy climates. Dwarves settling in a snow covered mountain fortress, living deep underground just feels right.

It also helps to make working with water a little easier. Every year when the river/brook freezes you can go and upgrade the plumbing. Its like a natural floodgate. That, and you can make things out of ice. Construct walls or floors out of chunks of ice, and so long as you finish your construction while its still frozen, the constructed walls/floors will never melt.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Usually, I embark in temperate forests near the cold zone (since I am worried about evaporated pools), but this time I am in temperate near warm and hot, and presto, I don't get freezing anymore (had it before). And I also don't get the normal four seasons (they are announced as being on the calendar, that is all), but instead a dry and wet season.

If you think about it, it actually makes sense:

1. The world gen uses much more detail than just 5 or 6 levels of temperature. Thus, there is a good chance that there is more detail in the resulting world.
2. One major change was that the world became completely continuous. It makes sense that climate gradually changes over the map in most cases without a sudden switch from Southern European temperate and North European Subarctics.

Deathworks

[Rastaan]

It's funny because a guy called 'Deathworks' is having a pleasant conversation about the weather. ^.^

[AxisofLint]

I'd never actually played in a map with a river that freezes before, and so, after digging out the new version of my irrigation works, I wasn't ready for what happens when it unfreezes. I lost a weaponsmith and almost my entire fort in flooding, lol.

[Max White]

It's funny because a guy called 'Deathworks' is having a pleasant conversation about the weather. ^.^

Its funny because a guy called deathworks has a neko girl for an avatar is is always notable formal. I imagine this guy to walk into a courtroom in full punk rocker gear, then casually and normally defend hes client, as if all lawyers dressed like that.

[Murphy]

Freezing is below 0, all year round.
Cold is below 0 most of the time but there is still some liquid water.
Temperate usually freezes only during the winter, flowing water rest of the year.
Anything above temperate has no freezing water, and your ponds will probably dry up as well.

Yeah, only for me it's more like that:
Freezing is below 0, all year round.
Cold is about +5, all year round.
Temperate is +10, all year round.
Warm is +20, all year round.
At least that's what I imagine (it's not like you can view current temperature in dwarf mode).

Essentially all seasons are totally the same, except for trees changing colors. Well, not exactly that - slight changes are possible, that's why I can get seasonal freezing if I choose a site in a cold biome that borders a freezing one. But it's still ridiculous.

I do change worldgen temperature ranges from 25-75 to 0-100, to get both freezing and scorching biomes in the same small world. But I've encountered the problem long before I started doing that. Gonna try a "Create now" world today, just to be sure.