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[melomel]

Latest fortress isn't going terribly well.  Started fooling around, generating a few worlds from the same custom parameters/seed.

I *was* supposed to have phantom spiders and sliver barbs anyway (about 3/5ths evil temperate conifer forest, cold/terrifying).

So, fiddling around with world generating, I find a likely spot:  same terrifying conifer forest, joyous wilds swamp, and savage wilds shrubland.

I embark.  There's snow everywhere; I expected that.  The biomes are all temperate/cold.

What I didn't expect was the complete and total absence of trees and shrubs.  Aside from the shrubland, which was supposed to have some trees and plants anyway, the other two biomes were supposed to be heavily forested/vegetated.

Not a single tree, sapling, or bush in sight.  Bzuh?

[GaxkangtheUnbound]

This happened to me as well.
I had the perfect location. Everything I needed and could need.
Embarked to find exactly the same thing as you did.

[Sizik]

It's probably too cold for the trees to grow. The game seems to choose the biome types before the vegetation, so certain types of forest will show up as "heavily forested", but since there are no trees that can grow there, it'll be barren.

[melomel]

That makes sense...  doesn't explain the last embark, though.

The map was gloriously full of zombies, but the "terrifying coniferous forest" had no conifers.  (And no phantom spiders.  Or sliver barbs.  Or even glumprong...  I was quite saddened.)

Wondering if raising the minimum temperature would help...

[elizar]

This happened in a now defunct community fortress. No visiting wildlife, no trees, shrubs or anything! This also occurred in the caverns. Everyone realized just how boring the fortress would be so they said the writer to dig to hell.

Well, on a map that spawns nothing it sure does spawn demons, much to everyone's surprise.

[Hyndis]

It's probably too cold for the trees to grow. The game seems to choose the biome types before the vegetation, so certain types of forest will show up as "heavily forested", but since there are no trees that can grow there, it'll be barren.

My current embark is frozen all year round. There are quite a few trees. Its no dense forest but they regrow with enough density to at least make a few bins and barrels.

[Murphy]

I found that my previous fortress had absolutely no water whatsoever, not even in the caverns, despite embark screen stating there was an aquifer.

[geoduck]

The "no trees" thing is some sort of bug; I had it happen recently with a site I re-created a couple of times. (From scratch; not abandoning the settlement and resettling.) If you copy off the word data, re-gen and go back to the site, the trees should be there.

[Drawde]

I found that my previous fortress had absolutely no water whatsoever, not even in the caverns, despite embark screen stating there was an aquifer.

Aquifiers have a set area they occupy.  What probably happened is that the aquifier was just in one corner of the map, and quite small.  You probably just missed finding it is all.

It shows an aquifier on the embark screen if any square in the embark area has one, regardless of the size.  I've used this to have an aquifier in just one portion of my map, so I can dig under it easily, but still have access to it's water.

[GaxkangtheUnbound]

Aquifiers have a set area they occupy.  What probably happened is that the aquifier was just in one corner of the map, and quite small.  You probably just missed finding it is all.

It shows an aquifier on the embark screen if any square in the embark area has one, regardless of the size.  I've used this to have an aquifier in just one portion of my map, so I can dig under it easily, but still have access to it's water.

How would you know where an aquifer is?

[Epacsten]

You can usually tell where an aquifer is before you embark, by making your embark area 2x2 and moving it around.
I love using aquifers for water and power but I hate digging through them.

[Drawde]

How would you know where an aquifer is?

When you're choosing where to embark to.  One of the windows shows what the top seven levels are made of, roughly.  Cliffs and such can change this.  It also shows if there's an aquifier on each of those levels.  For example:
Peat
Sand
Red sand *****
Granite *****
Marble
Granite
Slate
The ***** is the game's symbol for water.  Which would mean that the third and fourth levels, the red sand and the first granite, have aquifiers in them.

But the aquifiers are like other terrain features, meaning they have set areas when the map is generated.  If you move the embark area around on the map, you can choose which portions to include in it.  Like a volcano or portion of a river.  Except you can't see exactly where an aquifier is, the game just telling you that there's an aquifier in your embark area.  So if you start with no aquifer shown, move the embark area up one, and it shows one, you know that at least one of the top squares of your embark area has an aquifier, but the lower ones don't.  You just have to move the area around to pinpoint where it is.

[GaxkangtheUnbound]

How would you know where an aquifer is?

When you're choosing where to embark to.  One of the windows shows what the top seven levels are made of, roughly.  Cliffs and such can change this.  It also shows if there's an aquifier on each of those levels.  For example:
Peat
Sand
Red sand *****
Granite *****
Marble
Granite
Slate
The ***** is the game's symbol for water.  Which would mean that the third and fourth levels, the red sand and the first granite, have aquifiers in them.

But the aquifiers are like other terrain features, meaning they have set areas when the map is generated.  If you move the embark area around on the map, you can choose which portions to include in it.  Like a volcano or portion of a river.  Except you can't see exactly where an aquifier is, the game just telling you that there's an aquifier in your embark area.  So if you start with no aquifer shown, move the embark area up one, and it shows one, you know that at least one of the top squares of your embark area has an aquifier, but the lower ones don't.  You just have to move the area around to pinpoint where it is.

Oh, wow. Thanks for the valuable information!

[Ratbert_CP]

If your embark area spans more than one biome, you can use the F1-FN keys to cycle through the individual biome descriptions, including aquifer locations.  I've embarked on numerous locations where there was an aquifer in the forested biome, but the mountain biome was perfectly dry...

[Cheese]

Something like this happened to me, I ended up getting a freezing cold wasteland with no river instead of my promised river, warm weather and heavy forestation