Can someone tell me how you guys survive at the winter in a non-tropical/desertic map? 99% of the fortresses I start end in dying of dehydratation. If no, we die because i dig so much for finding water, and die in the cave.
Firstly, you need to get your priorities right. You need to get a still, some plants, and some barrels. That's your priority. Wells can wait. If you actually get injured dwarves crying for water in the hospital until your first winter, you might want to stop embarking in these haunted biomes until you got the procedure of "omg there's a skeleton whale! dig down, get some of the supplies into it and wall it off!" down.
I made the same stupid mistake in some of my early fortresses. I am better now. :p
So, how to survive a the winter in a map that freezes in winter?
Erm...
1. use Dwarf Therapist to make some of the dwarves gather plants. Gather some plants into the stockpile. Set up some aboveground farming plots for the goods that you just gathered.
2. convert these into booze.
3. make some lavish meals out of one or both of the wagon animals, and perhaps out of some of the booze.
4.
5. profit!
Glacier/Tundra maps are more fun (no trees, no plants, water is frozen), and you should bring some food and booze with you on these. Then the utmost priority would be to
(a) find the aquifer and get a farming plot installed to do steps 1-5 from above
(b) find the caverns and either get a farming plot installed in the mud (might want to wall off the caverns though, because forgotten beasts arrive faster than you think), or set up a farming plot next to the cavernous lake to do steps 1-5 from above.
I wouldn't recommend trying to embark with just the anvil and a copper nugget on a glacier/tundra or glacier/ocean; all else should be fine.