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[Arclacke]

?

[Troas]

Well, the open ocean comes to mind.  While it should be possible to drain ocean tiles, you'd need some dry land to start.

[Tryntu]

start on the coast, build a wall as high as you can, and then pumpstack the ocean onto the land.

(sorry for the offtopic, but this has to be done.)

[greycat]

Any place the game won't let you embark.  (Sprawl.)

[smjjames]

There was an utility called embarkeverywhere that allowed you to embark in places that would otherwise be forbidden. However, that was for 40D, I don't know if there is a similar tool for the current version.

[Uzu Bash]

It seems any challenge that someone can come up with, someone can succeed. It's as possible to maintain a fort anywhere as it is to ruin one even in the best possible conditions.

[Astramancer]

The only one that would be outright impossible is embark anywhere open ocean.  Your dwarves would just drown upon embarking.  Even if you embark on solid mountain, all you have to do is get to the caverns quickly enough to irrigate some stone, and you're golden from there.

Well, there are a few bugged embarks where, say, a volcano erupts the moment you get there, immediately starting a fire and killing all your dwarves, or if a section of cavern ends up being suspended over the center tile (where the wagon shows up) and immediately caves in, crushing your dwarves.

But, aside from those bugged embarks, I'd say open ocean is the only that is outright impossible.  The rest are just tricky.  As long as you have enough time to get underground, you're golden.

[Patchy]

The cavern biomes are everywhere now, and make a lot of areas a lot more manageable now once you learn how to deal with the nasties in the caverns. I have actually started playing cavernless worlds more often now for fun. It makes those deserts, tundras and freezing/scorching biomes a bit more difficult again. Just keep in mind no underground plants if you do a cavernless world, which means the dwarf caravan never sells booze, cloth, or silk, and sometimes wood.

[FleshForge]

Tundra with no cavern, I don't see how you could get anywhere with that, unless maybe you buy seeds from elves/humans and can farm above ground for drink.  Not sure you can build farm plots on tundra, I haven't tried that.

Not strictly limited to tundra but definitely to do with it: No well means pretty much any wound is going to be fatal (hospitalized dwarves can only drink water).  Glacier is actually quite a bit easier than tundra since you can collapse chunks of ice to make a well or irrigate, tundra is a truly difficult terrain without cavern resources.

[JarinArenos]

Lacking caves, in a year-round frozen biome, I can't think of any way to avoid death by dehydration...

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Tundra with no cavern, I don't see how you could get anywhere with that, unless maybe you buy seeds from elves/humans and can farm above ground for drink.  Not sure you can build farm plots on tundra, I haven't tried that.

That's not true. In fact I started one of my first ever "real" fortresses in a glacier, starting as a joke but it soon exceeded all expectations.

This was back in 40d where there were no underground features and the water had to be made from ice by the process of dropping it really far.

Of course all farming was done underground which would be impossible in df2010 if you turned off caverns. I don't think you can farm in tundra either since it's FREEZING, never tested it however.  You could however try to start a meat industry to sustain your fortress, although the lack of booze is gonna cripple it.

In the end I lost the fort to boredom since it was near impossible to start a metal industry. No wood and plenty of metals make me very sad.

[Patchy]

Well you could find a tundra with an aquifer. Glaciers you can use the ice cube drop method if no aquifer is present. Freezing other biomes usually have murky pools you can use with magma to melt and refreeze to generate infinite water and there usually is plants under the snow.

But yeah that first year may be impossible in some places since you can't embark with booze on a cavernless world. Completely dry tundra just means you have to rely on imported booze and plants. But, since the earliest possible imported booze you can get will be from the elves in the 2nd spring, well yeah... impossible.

[NecroRebel]

But yeah that first year may be impossible in some places since you can't embark with booze on a cavernless world. Completely dry tundra just means you have to rely on imported booze and plants. But, since the earliest possible imported booze you can get will be from the elves in the 2nd spring, well yeah... impossible.

Impossible? If you're embarking on tundra, you can probably forgo axes, you can always forgo giving your dwarves any skills, and if you're really strapped for points you can make what tools you do need (like picks) onsite to save quite a lot of points. You could then bring 300 assorted units of booze; enough to keep your people watered until more traders come, especially if you keep your population low.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall indoor aboveground farm plots on soil can have plants grown on them, even if not irrigated. And since tundra has soil layers, once you've survived to meet the elves and the berries they carry, you could be able to liquor up indefinately as you would in any fort.

[Patchy]

If your world is cavernless, you can't embark with booze as the dwarf civ doesn't have any.

[NecroRebel]

If your world is cavernless, you can't embark with booze as the dwarf civ doesn't have any.

...Ah. That would be a problem, wouldn't it.

Actually, doesn't that make the lack of water for irrigating underground farms a moot point? No caverns implies no underground plants implies no underground farms, after all, as you point out. Basically, any and all places without surface water, an aquifer, or gatherable plants would be unlivable in such a situation. Most rocky wastelands would be just as unlivable, with many badlands and deserts being fatal to embark in as well, if there's no caverns to exploit.

Edit: Ah, I see Catastrophic Lolcats mentioned that UG farming is impossible in cavernless worlds already. Ah well. Regardless, I suspect that a warm-to-scorching rocky wasteland would be more unlivable than tundra, as you don't even have the dubious possibility of attaining an infinite water generator with a freezing pond and magma.