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[CapnUrist]

What would be a good idea to bring along? I know most amenities will be precious, including food, drink and wood, so those should probably get priority. It'll probably also be some time before I get liquid water unless I happened to chance upon a magma pipe, so farming will be interesting.

[celem]

yeah brink plenty of drink and look for cavern water maybe.

[slothen]

bring dogs for meat.  Then you won't have to choose between booze and food when you finally get some plants.

[Swivelguy2]

I'm playing on a glacier right now—with caverns turned off. You've got it easy!

Collapse some ice to make muddy ground, and work it out so that the water conveniently flows off the farm into a well where it won't evaporate so fast.

You'd do well to save embark points by building your own picks, and of course you don't need axes. I embarked with 3 cows and a bull, but you  may not need quite that much meatpower right off the bat, because you can farm.

Also, you probably want to get everything underground and sealed off, or at least trapped off. If you don't embark with any trained soldiers, a single Yeti can easily slaughter your starting 7, and the evil biome isn't going to help.

[qoonpooka]

Barrels - buy 1 one of a whole lot of cheap food.  Wood/Fuel is going to be super precious for a while and the less you need to spend on bins and barrels the better.

Wood - Your instincts are correct on this.  Don't use wood for anything but beds and coal.  Bins only when absolutely necessary (and I'd suggest discriminating by type of wood so that your bins are as light as possible).

Bituminous Coal - Unless this has changed from 40d, Coal is the same price as wood, but gives twice as much net fuel.  Unless you know you've got magma on site, the real hurt will be on your metal industry because of the complete lack of coke.  Coal is the most bang for your buck.  If you'd just use trees for fuel then I'd say stuff your wagon to the brim with coal.

Muskox breeding pair - By the time your food runs out you will need serious meat, and leather + bones = cheap defense (armor and crossbows/bolts). Worth the 300 points.

Ditch the Anvil - It's 1000 points best spent on more fuel, pick up an anvil when the caravan arrives.  Bring two copper picks at 40 points to get you started.

Seeds - Don't forget these or you're history. 


Focus on getting your agriculture up.  Booze is absolutely mandatory because of how scarce water will be.  If you can be economical with your wood/fuel and stay on top of your food stockpile so that there's always some barrels for booze?  You'll be fine.

Don't get fancy with the ice-melting until your forge is up, by the way.  If you've never done this before you WILL lose miners (and their gear) to being frozen in ice.

[Quietust]

Unless you know you've got magma on site, the real hurt will be on your metal industry because of the complete lack of coke.

Unless otherwise stated, this is version 0.31 - every site has magma, provided you dig down far enough.

Ditch the Anvil - It's 1000 points best spent on more fuel, pick up an anvil when the caravan arrives.  Bring two copper picks at 40 points to get you started.

Yep, you're definitely still thinking in terms of 40d - anvils are only worth 100 points now.

[qoonpooka]

Unless otherwise stated, this is version 0.31 - every site has magma, provided you dig down far enough.

'If you dig down far enough' being the operative phrase.  Presumably he'll need fuel in the short-run while he works on digging down that far and building a pumpstack to bring the magma to him.

Yep, you're definitely still thinking in terms of 40d - anvils are only worth 100 points now.

Gah, I keep forgetting that.  Are they still 1k/3k in trade?  If so, that seems an interesting way to give yourself trading fodder without needing lots of jobs.

[Shanks13]

Question somewhat related to the topic at hand:
After reading this topic, I felt motivated to embark on a glacier. Because I'm a bit of an elf, I tried to line up the glacier with a single square of forested land, a taiga, which was also freezing. However, upon embarking, I had no access to seeds or plants. I repeatedly tried different embarks, varying from all glacier to all taiga, and continually was denied seeds. Embarking in a temperate biome offered seeds, but I want a glacier dammit! How can I get seeds on a glacier? I've tried regenning worlds to no effect...

[Swivelguy2]

How can I get seeds on a glacier? I've tried regenning worlds to no effect...

Have you tried switching your civilization to one that lives in more temperate areas? What you can bring on embark depends on what your home civ has.

[Shanks13]

How does one switch civilizations?

[qoonpooka]

How does one switch civilizations?

Tab to the civilization screen and I believe hit + and -? (prior to actually embarking, but while on the embark-area-selection screen)

[ext0l]

How can I get seeds on a glacier? I've tried regenning worlds to no effect...

Have you tried switching your civilization to one that lives in more temperate areas? What you can bring on embark depends on what your home civ has.

Wow I never knew this 
I usually just pick the civilization with the coolest name

[Sutremaine]

'If you dig down far enough' being the operative phrase.  Presumably he'll need fuel in the short-run while he works on digging down that far and building a pumpstack to bring the magma to him.

Can't you set up a small forge area on top of the magma and use burrows to limit the metalworkers to the food, drink, sleeping, and metalworking areas? What sort of depth do most people have magma at, anyway? My current site is as follows, with three caverns and eight or ten layers specified between ground and first cavern.

151 - 147: surface layers
132 - 115: cavern layers
114: magma starts

Those numbers are pretty normal for the few embarks I've had so far. Are 70-high pump stacks considered the norm for 31?

[AtomicPaperclip]

1 pickaxe
lots of soap.

[zwei]

Pickaxe is all you will ever need (you get three logs and one animal as bonus). Everything else is luxury.

Jut get to caverns. Then behold power of herbalism and wooden training axe. It is just race between your miner and thirst. He will win.