Print

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

[daggaz]

A high plateau above the conflux of two rivers, at least one of which originates on the plateau so as to have a high waterfall and a deep canyon.  Preferably the river has a large bend in it, so that it cuts off a large area of easily defendable forest.  Deep soil, clay, flux, plenty of minerals (nice to have a convergence of biomes) and a temperate climate.  I have a map right now that has this, so Im pretty happy.  Only thing missing is a single square of aquifier, but I finally had to mod them out in disgust, what with every single good spot being covered in them.   

[Bazzak]

A half mountain, half forest map. The mountain should be formed of any gray rock ( strict color-code ) and have some Kaolinite, Bauxite or even Cinnabar. The forest area should be entirely flat.

A river is a plus, as always.

There should be iron and flux, and either Bituminous Coal or Lignite.

[jeffreyac]

My normal 'ideal': Low flat terrain, two or three soil layers covering rock below. Iron, flux, and coal, all within easy reach. Heavily forested, flat terrain, but with pools and/or river handy for water. Magma pipe leading right up to a convenient spot next to my fort. (hey, we said ideal...). Gold or silver, too.

I've been trying to spread out a little lately - trying to break my dependance on heavily forested/woodland starts by trying to get magma soner so I don't have to deforest the map to get my smelters up, and trying to branch out so I'm not so focused on steel/iron. I'm still not very good at using terrain; I find I really don't know what to do with a lot of hills/cliffs, I get bogged down trying to figure out how to design using aspects of the terrain, so I've been more comfortable with flat terrain. Maybe I'll get better with that... 

[Broseph Stalin]

It should be flat, it shouldn't be cold or freezing,  it should have a river, it should have lots of trees, and it would be nice if it had clay.

[Clutzy]

Warm temperature as I've yet to figure out cisterns, one of my many epic, constant moments of !!FUN!!. I enjoy having lots and lots of rivers when I embark as it ups the chances of lots of fish (also a fan of an obnoxious amount of wildlife. Bonus points if it's not just badgers) and then I shape the fortress around the rivers so I'm not quite line and boxes. Otherwise flat I find best, unless it's mountainous and I luck out with a nice hamlet to place my entrance at. Then I prefer tons of soil and metals and some gems.

[acetech09]

My favorite embark was one of my latest fort, which was a steep mountain on one half, and a flat black sand desert on the other, with a brook running through the middle. Great metals on both sites, plenty of exposed gems on the cliffsides which, paired with a high master gem cutter on the 2nd migrant wave, provided my export industry in the beginning.

[Jake]

A brook or river, plenty of wood for charcoal and calm-ish surroundings are preferable. Shallow metals are a bonus.

[krisslanza]

Oh right I forgot, my ideal embark also needs no Buzzards. Always spamming me with job cancellations and there's no easy way to keep them away from a settlement... curse you foul buzzards!

[Hydrall]

Usually I go for rivers by mountains, so I can carve myself into the mountain and use the natural terrain to build a good wall with the river inside- Very easy to defend, I've found. Unfortunately, the right kind of embark for me is hard to find. ^^' I've only found it twice, both times when I first started playing back in 40d. One died because I forgot to make barrels, and the second I still play- Ten game years and counting.

[Iton Ibrukrithzam]

Well, my needs change based on what fort concept I'm going for.  I never just set out to build "Like, a fort" anymore.  It's always on some theme like my glass pyramid fort, or my desert savage dwarves in bone armor fort, or my current mountain-y Fort of Steel(where eventually pretty much everything that can be made of steel, will be made of steel).

But there are a few things I nearly always look for:

-Stream.  It can be a brook, a river, the ocean, whatever, I just like to know that I can't run out of water.
-No Aquifer.  I'm still wussing out on learning how to deal with them.
-A single column, near the middle, that goes straight past the caverns to the magma sea, allowing me to easily dig down past the caverns and get a magma smelting industry going.  Lately I've been relaxing on this one as I am getting enough experience with the caverns to realize it isn't floor-to-ceiling GCS and FBs.
-Steel making materials.  Magnetite is preferred, for its clusters.
-Clay and Sand.
-Only 1-2 layers of soil.  Deep and Very Deep soil isn't a bad thing, really, but I get annoyed at it still.  One or two layers is plenty, then we need to be getting to the rocks, already!
-Savage Biome.  This one of my huge deal breakers.  I almost never embark on a biome of Wilderness or lower.  I want to be able to see(and die to, and eventually capture and tame) giant beasties.
-Bauxite.  So pretty...

[Nan]

I like having an aquifer, and lots of trees and plants. The other day I got an 8-z deep sandstone aquifer full of kaolinite, coal and ore. I built my dining hall in a kaolinite deposit in the middle of the freaking aquifer. Mining required much thought to drainage, and in places I even had to seal the ceiling. So much fun!

[Psieye]

Flat; lots of soil; both sand and clay; caverns with around 30% water content and no windy passages; lots of gems and ore (need not be combat metals).

I make artisan gatherings, not military forts. That all my haulers happen to know how to use a crossbow is because my forts have an 'organic' processing sector too: all invaders are killed in a specific industrial zone where I can harvest their meat, bones and equipment afterwards.

[raptorfangamer]

some soil layers, not too mountainous, magnetite, by preference at war with elves.

[Castamere]

Mountainous
Preferably haunted/sinister, close to a Goblin fort
Temperatures have to be either always ice or no ice since I turn them off
At least some iron
Flux is not important since there's always marble, obsidian farming takes care of valuable furniture. But flux stones look better
Canyons are cool
I always look for adamantine abundance with the prospector. It has to be higher than 500

[Psieye]

by preference at war with elves.

I duplicated the elves 3 times and made them perpetually hostile with me in the raws, then invented a new race to take up the elf merchant role but without the wood hypocrasy.