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[frankwilliams]

After a very sucessful (and therefore, boring) fort, I'm in the mood for a more "fun" experience, and after multiple tries of a hopelessly difficult embark site, I've been wondering for a while - what would be the hardest possible embark site, in an unmodded game, that would still allow most of the game's mechanics (this generally means, iron ore and such)

I'm talking biomes here, mostly. I tried playing in a desert biome a while ago but it seems like extreme cold is actually far more dangerous than extreme heat to dwarves, mostly because the water freezes in cold and there's no trees in glacier biomes...

Obviously, it has to be a terrifying biome, savagery+evil at max, but what should the geography look like? There are a lot of questions to ponder here.

[Kofthefens]

Don't rule out scorching so quickly... If it's hot enough your dwarves will die if they stay outside.

[clockout1]

Try one of these.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=98447.0

[Girlinhat]

Glaciers are pretty awful, especially if you disable caverns it's damn near impossible.

[frankwilliams]

Don't rule out scorching so quickly... If it's hot enough your dwarves will die if they stay outside.

Yes, but I've played in scorching before and that's really only an issue within the first ~3 seconds of gameplay. Once I dig out a small hovel and burrow it, that becomes completely irrelevant.

[NecroRebel]

Glaciers are pretty awful, especially if you disable caverns it's damn near impossible.

Didn't we decide, a while back, that if caverns are disabled and/or there's no water in any cavern that survival on a non-aquifer rocky wasteland is completely impossible? Rocky wastelands have no plants, there's never any water on the surface, and no cavern water means no cavern plants means you can't embark with any booze, so you're guaranteed to have all your dwarves die of dehydration on such a map because there's also nothing to gather and brew. A glacier is theoretically survivable, since you could possibly bring magma up to melt some ice to get drinking water.

[Girlinhat]

About your only option is low population and trading for booze.  If you're quick and resourceful, you might manage to drop some ice down to the magma area and melt you some drinking water, you wouldn't be able to pump it up though.  For cost of bringing all the iron for the pump components, you could keep yourself boozed.  But you could dig a shaft and drop a solid ice wall on it, you'd just need future planning to start a re-freezing area to replenish your water.  Hopefully the second caravan, at the latest, could bring you the iron for a few good pumps, and you could make a second, refreezing chamber.  Hunting for food would probably be fairly easy, perhaps violent hunting with max-sized crossbow squads instead of just hunters.

[NecroRebel]

We're discussing a world with no cavern water, though, so there aren't any cavern plants. You can only bring cavern plant derivative booze on embark, so if there's no cavern water you can't bring booze on embark, so bringing iron and coal for pumps wouldn't eat into your booze budget at all.

Dropping ice down would probably be more efficient, though, since you'd be able to do with just 1 iron pump instead of, conceivably, dozens. Of course, again, on a rocky wasteland even that wouldn't be an option, so I think that the aquifer-less river-less rocky wasteland with caverns off would indeed be the most difficult imaginable embark location.

[Nan]

Actually glaciers are pretty easy if you know how to do cave-ins. That's because under the ground, in the rock layers, it's warm enough to melt ice. No magma needed. Just mine out a chamber in the rock layers, and cave-in a block of ice into it, the block of ice will melt and you have your water for drinking and irrigation.

[Girlinhat]

I know that above-ground plants won't grow on a glacier, but will they grow on a glacier if the surface is magma-heated to make it sustainable for plants?  I don't know if anyone has tried.

[proxn_punkd]

I've not done the science, but I think not. Plants only grow in specific biomes, and glacier isn't a plant-sustainable biome.

[Teneb]

Truth be told, now that there are chickens and other egg-layer around, keeping your dorfs fed can be pretty easy on a cavern-less glacier. (as long as you keep a low population)

[MadocComadrin]

Truth be told, now that there are chickens and other egg-layer around, keeping your dorfs fed can be pretty easy on a cavern-less glacier. (as long as you keep a low population)

I've fed entire forts on eggs with everything else going to booze production, so I imagine proper egg laying could feed any size fort as long as you can keep up the booze (which seems to be more of a problem anyway).

[Babylon]

We're discussing a world with no cavern water, though, so there aren't any cavern plants. You can only bring cavern plant derivative booze on embark, so if there's no cavern water you can't bring booze on embark, so bringing iron and coal for pumps wouldn't eat into your booze budget at all.

Dropping ice down would probably be more efficient, though, since you'd be able to do with just 1 iron pump instead of, conceivably, dozens. Of course, again, on a rocky wasteland even that wouldn't be an option, so I think that the aquifer-less river-less rocky wasteland with caverns off would indeed be the most difficult imaginable embark location.

Will dwarves survive until fall with no water?  If so they can trade with the caravan at that point,  unless no caverns means the caravan wont bring subterranean plants.  I'd think the parent civ would have some growing in dirt.

[rephikul]

A friendly reminder: If you think the game is easy, you are probably playing with too much exploits or with too little restriction. Well there are always mods to help remedying that problem, such as mine. Some selective features:
+ Never ending streams of hostile and ingenious wildlife and exotic sieges (the siege part is credited to darkfragrance)
+ An economy system that hinge on demanding nobles (such as the 5-mandates military commander) and trading (such as moldy stones, which's import-only and is needed for booze making)
+ Minor details encouraging the players to break their mold such as the removal of training spears or the overhauling on farming/herbalism.
 + Intensive traumas, self-inflicted eye injuries, break-ups, broken electronics equipments or termination of life.