Bay 12 Games Forum

My current fort is still digging, not because they need more rooms underground, but digging just to get more rock.

Currently have 150 or so rocks laying around doing nothing, 4000 or so used in constructions.

No stone crafts made.(Not counting artifacts, not crafting because of megaproject construction)

(as an aside, please feel free to share worlds with interesting stories or topography so those of us who prefer that sort of thing can benefit)

Just posting here to later edit in the seed for a world with very interesting topography.

Imagine, a large central mountainmass ruled by dwarves, in the mountains is a large inland ocean(On top of the mountains I think actually), in the middle of that ocean is another island, also owned by the dwarves.
In the middle of that island is another ocean, and in the middle of that ocean is a mountain.

The only way to the first ocean is over dwarven roads.

There were also 2 human civilisations, the realm of emancipation and the realm of holes, situated very close together.

Also, I like interesting worlds, but it doesn't really hold any weight over where/how/when I build a fort.

Ah, you're using a different design then I am(I'm currently doing a project that makes obsidian walls in the ocean to drain it later), and while taking a lot of time, my design works to at least make a solid wall of obsidian.(In theory and small-scale tests at least, still untested for large scale use)

My first few attempts had failed horribly, but the last one worked to make very ugly, seemingly random walls(Now trying to make it a bit more smooth walls to more easily get rid of them afterwards). Turns out, the trick is to have the obsidian ready before dropping it into the ocean(Or dropping magma in a very controlled way), dropping the magma from above will make a pillar of obsidian with a large block of it right above it.

I first place walls on 1z above the ocean, and then fill everything in between that with magma, causing obsidian to form right under it. (Which helps move the next bit of magma further). In the end, there is still no wall, but a walkway that's only a single z level, however, after a cave in dropping this walkway I can rebuild it, and repeat the process to dump another z level of obsidian on it, which is needed 6 times for my current project.

I probably don't make a lot of sense, it's almost 2 am for me. Good luck with the lake

As far as I know, it is unknown what causes a biome to be tropical, but they show up consistently on large worlds.

I think I've once seen one on a medium world, but that was a rarity. Large worlds will (As good as)always have a tropical biome somewhere.

Draining the first z level of an ocean is easy, draining something deeper then that leads to a lot of issues, dwarves drowning en masse is one of those problems that I experienced when I tried to drain 6 z levels.

The first z level will never really be fully drained with just pumps, there will be 1/7 water moving around everywhere, and it will actually push dwarves into the water. Besides that, the water may sometimes at completely random times come together to make 2/7 right where your workers are building. An other problem is size, the deeper you pump, the more pumps, power, and area you need. I needed 6500 power just to pump a single z level for my project, and it's maybe at most a 3x3 embark size of area to drain. To drain a 2x20 on the bottom of a 5 z deep ocean you will need to drain at least 12x30 on the surface, and a lot more if you want it done fast, or without constant interuptions.

If you want the way into your fort to be done with pumps, I would suggest you use magma to separate a part of the ocean with an obsidian wall, and then pump the water out of that, build the fort, and make the accessway as you want, with pumps to open it after you flood it again.
Use a cave-in to get rid of the obsidian walls if you want to flood the area again.

For a single z level, use pumps, for multiple z levels, pumps are not a good choice unless you are patient and have a lot of redroot dye and rope reed/pig tail to provide clothing for the workers.

I'm seeing from my own experiences that this seems to be true, certain kinds of ores/gems tend to be in the same area, and it is not at all spread out evenly. I think it's a good thing, but that might be because my 10x10 embarks tend to just have a lot of everything anyway, and I rarely even notice if one kind of ore isn't there a lot, while I can know where in the embark to dig for what ores after some exploration.

My experience shows that with a 10x10 embark, the south part(Or whatever other direction) seems to always have differences in ore frequency compared to the opposite part, some maps have it more then others.

If you have soil(the stuff trees grows on without having to irrigate it), try looking in those layers for magnetite, one or two clusters of that is probably enough for most forts.