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[Namlet]

I'm planning on starting a new fortress and I have no idea what I should actually be looking for in an embark location. Anyone have some good advice?

[Mort Stroodle]

Priority 1: No aquifer. Aquifers are extremely difficult to dig through and can easily flood forts. If only PART of your embark location has an aquifer, you can dig around it. This would require two biomes in one embark. When there are two biomes in the embark area when you're looking on the world map, press the function keys to cycle through information about each one.

Beyond that, you'll want some trees. Woodland or heavily forested will give you basically infinite wood but can make building surface structures a bit annoying and if anything starts a fire your FPS will nosedive. Sparse trees are a good balance but if you run out (or just want to preserve the fruit trees) you might have to breach caverns early, which is dangerous. More trees is a safer option.

Rivers are very helpful, as they're easy sources of food via fishing, as well as fresh water. You can get by without, but if there aren't any ponds to drain into a cistern you'll be SOL and will have to breach caverns early, which is, again, dangerous. Injured dwarves need fresh water, they can't drink booze.

Ideally, you'll want deep metals (plural), shallow metals, and flux stone. Prioritize metals over flux. The more metals you get, the better chance you have of getting valuable metals for trade or useful metals for armor/weapons. Flux is necessary to make steel.

Soil, sand, and clay can all be used for farming, but clay can be used for ceramics and sand can be used for glass. If you can get them, go for it, but they're not a huge priority. They're nice to have.

With your surroundings, there's sort of an alignment chart here. Savageness determines whether giant animals and animal people appear, while evilness determines whether horrifying magical bullshit will kill all of your dwarves. Calm/Serene/Mirthful/Joyous Wilds surroundings are safest, Wilderness biomes are still pretty safe, Untamed Wilds are pretty dangerous, and Sinister/Haunted/Terrifying biomes can be extremely dangerous.

Warmer temperatures also mean surface water sources won't freeze over in the winter.

You don't need to tick all the boxes and look for a perfect embark here, basically prioritize no aquifer, trees, reasonably safe surroundings, and a river. The rest is good if you can find it.


Edit: Also use tab to see if anything nearby is at war with you. Goblins and towers mean you'll get sieges.

[Adequate Swimmer]

Prioritize flux over metal. You can scavenge iron from invaders or simply steal it on raids. You can't steal flux.

[Namlet]

Thanks for the tips, guys

[gchristopher]

But be aware that the aquifer priority will change very quickly, probably by your second game. One you've got the basics, aquifer piercing following the wiki double slit instructions is easy, and aquifers both give and absorb infinite water (much better than a stream), so many players will always want one too be present.

[Mort Stroodle]

Prioritize flux over metal. You can scavenge iron from invaders or simply steal it on raids. You can't steal flux.

I disagree, more metals mean far more/better trade goods. When you're pumping out ⛭Gold Scepter⛭'s, you can buy all the steel you want, directly.

[Fleeting Frames]

If you have flux, you can build/obtain iron and steel from humans, dwarves and goblins to get steel. If you don't, you can only get steel from dwarves (as can import much less flux than iron/steel). In any case, it's not terribly hard to buy out caravans even without metals or trees. However, armour can work quite passably when it is at least bronze/iron so it's not like either is mandatory.

Additions to above: Good biomes are really not any more safe than neutral biomes (they're equivalent at equal savagery expect for few plants and animals, and unicorns are not dolphins). As long as your biome isn't evil it's relatively safe.

Sand is far more versatile than clay; the latter is still good for putting up quick palisades or making trade goods however.

Probably the biggest weight I give is whether the embark has access to all civilizations (though you probably woudn't want tower yet due their early sieges). Though nowadays it can be possible to scratch goblin siege desire via raids, you can't provoke trade. Visitors are more versatile, but there's more of them when the world alive and more than a century old, I think - more for better scholars, as master-apprentice relationships span generations.

If you're a newbie, you probably would love to have a volcano; no need to worry about hauling magma up or split fortress.


Worth mention is that many prefer embarking in flat or almost flat places. This is because due the limiations of DF UI you can only see 1 z-level at the time, which means if your embark is hilly you only see a fraction of it at the time even if it's no harder to traverse from corner to corner.


(There's more considerations not listed here; my own requirements are much deeper.)

[Starweaver396]

Something worth considering though is stealing someone else's embark. On the embark screen, if you press 'R'eclaim, you can load up a premade fortress loaded with supplies, rooms, and even a straight path(through any aquifers and caverns) into the magma sea(read as 'unmarked volcano'). You can even dig up constructions(d-n) for free materials and building space. The only problem with reclaims is that you don't control map size, there might be hostile enemies present at startup, and there are a LOT of items lying around. I don't know how much that affects FPS, but it's not like you lose anything by trying since you can just abandon if it's too painful. Reclaims are one of my favorite embarks now.

Outside of reclaims, Volcano is a really good priority for early players. Having instant magma kilns/glass/furnaces/forges is a huge boon. Clay and sand are infinite building materials, even when there aren't any trees or the local aquifer is preventing you from getting stone.
Consider Warm environments to prevent your water source(if it's a river, aquifers don't care) from freezing. Make sure you don't go Hot or Scorching though, or the water will just dry up.
(Good is not nice. The creatures there can be just as dangerous as in evil biomes, you just don't have to worry about undead yak skin attacking you.)
Make sure to bring raw materials as well. 20 units each of tetrahedrite, lignite, olivine/gabbro and logs will be more useful to you in the long run than a dozen crutches, splints and whatever else the vanilla embark drops in your wagon.
Bringing egg layers is very valuable as well. Eggs+Quarry bush leaves or booze = super valuable food for trading.
Flux is a must, if you want steel. If there's no flux, you can melt all the ore and siege litter you want, you'll be stuck with iron and miniscule amounts of steel that you get from traders.

[scourge728]

If you select a site with elves or humans, check you aren't at war if you don't want sieges, elves only have wood, but they bring things with them ranging from grizzly bears and unicorns, to giant tigers and humans have iron equipment when they siege

[Maul_Junior]

Clay:

Clay can be used, raw, to build walls, bridges, AND can be used to train up Gem Cutters/Setters without wasting actual Gems. The Large Gems that are created have a max value of 120. I'm not actually sure if Large Gems can be used to Encrust things. Anyone, and I mean *anyone* can gather Clay (and/or Sand Bags), regardless of their other job assignments, if they have Item Hauling job activated

Fired Earthenware products have a base value of 3

Fire Clay:

Fire Clay is one and done. If at all possible, get Fire Clay, because the other types of Clay need Tin or Ash (and another piece of fuel) before they can hold liquid.

Fired Stoneware has a base value of 4

Kaolinite:

Kaolinite is a rock type, and can be used to produce Porcelainware, and do not need Tin/Ash to hold liquid

Porcelainware has a base value of 10


Lignite/Bituminous Coal:

The two native kinds of coal (though mods may include Anthracite and/or other kinds of coal), Lignite/Bituminous Coal require a piece of fuel before being turned into fuel themselves if used on a regular Smelter.

Lignite produces 4 net fuel in a Smelter, 5 in Magma Smelter
Bituminous Coal produces 8 net fuel in a Smelter, 9 in Magma Smelter

[NordicNooob]

That's a good question. There's a lot of different embarks you could want. The most ideal embark varies a little bit from player to player, but in general it follows this:
No aquifer - Aquifers are tough to break through, but do provide plenty of benefits if you're willing.
Little to deep soil - too much soil is bad, actually. Too many useless levels of dirt will make for extra walks.
Clay - Nobody uses the ceramic industry, but if you intend to...
Flux stone - Can't have steel without flux, and it's a pain in the butt to order.
Shallow metals - Lots of ores. Self explanatory. Shallow > deep, as deep metals don't include ores of iron or coal.
Deep metals - Lots of ores^pt2!
Near to all 4 civs (goblins, humans, elves, dwarves)
Has a lake - Rivers are nice and all, and the most common choice, but lakes don't flow, which is good for FPS. Take a river if you have nothing better, though.
Calm - Less scary stuff to kill you is better, right?
Heavily forested with heavy vegetation - Doesn't matter too much, even sparse treecover grows to an insane amount eventually.
Warm v Temperate - Warm means you don't have to worry about freeze/unfreeze and dwarves being stupid around it, but temperate means you get freeze time to work out your river dam. I prefer warm.
Good/neutral biome - Good biomes have a fancy plant - sun berries - but aren't much safer than neutral biomes.
Volcanoes - Some people really like volcanoes. They're not the end-all be-all. It's nice having early magma, but it comes with a price of not having sediments (sediments means ores of iron, coal, and some other useful things like kaolnite). They're also difficult to find normally.
Flatness - Hilly or flat? A lot of people like to dig into hillsides, but on a hilly map it's sometimes difficult to see what's happening. I personally vote flat.
All of these requirements can easily be met with a proper advanced world gen, but given that you don't want to spend hours figuring out how to use advanced world gen, you can choose to just be less picky.

[scourge728]

Near to all 4 civs (goblins, humans, elves, dwarves)

I believe you're forgetting our sneaky friends

[Fleeting Frames]

1. Nice necro.

2. Missing sand, which is bit more useful than clay given it can be made into all furniture, all in all.

3. iron can be deep

4. I've never before seen anybody mention they desire lake or ocean outside of desire for trapping aquatic creatures. But a water source is desirable, yes.

5. Calm, well. If you wanted least stuff to kill you, you wouldn't embark near goblins. Settling in no-vegetation desert to save fps has advocates as well. However, I agree with calm forest for newbies.

[Saiko Kila]

4. I've never before seen anybody mention they desire lake or ocean outside of desire for trapping aquatic creatures. But a water source is desirable, yes.

I'd like a lake just for the look of it (in similar games I usually settle near a lake), but I've lost all hope. I  think I've never seen a lake, even in adventurer mode.

As for ocean, it's easy to find ocean, but it's not easy to find cool ocean critters.

[Fleeting Frames]

Eh, lakes happen if you force rivers to meet in basin, especially near corners made by mountains and map edges. Depending on your preferred worldgen parameters, it is entirely possible to avoid them (for instance, 100-103 elevation worlds - no real rivers, and thus no lakes).

Spoiler: Here is an example in one of the dismissed butterflies730 gens (click to show/hide)

||

Spoiler: Another pocket example - note the major lakes being on sides of world (click to show/hide)

A 65x65 example of riverbuilding resulting in lakes

Beyond the lake on the leftmost column, the single 1-tile lake was 3 embark tiles if I recall correctly, so you could cover it with your entire embark for fps reasons (was annoying at the time because I didn't want that biome to become a lake). I recall vjek posted a single embark tile lake in one of the cookbook threads as well.