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[angelious]

so i have been playing df for about half a year now. and since none of the normal biomes stopped providing any fun i decided to try my luck with the evil/sinister biomes.

my first fort died right after i unpaused the game for the first time and it started raining goo from the sky that made my dwarfs puke blood and die in like 10 seconds flat. and attempts to reclaim the fort were stopped by the previous settlers coming back to life and killing me.


any tips or guides on how to start a succesful fort in evil biomes?

[NJW2000]

Have not done it myself, but for easeiness, turn off/down evil cloud types in world gen.

Generally:
-Turtle
-At least 1 soldier/ok fighter
-no meat, shearing, etc. as it is just asking for trouble
-try and get tree covre when embarking, this *may* help with the evil goo.

Any praise for the not-at-all abvious comments graciously accepted.

[angelious]

Have not done it myself, but for easeiness, turn off/down evil cloud types in world gen.

Generally:
-Turtle
-At least 1 soldier/ok fighter
-no meat, shearing, etc. as it is just asking for trouble
-try and get tree covre when embarking, this *may* help with the evil goo.

Any praise for the not-at-all abvious comments graciously accepted.

actually i had not even thought about that meat thing.so it helps a lot. normally i have like a dozen different kinds of meats just to get some barrels for later on ale production...no wonder i drew so much attention when i embarked..i also do have one hammer dwarf on my embark crew armored with silver hammer and iron breastplate 10 fighter and 10 hammer points. as for turning off clouds..id rather not cop out on features.

still i will try create a new fort. this time without the meat packs.

[NJW2000]

No, meat doesn't attract attention as far as I'm aware, but butchery in evil biomes is stupid, and shearing is a recipe for turning the whole fort into one big wool-restling match.

[PatrikLundell]

Comments from another one with very little actual experience:
- Dig fast and get inside and immediately brick it up. You can replace that wall with a drawbridge a little later.
- Travel light. The less stuff you have to haul inside the shorter time you're exposed. An alternative could be to basically abandon the wagon and reclaim it using the cave-in method later. Not that "less stuff" means fewer items to haul. A barrel with 1 food and one with 15 are both one thing to haul, but 15 barrels with one thing are 15 items to haul (and I frown on that barrel/bag acquisition cheatlet since you have a lot of embark points anyway, but that's just personal style).
- When the entrance has been secure, make sure to have a dwarven foot bath before using it.
- Observe the weather. Venture out immediately after evil weather has ceased, and only spend short bursts at the surface.
- Consider whether to use caravans at all. If you do, make a weather proof path to the edge (typically most of it underground) to minimize caravan exposure to the weather. However, caravaneers are stupid. I recently experienced the caravan entering on the wrong side of the stream, so they couldn't get to the trade depot entrance accessible from 2/3 of the map (I'd only made a single tile wide bridge, since I DIDN'T want the caravan to enter on the "wrong" side). This probably means they'll get caught out in the weather from time to time and either get killed by it or get spooked, dump their stuff, and flee.
- Find water and secure caverns as a priority, since you probably don't want to spend too much time chopping down and hauling surface trees och bucket brigade surface water.
- You probably want to have a lot of cages and cage traps to catch and hold reanimated things that tries to get in.

[angelious]

yh. i suck with trapping...i think ill try gain more experience first in a more..manageable enviroment.



EDIT: thank you all for help. i finally managed to colonialize a spot in a horrifying biome it took a few tries...and the "few tries" are now haunting the site. but doesnt matter. i took some of the advices to my heart. and it turned out well. thank you for your help

[Niddhoger]

Comments from another one with very little actual experience:
- Dig fast and get inside and immediately brick it up. You can replace that wall with a drawbridge a little later.
- Travel light. The less stuff you have to haul inside the shorter time you're exposed. An alternative could be to basically abandon the wagon and reclaim it using the cave-in method later. Not that "less stuff" means fewer items to haul. A barrel with 1 food and one with 15 are both one thing to haul, but 15 barrels with one thing are 15 items to haul (and I frown on that barrel/bag acquisition cheatlet since you have a lot of embark points anyway, but that's just personal style).
- When the entrance has been secure, make sure to have a dwarven foot bath before using it.
- Observe the weather. Venture out immediately after evil weather has ceased, and only spend short bursts at the surface.
- Consider whether to use caravans at all. If you do, make a weather proof path to the edge (typically most of it underground) to minimize caravan exposure to the weather. However, caravaneers are stupid. I recently experienced the caravan entering on the wrong side of the stream, so they couldn't get to the trade depot entrance accessible from 2/3 of the map (I'd only made a single tile wide bridge, since I DIDN'T want the caravan to enter on the "wrong" side). This probably means they'll get caught out in the weather from time to time and either get killed by it or get spooked, dump their stuff, and flee.
- Find water and secure caverns as a priority, since you probably don't want to spend too much time chopping down and hauling surface trees och bucket brigade surface water.
- You probably want to have a lot of cages and cage traps to catch and hold reanimated things that tries to get in.

About the packing light... if you don't feel like leaving "money on the table" I did some science on barrel limits for embark.  Garden vegetables are stored in bags.. in barrels.  However, you can fit well over 200 of the same garden veggies in the same barrel.  You shouldn't need near that much food, but your dorfs will haul it inside quickly (its just one barrel).  You can then delay extensive food production a bit more to build up your military/secure the caverns and other defenses easier. 

Butchering is a mixed bag in zombieland.  On one hand, butchered corpses can't reanimate.  On the other hand, butchered raw hide and HAIRS can reanimate.  While raw hide can be tanned asap, the hair is a bitch to kill (its too small to hit properly, but will spook your dorfs).  I believe the hair can be trapped, but quickly setting up a hair-dump into lava/an atom smasher would probably be better.  Not butchering at all would be safest.  Note- when your initial pack animals die of old age, if your evil biome is reanimating (not all are) their geezer cow corpses will still reanimate.  So sooner or later you'll need a proper (and fast!) corpse disposal system set up.  You can pit remains in a smoothed stone shaft, use magma, or atom smash. 

[PatrikLundell]

- Using up embark points with no resultant hauling is easy: just assign skills (which I never do, but I don't embark in evil biomes either).
- I thought hairs could be spun the same way as wool, but with the difference that hair thread cannot be loomed (I've managed to produce clown hair thread, but the list of cloth raw materials is short and fixed [I tried the DFHack alt-a material selection to no avail]. In theory, it ought to be possible to produce troll hair cloth if the troll died in such a way that some of its fur was torn away).
However, converting hair into thread ought to defuse it from reanimation. I agree avoiding butchering is probably a safer strategy, but what about the caverns? Will they fill up with reanimated parts after an FB has gone on a rampage?

[angelious]

- Using up embark points with no resultant hauling is easy: just assign skills (which I never do, but I don't embark in evil biomes either).
- I thought hairs could be spun the same way as wool, but with the difference that hair thread cannot be loomed (I've managed to produce clown hair thread, but the list of cloth raw materials is short and fixed [I tried the DFHack alt-a material selection to no avail]. In theory, it ought to be possible to produce troll hair cloth if the troll died in such a way that some of its fur was torn away).
However, converting hair into thread ought to defuse it from reanimation. I agree avoiding butchering is probably a safer strategy, but what about the caverns? Will they fill up with reanimated parts after an FB has gone on a rampage?

listening to yall advices. i have decided to give up butchering in general for evil biome forts.



speaking of fbs and atom smashers: how do you create an atom smasher? as far as i know you place a bridge in a dead end of a corridor,place things on it then raise the bridge and smash things into atoms?

and when does one get invaded by fb? in my half a year playthrough of df i have not met even one. not even a colossus rampage has gone my way...

[PatrikLundell]

An atom smasher is simply a raising drawbridge. When it goes down, the things under the bridge get smashed (some exceptions are Titans/FBs, Clowns, and very large creatures, such as Rutherers). Raising drawbridges also smash things that are in the "hinge" tile when raising, while stuff on the extended part of the raising bridge gets flung in a somewhat random direction.
In order to get the bridge to smash things you'll have to get them there, which is typically done by putting a dump zone where the bridge lands and designating undesirable stuff for dumping (there are other methods, such as using water to push items). Note that you cannot put a stockpile on top of a bridge, but you can have a track stop dumping mine cart contents onto a bridge. However, if the bridge is accessible (not down in a hole or so), dorfs tend to pick up the stuff just dumped and haul it to a stockpile, typically the one feeding the mine cart that dumps stuff onto the bridge...

I've never seen a bronze colossus or any other mega beast, just semi mega beasts and FBs/Titans. If ½ year is in game time you're way too impatient. There is a trigger Titan attacks that defaults to a population of 80 (can be set to 50 and 20). FBs use some other condition (if any) but may take 2 or 3 years before they start showing up, but can really appear any time. Note that FB and Titan are the same thing, but Titans appear above ground, while FBs appear in the caverns.
Goblin sieges are set to a trigger pop of 80 as well, by default, by the way.

Butchering and evil biomes: Note that it's only reanimating biomes that make butchering risky. Other, milder forms of evil biomes are safe from a butchering perspective.

[angelious]

An atom smasher is simply a raising drawbridge. When it goes down, the things under the bridge get smashed (some exceptions are Titans/FBs, Clowns, and very large creatures, such as Rutherers). Raising drawbridges also smash things that are in the "hinge" tile when raising, while stuff on the extended part of the raising bridge gets flung in a somewhat random direction.
In order to get the bridge to smash things you'll have to get them there, which is typically done by putting a dump zone where the bridge lands and designating undesirable stuff for dumping (there are other methods, such as using water to push items). Note that you cannot put a stockpile on top of a bridge, but you can have a track stop dumping mine cart contents onto a bridge. However, if the bridge is accessible (not down in a hole or so), dorfs tend to pick up the stuff just dumped and haul it to a stockpile, typically the one feeding the mine cart that dumps stuff onto the bridge...

I've never seen a bronze colossus or any other mega beast, just semi mega beasts and FBs/Titans. If ½ year is in game time you're way too impatient. There is a trigger Titan attacks that defaults to a population of 80 (can be set to 50 and 20). FBs use some other condition (if any) but may take 2 or 3 years before they start showing up, but can really appear any time. Note that FB and Titan are the same thing, but Titans appear above ground, while FBs appear in the caverns.
Goblin sieges are set to a trigger pop of 80 as well, by default, by the way.

Butchering and evil biomes: Note that it's only reanimating biomes that make butchering risky. Other, milder forms of evil biomes are safe from a butchering perspective.

half a year irl. i think my current fort is at year 3 or so with pop of 137. i know the conditions for triggering titans. but even when i meet the conditions i never get invaded...

[PatrikLundell]

Actually, it was a fairly long time ago I encountered a Titan. One of the reasons, I think, is that I use pocket worlds, and you can't have too many of them and still get any civs other than goblins and dwarves.
I'd say you're about the place where they start showing up.

[angelious]

Actually, it was a fairly long time ago I encountered a Titan. One of the reasons, I think, is that I use pocket worlds, and you can't have too many of them and still get any civs other than goblins and dwarves.
I'd say you're about the place where they start showing up.

hmm...well i did find adamantium just 10 minutes ago(third time in my life) so ill most likely be dead by means of circus before they have the chance to show up anyway...

[arbarbonif]

Is there any way to disable re-animation as a possible effect for evil biomes?  I wouldn't mind dealing with blistering rain and thralling clouds if I could know that when I killed something it stayed dead.

[angelious]

Is there any way to disable re-animation as a possible effect for evil biomes?  I wouldn't mind dealing with blistering rain and thralling clouds if I could know that when I killed something it stayed dead.

butcher the corpse,tan the hide,make rope out of their hair.


also i think advanced parameters for world creation allowed you to change some shit..but i dont think it allowed to disable necros.



oh and necromancing areas are actually somewhat rare. i have been embarking on sinister and horrying/evil biomes a dozen times(mainly because i die within an hour of playthrough..my longest one lasted for half a year ingame) and only two of the embark spots has had undead problems.


and even then they only posses threat if you let something stay dead/die within your fort...since y know. you wont be going outside at all anyway.