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[ShuangXi]

I have no idea how to do it safely.

One initial question that comes to mind, some general advise for evil embarks is to immediately wall-off and floor-over your starting point.  I didn't do this (I caved in the starting location), but have always been curious... how do you floor-off without stranding a dwarf?

On my map, I'm safely locked underground, at the intersection of 2 terrifying and 1 (small) Haunted biome.  The rain is not that bad, but the legions of undead now bolstered by many waves of immigrants and caravans makes the surface seemingly impenetrable (making slabs is almost a full time job).

I want to somehow clear it a bit, to have a hope of one day ever receiving a trade caravan  (or at least claiming the loot they lost after they git ripped to shreds).  Maybe make a safe-zone near the edge, or at the minimum construct a pill-box or two around likely spawn points.

[i2amroy]

The only way to floor off a ceiling completely without stranding a dwarf involves 1 of two things:
1)Don't floor over the last spot. Instead put a hatch cover there.
2)Make the access stairway for the roof on the outside of your building. Then remove the stairway and build the wall to finish sealing yourself from the outside. Of course this option leaves you vulnerable for much longer to dangerous undead.

You can limit where caravans spawn from by build a wall every three tiles from the Depot to where you want them to spawn. i.e.:

Code: [Select]

..........
X..X..X..X
.Caravans.
..Spawn...
...Here...
X..X..X..X
..........Use raised bridges when you are near the edge instead of walls. This will force any caravans that can spawn there to spawn there, so it allows you then to set up an easily defensible area that leads straight indoors. Then just put your Depot inside of an airlock, so that traders can still access it from the inside but your fortress is sealed off. When they show up just toggle the airlock to allow access from the inside but not the outside and you should be all set.

[ShuangXi]

OK, but is there any advise on how actually to build that?  My dwarves can't even make it to the surface to pick up some dropped loot and run-- there is no way they can go up and construct a series of walls.

Does anyone have a good system of how to create 'bubbles' of safety to work on the surface?  Even with a good military, 90 undead that keep resurrecting will take anybody down in a short time I think.

I was thinking pop up in a few spots with pill-boxes to create a semi-safe zone (protected by the pillboxes)... but I don't even have a good plan how to get the pillboxes up.

Maybe z-1 has a complicated labyrinth/grid of tunnels, with floodgates interspersed at key intersections, then go up, channel around the miner, if coast is clear, close a floodgate creating a path for the miner to move over a grid-spot, and repeat until a sizable area has been trenched-out, then floor over the patchwork holes in the middle?   -- This seems almost too ridiculous to be doable, though

[laularukyrumo]

My advice is, determine how badly you want that particular embark zone.

If the reason you can't last on the surface is because you keep dying, then it looks like the solution is either to say "fuck it" and abandon, or to dig down until you can access magma, then figure out some way to flood the world with magma ala Boatmurdered.

Though I'm pretty sure at least -some- undead are pro-magma, melting down whichever ones aren't is a good start. Then go capture a Giant Cave Spider and sic him on the undead.

[Dremire]

The only thing that stop you from getting outside with military is undead accumulated on the surface, deal with it.
Build an airlock with cage traps or atom smasher, breach to the surface and bait undead in. When remaining undead become manageable with your military, dump pacified corpses in *pit of no return*.

[ShuangXi]

The only thing that stop you from getting outside with military is undead accumulated on the surface, deal with it.
Build an airlock with cage traps or atom smasher, breach to the surface and bait undead in. When remaining undead become manageable with your military, dump pacified corpses in *pit of no return*.

I like your answer.  I was thinking this too.  Bait a few in, trap them, dump, repeat until the surface is no longer sprawling.

[snip] say "fuck it" and abandon

I purposely took the embark for the challenge... it's more fun this way.  I did luck out and have a magma pipe up to Z-16, but I'm still figuring out what to do with it.

[i2amroy]

The only thing that stop you from getting outside with military is undead accumulated on the surface, deal with it.
Build an airlock with cage traps or atom smasher, breach to the surface and bait undead in. When remaining undead become manageable with your military, dump pacified corpses in *pit of no return*.

This is pretty much it. Either lure the undead into a trap of some sort and start tossing corpses down a deep hole someplace, or just emerge en-masse with a well trained military and start tossing corpses down a deep hold someplace. Once you've wiped out the majority of the undead menace your remaining military should be able to fend off any undead long enough for you to build whatever you need to build.