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[Richards]

I've embarked on a terrifying volcano for the magma, upon arriving I found the area contained a cave. I've never seen one before and am used to somewhat tame locations, so naturally I became both excited and uncertain when I found out that this cave spans numerous Z-levels and is infested with Trolls, giant rats, and a Legendary Minotaur. Yikes. They're about a quarter mile away and I'll have some time to dig into the rock. The area contains a river far away, and a magma vent as well. There are trees and for my defense I have a Proficient Wrestler if anything shows up. I need some advice. Are these things aggressively hostile? How long do I have to prepare before they attack? What should my defense be, and should I rush for Crossbows as I have no iron anvil? How tough is a Minotaur to handle?

[ April 08, 2008: Message edited by: Richards ]

[GeneralValter]

hmmm. My experience with caves in adventurer mode is that the denizens of the cave will stay put. You could probably train your marksdwarves and such on the naked mole dogs that hang around in the cave. I'd say the main problem is the amount of space that the cave takes up, and the difficulty of mining the cave area into acceptable dwarven architectural feats.

The real question you should be asking is "Should I be worried about the Giant Cave Spiders there?" If you have GCS, then you're probably going to have more trouble than if you don't. I think GCS are rare in caves, though. Even as an adventurer, I've only met them once or twice.

[FunnyMan]

Eh, working the cave into your fortress design isn't too hard.  Just fill it with obsidian, courtesy of Mr. Magma Vent.

Before or after killing the critters inside, your choice.

[Karlito]

I had a cave once.  Your biggest problem will be the desire for your dwarfs to enter the cave and carry that giant mole corpse to your refuse stockpile.  Also, the minotaur might come and attack you.  Your best bet is to put a floor over the entrance as soon as you can.

[Cavalcadeofcats]

My current fortress is next to a cave. I'd already attacked it as an adventurer, though, so all that was left were two rat-men.

They didn't do much.

FunnyMan's plan is probably a good one.

[numerobis]

One thing you'll notice is that giant rats die every couple years.  Then your dwarves go "oh no, an underground corpse!  must clean!" and get eaten by the GCS.

So, either block off access to the cave, or forbid everything in it over and over.

[RickiusMaximus]

I started on a cave map, even though I had forbidden the whole cave the idiot hunter still went in and angered the ettin enough to kill him, what resulted was a constant stream of dwarfs trying to recover the corpse which angered the ettin enough to attack the fortress.

I had to seal myself behind a drawbridge and churn out arrows for a long time, every time I opened the door the ettin returned from the cave so I had to pretty much rebuild the trade depot inside the door and line it with fortified walls. With a second drawbridge build I managed to trap the ettin in here with a human caravan and kill him.

My advice is to seal the entrance with a wall ASAP (remember to forbid the square indoor of the wall so the mason doesn't get walled inside!) and if that counts as cheating to you then turn off all hunters and make sure you have a drawbridge built in your fortress entrance, it doesn't even need to be over a gap because it turns into a wall when it is raised and becomes indestructible.

[Derakon]

Forbidding squares doesn't prevent masons from standing on them to build walls. What does work, at least sometimes, is to mark a wall to be built on the square you don't want the mason standing on, then suspend the wall. Once the wall you actually want built is done, you can cancel the suspended wall.

[GreyMario]

You can't forbid squares.

Only make dwarves path around them.