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[edgefigaro]

Did some evil embarks today.  They went... well. 

The first.

Evil Forest embark.  Did not get underground fast enough.  My wagon spawned on a stream, so I couldn't cave in it.  Great horned owls killed me then zombie dwarves killed me.  Fort was dead before summer.

Second Fort.

This was another evil forest with reanimate.  I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to pit things.  The aquifer was on zlvl 3 so I only had a 1 deep pit and got some interruptions.  I mistakenly took -no- stone.  Kept killing hair monsters.  Made it to the caravan, died as I tried to bring things I bought from the caravan inside after the guards left. 

Third Fort.  Temperate Terrifiying shore.  First expierence with husks.  I don't like husks as much.  I want to be able to fight back against those zombies.  A cloud ate a migrant wave and the zombies never left.  My internal fort eventually tantrum spiraled during the second autumn.  However, I used my first successful double slit aquifer breach!

Lessons learned- Always take a little stone.

Its generally useful to just be farmers till the first caravan arrives.  Gives your non aquifer breachers something to do thats rather profitable.  And I would rather buy 2/3 of the opening caravan then just about anything else.  Also, i've started forgoing skills on dwarves.

[krenshala]

In response to a couple other threads, I tried one yesterday as well.  Sounds like  your evil forest experience went better than mine, though i haven't tried to reclaim or try a second yet.

Short version: embarked with 2 spears, 2 crossbows, 1 miner, 1 mason, 1 farmer/woodcutter.  Forgot the crossbow bolts and axe (copper weapons/shields/mail for all four military types, however).  The rain just made them bleed mildly (didn't show up as a wound, but they started leaving trails).  managed to dig a moat, then while I thought I was relatively safe and was designating underground stuff, the zombie crow men messed me up.  Two weeks of good progress, followed by two months of slowly building failure against flying, chopped up, auto-reanimating zombies later, and the surviving three dwarves abandoned.  I don't think I ever did get bolts made, though I can confirm deconstructing the wagon to make a carpenters shop and a training axe does indeed allow you to cut down trees.

[DavionFuxa]

First, if you haven't already, look at a couple let's play of Evil Biome embarks (If you go to my Youtube Channel you'll see one a bunch of failed attempts at the end of Playlist 3, start of Playlist 4, and then the rest of Playlist 4 is me in a successfully embarked in an Evil Biome)

Second, when embarking you should probably aim for a Sinister or Haunted Embark first - that gets rid of Giant -Beast Type Here-'s and Animal men, along with any Savage Biome exclusive monsters (Like Giant Desert Scorpions)

Third, try to have your embark in an Evil Biome adjacent a Non-Evil Biome; Like that Terrifying Shore Embark (though if possible with Sinister or Hostile). This will give you a safe zone for your Fort where stuff want animate and clouds won't be generated in (NOTE, They clouds can and will cross over into the safe zone if they occur so keep outta the way until you verify what they do!!)

Forth, bring Starting Wood and/or Bring Starting Stone along with anything you usually get from Caravans (note Anvils here, you won't necessarily get a caravan to your depot so starting with an Iron Anvil is a good idea)

Fifth, don't start on an Aquifer for your first Embark. Your going to have difficulty enough establishing a Fort, getting inside is hard enough that you don't need to compound it with further problems (Note, Glaciers or Tundras may not be as much of a problem but I still wouldn't recommend it)

[krenshala]

Yeah, you definitely will want to have an anvil at at least one pick.  Two to three picks is preferable, as you can have your good miner working on the defensive moat while the other(s) dig down one z-level for shelter.

Also, if you go with a custom build (and using "Embark Now" is most likely suicide) make sure you actually embark with everything you meant to bring.  Don't do like I did and forget the bolts, or the axe, or your anvil.  I second the stone or wood suggestion as well.  10 boulders will give you forty stone blocks, which will make a 10x10 wall with two blocks left over, but you'll probably need two active mason's to make/build them fast enough.  3 point boulders are a better deal that wood, even if its 1 point per log, since you get four blocks from them.

[therealmarauder]

I always embark with two miners. Deconstruct your wagon, ramp down, build a landing in the dirt, pull everything underground and seal the fortress totally off. You might say this is too easy, but it'll protect you the best. Get your dwarves settled into a scrappy work area, THEN start working on the trade depot/otherwise. Aquifer is not often the highest layer, so almost in every case you should be able to get underground and seal all the way off. If it's too dangerous to go up, go down to the caverns and seal them too.

You should be able to make a pathing-monster-trapping entrance that will protect you from various rogue monsters until you're on your feet enough to attempt the moat.

And in the colder temperate biomes, aquifers can be quickly penetrated using the magic of sunlight during Granite and sometimes for a few more months.

[edgefigaro]

Just setup a new embark.  Hot biome, never played one before.  Part Terrifying forest, part untamed wilds.  Stream, Aquifer, Deep Metal Terrifying side, Deep Metals Wild Side.

Dwarves are 2 miners, one Cook, one with 4 noble skills.  Rest are peasants. 

Gotta run a steel anvil (which sucks), and no coal is available.  2 Copper Picks.  60 booze. 160 Seeds.  40 meat and fish.  10 coke, 20 Leather, 6 wool thread, 40 logs, and 13 stones.  Last time I had an iron anvil and snuck in 4 hematites.  I'm running heavier seed this time too, going to try for bigger farms. 

Largely, the first month game time is spent with my two builders cave inning my caravan.  I drop it 2 levels, and build a bridge over the hole.  The other 5 dwarves spend their time gathering nearby plants and wood.  I like to build a temp carpenter and a temp mason shop to make a couple items.  (First thing I make is a coffin, one of my miners usually dies.  Gonna trigger the cave in from further back this time).  As soon as the caravan drops, everybody moves everything and wall up inside til I figure out what kind of evil I'm dealing with. 

[edgefigaro]

Oh, one of my fav fortresses was a cold costal embark where I sent an Urist McMiner through the frozen sea, carved out enough space below the sea floor to put some booze and food, and walled him in.  He was my aquifer killer.  About the time I dug down and find the cavern, I found a spot where I could avoid the aquifer anyway.  Still, the riding the lightning through the ice and having everyone taking supplies down a thawing coridor was fun. 

One of my least favorite fortresses was the temperate coastal embark when my wagon spawned on top of a frozen ocean.  That was my shortest game to date.

[krenshala]

Yeah, I had one where the wagon spawned on a pond that thawed on 2 Granite -- sploosh, 80% of my food and all my booze, gone until I could build a pump to empty the pond. On the bright side, I was able to recover it all, including the anvil.

I'm thinking deconstruct the wagon, dig channels to pull all the supplies down one z-level, then build a roof with one tile access via ramp, then build a wall on the ramp to seal it would work.  Especially with two miners and two masons making blocks and building the floors for the roof/wall. You'd need a 5x5 to pull down all the stuff if I remember correctly, so 25 blocks for floors, plus one for the wall.  28 blocks is 7 boulders.  If it spills out in a 7x7 you'd need 49 plus the wall, or 52/4 = 13 boulders.  You can then dig down to stone for the rest, assuming no aquifer, or at least the ability to build pumps for double slit breaching.

[edgefigaro]

Don't deconstruct the wagon.  I did that on my first attempt and got owled.  Cave in works -way- better.  I bridge over the top.  Bridge costs ~4 blocks.  It can be destroyed, I suppose, but last game I had a husk sitting on top of it for a while.  In any case, I can reinforce later.  My stones are too precious.

[TopHat]

Some experience-earned tips:
1: If it's a Zombifying embark, do NOT bring animals.
It's very 'fun'
2. If you reclaim enough times, you will end up with 0FPS.
3. If you reclaim enough times, the first zombies will become skeletons.
4. Always, Always, build a roof.

[DungeonJerk]

Some experience-earned tips:
1: If it's a Zombifying embark, do NOT bring animals.
It's very 'fun'
2. If you reclaim enough times, you will end up with 0FPS.
3. If you reclaim enough times, the first zombies will become skeletons.
4. Always, Always, build a roof.

I also recommend bringing enough stone and wood to get a wall and roof going A.S.A.P. As well as kick starting your fortress with the wood, also plenty of food and booze and plump-helmets.

[xoseph]

I had a lot of fun once in a terrifying forest full of undead owl men.  I brought a couple of hammerdwarfs whose duties were very similar to a game of whack-a-mole. They were very unhappy. I managed to barricade the dwarfs inside a nice little bunker, and I planned on channeling a pond so it flowed in through a wall grate.  As soon as my miner walked outside, well, the Giant Mantis corpses came and started tossing my soldiers around.  Then one of the owl men's decapitated heads got inside the fortress, and I had so much fun.

Later I embarked on a connected evil zone that didn't have any abominations shambling around, but it tended to rain human blood a lot.  That was a more successful fort, but much less fun.

[edgefigaro]

Update!

So far so good.  I think this spawn has reanimate, but not sure.  I butchered my two horses on the untamed wilds side and promptly pitted their remains.  No horrors yet.  However, there are all sorts of zombies rolling up and down the stream and the evil side.  Anyway, cave-in worked like a charm.  I dunno why everyone is asking me to build a roof.  I mine out the second zlvl under the caravan so it falls down an extra level and makes a nice 3x3 hole.  Then I bridge over it and access it from the side.  I can build -1- wall and close it off the access point after I have removed all the items from the hole.

Summer just hit and farms are rolling nicely.  Got my Depot set up and both sides of the stream have access.  Migrants just arrived.  Lets see if I can get them in to the fortress without problems.

Put em to work in the fields whilst i breach an aquifer.  Maybe one is a high master pump operator.

[edgefigaro]

Defeated before caravan!  Letting the second immigrant wave in killed me.  Some Giant Head Ichor kept reanimating, then more and more of my dwarves started reanimating.

Lessons learned.  I could have taken advantage of the untamed wilds side.  A duo of a wood cutter and hauler in the corner may have been able to get me a solid amount of wood with minimal danger to everyone not named Urik McBraveAxeHero and his trusty sidekick..  Take more stone.  I want 6 mechanisms for the depot gate so I can more easilly let waves and depots in.  The plan has always been to get down through the aquifer quickly enough to get stone.  Ah well, steel anvil makes it hard. 

Finally, make a single path in all 8 major directions just below the surface to let your immigrant waves get to ground somewhere close to their spawn.

I'm still having trouble with these double slits.

I don't know of I should be bringing coke.  It didn't do anything for me the last two games.  3 less coke = 10 more stones = 2 Levered Bridge Gates = Smoother migrant waves.  Its like making an airlock.

[Triaxx2]

Good plan, collapse the wagon. Better plan, bring wood for a wall, all 2 point carpenters and wall around the wagon. Then drive down below it and bring everything down and plug the entrance behind. If you can avoid fliers, you should live long enough to get safe. Forget migrants. Forget the surface. It's all out to get you. Wait for children. Those are the future of the fort.