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[Zsword]

Your problem was breaching the cavern before you were ready. If you hadn't invited the GCS into your fort it wouldn't have killed your dwarfs, it's that simple. A single carefully-placed hatch cover could have saved your fort.

See, I Didn't INVITE it, I didn't realise how it could get in the first place, I though I had every entrance sealed off. (Apparently i was wrong and never did find the hole I didn't seal, unless the GCS can scale walls now and I missed the update) Well, new fort going, I know I"ve got Iron waiting to happen (No Magma or Burn metals, so I'm running on Elf... er, Wood power, but I've dealt with this before.) ENTIRELY flat map, so I'm working on a palisade, had a hunter come in with his own supplies for once, so I know I'm not completely militarily boned if push comes to shove. (I know hunters are buggy as marksman, but something is better than nothing as I work on getting the real military set up.) Things are, looking alright.

Thank you DFhack, for taking an edge off the learning curve for people who aren't as good at this as they'd want to be. :3

[Ganthan]

Even on a map with no weapons grade metal at all you still have options for defense. 

Make attackers cross a one tile wide bridge over a deep pit, then knock most of them into it by shooting at them with wooden crossbows and bolts or dropping water on them.

Load up minecarts with heavy stones and use powered rollers to fling them at attackers.

Train up dozens of giant war animals and let them tear attackers to shreds.

Capture them with cage traps then execute them one at a time by using them as training dummies for your military.

[Zsword]

btw: Is it still a terrible idea to build a shaft of Up/Down Stairs, or have they changed that thing that made that such a terrible idea? (Stories of dwarves falling from the top of the shaft to the bottom like it wasn't there at all?)

[mscantrell]

That's still the case, but all it takes is hatches to solve it. And you need hatches anyway so that critters don't just have the run ofthe place.

[Zsword]

Ah, so, I can still death mine to certain kinds of shtuff, I just need to put a door on every floor, got it. (And critters? Like the warpy vermin kind? The Pets the insently follow migrants kind? or the varios FUN kind?)

[Eric Blank]

The fun kind. Like FBs. When they show up and you have no other preparations to deal with them, just lock all the hatches connecting to the cavern they're in, and they can only have the run of everything below that level.

[Mushroo]

Here's a tip: too many beginners fall into the trap of digging: fortress entrance, fortress, stairs down to caverns. What this does is split your defenses so you have to defend against both surface and cavern hostiles.

Instead, put the stairs down to the cavern outside your main gates. Then you only have to defend 1 place, and it doesn't really matter whether the threat is a GCS or a goblin ambush: either way your troops/traps are in the optimum place to protect your fort.

Also keep in mind the game isn't a race to get to the bottom. It's perfectly OK to hang out near the surface for the first few years, and wait until your soldiers are legendary armor-clad before you dig down to the caverns. If your Hunters are legendary and have strong war animals then they will make short work of almost everything down there, with a bit of military assistance from time to time. (I like to have one squad per cavern on permanent guard duty.)

[Sutremaine]

Here's a tip: too many beginners fall into the trap of digging: fortress entrance, fortress, stairs down to caverns. What this does is split your defenses so you have to defend against both surface and cavern hostiles.

You can protect yourself and still have access to the caverns by checking out the lay of the land where your miner breaks through and causes the pause and recentre. If they break through the ceiling, great. Dig an access tile and build an up staircase over the up/down stair tile that breached the cavern (these have floors, and also allow access to the dug staircase above them). If they break through the the side of the cavern not at ground level, that's not too bad. Undesignate any neighbouring tiles and get to work walling off the breach and putting floors down where necessary. If they break through the cavern at ground level, that's not good. Cut off ground access ASAP by digging a channel around the breach and then removing the ramps in the channel. Then you can get to work sealing it with walls. Off the top of my head, none of the flying cavern-dwellers are particularly predatory or thieving, and they need ground access to determine their route anyway. I don't think FBs even appear until the caverns do.

I like to map out the caverns so that I don't get any nasty architectural surprises when digging out fancy designs. Also it's useful for tracing a path for pump stacks or cart spirals.

[Zsword]

Yeah, See, I did a side breach and seal, so I don't know how the GCS got in... but that's beside the point.

I'm trying to fathom how you people manage to get yourselves comepletely situated underground for several IG years without breaching the caverns, like, Beds, how do you do the Beds thing when you no have wood? Or gets charcoal for smelting that goblinite that you... aren't getting because you're locked inside anyway? 

[ZachUSAman]

my bolts blot out the sun...
and buy metal from caravans for that little infantry you can support.

[Zsword]

So, I've been looking into the Hallway of Doom design for getting a location where I can sorta-safely have my dwarves outside and active, getting me much needed Elf-Anger-fiers, and Merchants can have access to a relatively safe depot, and I've been toying with the idea of a 5 wide hallway, that's bridged on the sides, with a single row that's just traps in the middle, andeverything else being a variously deep pit. Bridges down to let Caravans through, Bridges up to funnel thieves and snathchers into Wooden Buzzsaw-y goodness.

Does this... sound feasable/make sense? (I'm also working on getting an auxilary cover on my main entrance set up so that I drop a bridge on my main entrance as a sort of 'super hatch')

[Scootagoose]

I make due without magma for the most part. And I'll use cheap metals and or traps if I have no steel or iron.

[Sutremaine]

Yeah, See, I did a side breach and seal, so I don't know how the GCS got in... but that's beside the point.

Always check the seal by trying to build something in the cavern after the work is finished and checking the building item list. If your dwarves can walk out to build it, something can walk from that point to your dwarves.

I'm trying to fathom how you people manage to get yourselves comepletely situated underground for several IG years without breaching the caverns, like, Beds, how do you do the Beds thing when you no have wood? Or gets charcoal for smelting that goblinite that you... aren't getting because you're locked inside anyway? 

Mostly I do a bunch of cutting in the first year. You really don't need much wood for beds. A dorm with a quarter as many beds as you have dwarves will be enough to stop sleeping on the floor, and a few more beds can be set aside for dwarves you want to give their own rooms. Wood can also be purchased, or farmed in large soil rooms. You never need to go outside or into the caverns.

The fortress itself is underground, but there is surface access. In my case this is a single three-wide ramp leading down three levels into stone before hitting the barracks area and the longish corridor leading to the trade depot and then the rest of the fortress. There is also access to one cavern, as part of the lure for a cavein trap used for uninvited guests with bad table manners.

[Zsword]

Wood can also be purchased, or farmed in large soil rooms.

Don't you need to breach the caverns to make large Soil rooms spawn Tunnel Caps and the other underground flora?

[Sutremaine]

You do need to crack a hole in them, but you can seal up the gap and continue as though you were locked away entirely the whole time.

I didn't realise how it could get in the first place, I though I had every entrance sealed off. (Apparently i was wrong and never did find the hole I didn't seal

There's a difference between breaching the caverns to open them up to your fortress like they're the outside, and breaching them just to allow spores in. If you're making a number of entrances that can be described as 'every' and can't tell whether all of them or sealed or not, then you're doing it the first way and you need to be defending your cavern entrances as you would defend your open trader entrance (though maybe not as vigorously, as cavern threats are fewer in number).

What security measures did you have in place between the cavern the GCS came from and your fortress proper?