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[TriBeCa99]

So I was kind of hoping to be able to annex the top cavern layer into my fortress... is this doable?

I've been having lots of fun exploring it so far, lost close to 20 of my military dwarves (and some babies), but took out a forgotten beast, two giant cave spiders, two trolls, a giant toad, and twenty-four troglodytes. Anyway, I think everything's dead except for whats going to come in off the map edge.

So I'm trying to build walls on the map edges. And yes, I'll build walls above those walls to keep flyers out.

But what do I do about the water? Is it dangerous? It'd be nice to fish from it, and I need at least one of the pools for a well, but anyway should I just wall off the areas accessing the water completely?

Is this a lost cause and I should just disconnect the cavern from my fort completely?

[Werdna]

In my one attempt to do what you are hoping to do, I dug out entire walls in the ceiling above, and dropped them down into the water near the map edges, sealing them off.  They were tall enough that they extended back up into the ceiling.  Then I simply constructed walls above to reconnect the natural walls to the ceilings they used to be attached to.

Use supports and levers to drop the walls though, instead of a miner digging out a 'last' tile.  Cave-ins have weird physics where they tend to suck nearby items and dwarves in.  I've lost dwarves in several cases where I thought they'd be perfectly safe.

[TriBeCa99]

Use supports and levers to drop the walls though, instead of a miner digging out a 'last' tile.  Cave-ins have weird physics where they tend to suck nearby items and dwarves in.  I've lost dwarves in several cases where I thought they'd be perfectly safe.

Can you give a little more detail here? How do I bring levers into this? I take it that you mean to channel/mine out the same number of floors above as you need to wall in how many z-levels the cavern has, and then cause a cave-in. But you're saying to build supports around the floor on the bottom z-level and then somehow use a lever to cause the cave-in from a distance?

[Sutremaine]

You need to isolate a chunk of wall long enough and high enough to block the cavern, but you need to put a support underneath it so that it doesn't collapse the moment you remove the last supporting tile.

Code: [Select]

#########
#._____.#
#.#####.#
#___I___#
_________
#########
Here the chunk of wall is supported only by the support (I). Once you knock out this support via a lever, the chunk of wall falls down, through the floor/cavern ceiling, and onto the cavern floor:

Code: [Select]

#########
#.......#
#.......#
#_______#
__#####__
#########


[TriBeCa99]

You need to isolate a chunk of wall long enough and high enough to block the cavern, but you need to put a support underneath it so that it doesn't collapse the moment you remove the last supporting tile.

Code: [Select]

#########
#._____.#
#.#####.#
#___I___#
_________
#########
Here the chunk of wall is supported only by the support (I). Once you knock out this support via a lever, the chunk of wall falls down, through the floor/cavern ceiling, and onto the cavern floor:

Code: [Select]

#########
#.......#
#.......#
#_______#
__#####__
#########


Thanks. I hadn't realized supports could be linked to levers. This is still my first fort

[Sutremaine]

Levers are pretty versatile. Q over the building (levers have an interface similar to that of a workshop's) and play with the options some. 'Play with the options' is good advice in general, though you should use something you're not bothered about deconstructing or deleting.

[callisto8413]

I have never tried what you are trying (because I always get large numbers of my Dwarfs killed, retreat, and seal up the caverns again) but remember that some items, like grids*, can be placed over water to allow fishing and keep monsters out.  So just don't limit yourself to placing wells over the water.   You want a food source near the cavern chambers of your fortress for ease of use...or ease of cooking.


* I think grids.  I know bars don't work as things could get through those...I think.  Anybody know for sure?

[TriBeCa99]

Okay so I'm realizing there's one last piece of information I'm missing here... where exactly does the support go? Can it be built over open space? Because if not I still don't get it. I'm thinking I have to channel out on the last z-level above the cavern, then put a support in the open space on that level, then channel out the layers above... is that it?

[callisto8413]

No, you leave a layer above the cavern.  Dig out the plug above that.  The 'plug' of Earth will smash through the thin layer.

[crossmr]

many forgotten beasts will swim. Currently I have my stairs that run through my cavern surrounded by fortifications. if a forgotten beast shows up, I just send down the marksdwarves. They pincushion him. Fortifications also allow cave spiders in apparently as I've found webs in my hollowed out areas.

Caverns seem like way too much trouble. You really need to block them all off, and some of them are so extensive that it takes a lot of blocking.

[Sutremaine]

Okay so I'm realizing there's one last piece of information I'm missing here...

What you're trying to do here is to have a chunk of wall that's surrounded by open space, and held up by a single support. The support goes underneath the chunk of wall, and is built on top of a floor tile. Between the floor tile underneath the wall chunj and the cavern floor, there are no walls (walls tiles halt caveins). The easiest way to achieve this is to have everything directly above the cavern.

[TriBeCa99]

I see, thanks. I just wasn't getting that the cave-in would smash through the floor.

many forgotten beasts will swim. Currently I have my stairs that run through my cavern surrounded by fortifications. if a forgotten beast shows up, I just send down the marksdwarves. They pincushion him. Fortifications also allow cave spiders in apparently as I've found webs in my hollowed out areas.

Caverns seem like way too much trouble. You really need to block them all off, and some of them are so extensive that it takes a lot of blocking.

Are you saying this is more trouble than it's worth? I'd just really like to be able to safely tree-farm and mine out the caverns....

[crossmr]

I see, thanks. I just wasn't getting that the cave-in would smash through the floor.

many forgotten beasts will swim. Currently I have my stairs that run through my cavern surrounded by fortifications. if a forgotten beast shows up, I just send down the marksdwarves. They pincushion him. Fortifications also allow cave spiders in apparently as I've found webs in my hollowed out areas.

Caverns seem like way too much trouble. You really need to block them all off, and some of them are so extensive that it takes a lot of blocking.

Are you saying this is more trouble than it's worth? I'd just really like to be able to safely tree-farm and mine out the caverns....

Do you have any sand/soil anywhere else in your fort?
Once you breach the cavern, trees will start growing other places.
On my upper levels which have sand, I just dug out a huge area, and I've got more wood than I know what to do with.

Depending on what you need for mining, is there anything you really need to mine in the caves themselves? Are there some rare gems or minerals?
even then, you can mine behind walls from the top to get those out.

The caves in my fort include a lake that basically attaches to the side of the map.. for me, it would be a massive pain to try and block those off. If yours is easy with not many connections then go for it.

[TriBeCa99]

Do you have any sand/soil anywhere else in your fort?
Once you breach the cavern, trees will start growing other places.
On my upper levels which have sand, I just dug out a huge area, and I've got more wood than I know what to do with.

Depending on what you need for mining, is there anything you really need to mine in the caves themselves? Are there some rare gems or minerals?
even then, you can mine behind walls from the top to get those out.

The caves in my fort include a lake that basically attaches to the side of the map.. for me, it would be a massive pain to try and block those off. If yours is easy with not many connections then go for it.

Well, it's as much a project as anything else. I could make do without the caverns, but my natural inclination is just to tame everything as I work my way downward. I could go around the caverns, but honestly it never occurred to me to do so until I realized I didn't know how to seal off the water, and so I posted here.

I've dug out around 90% of the soil layers in my fort and the trees just aren't coming fast enough. I've completely denuded the surface and the few trees that've grown in my underground farms, have 0 wood, 0 charcoal, and may not have beds for the next wave of immigrants depending on how many come and how many dwarves get married between now and then.

At any rate, I've already queued up over a hundred tiles of wall to be built to close off the land enclosure. It will probably take a year to complete, but my military should be able to handle anything that wanders in in the meantime. It looks like it's going to take two large sections of wall cave-ins to seal off the water, which will probably be less work than the walls, and then I'll just need to build up the walls in the ground areas to prevent flyers. Going to be some work, but should be rewarding and it's not like I have much else to do

How much harder will the second layer of caverns be? I mean in terms of fauna, not architecture.

[Miriage]

Things tend to get harder as you go down, stronger creatures are more common further down and there are many that only appear in the lower caverns. I would suggest sticking to taming the first layer.