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[Lalasa]

My fort has been ridiculously peaceful.  I'm 80% sure the goblins are extinct.  I've only been attacked by kobold thieves and two werebeasts, and the werebeasts were dispatched with minimal casualties.  (one)  I've never been ambushed and I've never had a siege, and the fort is 9 years old already.  So the only reasonable place for me to find !FUN! for my military is underground, right?  30 z levels later and the first cavern layer is no where in sight.  Am I missing it?  I don't know what caverns look like since its my first fortress so I have no clue what happens when I find one.  The wiki says I'll find my first cavern usually around z level 10 or 11, but I haven't seen any sign of it.

How do I know when I find the first cavern layer and the !FUN! that comes with it?  How do I even find it?  It's supposed to be really big and hard to miss, right?

[VerdantSF]

Keep digging.  I didn't find my first cavern layer until -47 or so.  Second one wasn't until -114.  It's possible to dig through a cavern layer without revealing it, so use more than one exploratory tunnel shaft.

[Sutremaine]

See how far your map goes down from the surface. That may give you a vague clue to what sort of cavern you've got -- if the bottom of the map is over a hundred levels from the surface, you may have a tall cavern that's hard to find until it bottoms out.

[WanderingKid]

If you're willing to cheat a bit, use DFHack's 'prospect all' command.  Find out where the underground wood starts.  That'll give you a rough idea of what depth the first Cavern is at.

[Matoro]

Just designate a chute with up/down stairs so low as it can be designated. You will hit to the caverns.

And concerning sieges, it really sounds like a world where goblins are extinct. You could always piss out humans and elves (elves are easy thing if you use dfhack to enable tree cap diplomacy...) and get them to siege you.

[Lalasa]

My map doesn't go down further than -18 so my caverns must be either really smooshed down at the bottom or I missed them.  It's good to know that caverns really can hide from people so I'll have to dig more widely or make extra tunnels.  Thanks for the input.

Also, Matoro reminds me that I've never had a human caravan come to my fortress.  I think they are dead too.  The only people I could really piss off are elves, so if the cavern thing doesn't work out I might irritate them. 

Somehow I feel like I'm missing out.  So much for a glorious fun filled first fortress where everything gets wrecked by elephants.

EDIT: Can I reuse topics?  Because I had another little thing that has been bothering me.  I have a small hospital that is waiting for its inevitable use and it has a cloth and thread stockpile.  The problem is that there is no cloth in it because the dwarves don't bring any there.  How do I get the dwarves to put some cloth in it?  Or should I build a loom close to it and have dwarves work in the loom, which would lead them to putting cloth and thread in the hospital?

[WanderingKid]

Put a coffer/chest in there.  That'll let them store it in the hospital.

Be forewarned hospital stocks are rather screwy.  I recommend you check your DFHack and make sure it's got the hospital stocks fix activated.

[Sutremaine]

My map doesn't go down further than -18 so my caverns must be either really smooshed down at the bottom or I missed them.

18 levels below ground? I don't know if there's even room for three caverns plus the other two layers. If you mean -18 in the lower right corner of the screen, what level is the ground at?

[Lalasa]

Yea, I honestly don't know how to read that bar.  I do know that there's more than thirty z levels by a lot because that's how many I've punctured so far.  The ground is at level 139 based off of the same numbering I used for the bottom.  (0 top number, 139 bottom number, ground z level)

I don't have or use DF hack partially because I like vanilla games and partially because I'd probably mess something up if I used too many third party programs.  I'm no good with PC's and I don't like to try out stuff that could cause irreversible changes in games I like.  All I use is DwarfTherapist.

[WanderingKid]

I don't have or use DF hack partially because I like vanilla games and partially because I'd probably mess something up if I used too many third party programs.  I'm no good with PC's and I don't like to try out stuff that could cause irreversible changes in games I like.  All I use is DwarfTherapist.

Well, you have to consider something else.

1) You can always blow away the directory and reinstall if things go horribly wrong.
2) LNP pretty much does it all for you, so it's nice and simple
3) DF is not even an alpha release.  It needs some help sometimes.

[Sutremaine]

The number in the top right is the relative elevation, the number of levels you are below or above ground. It may change even on the same z-level if you move the viewing area from the foot of a mountain to inside the mountain.

The number in the bottom right is the absolute elevation, and remains the same no matter where you are on the z-level.

Ground at 139 and the bottom of the map at -18 means your map is ~160 levels deep, and you have a pretty good chance of having a cavern which is tall in only a few embark tiles. Just keep sinking 1x1 staircases down and you're likely to find something.

Regarding the lack of humans or goblins, you embarked on an island? It's somewhat unlikely given you have other invaders, but maybe it's a large island or something. For future reference, hitting Tab repeatedly when you're on the embark screen will cycle you through a list of details for whichever site you're currently looking at. One of these lists is the civ list, which details which civs have access to your site (kobolds don't get listed).

[Lalasa]

See WanderingKid, I'm not that old nor do I have computer know-how to any real degree.  I only understood the third point of what you said and have no clue what a LNP is or how to blow away directories.  :V
I could always ask/look for step-by-step guides, but I'd have to do that pretty often and it would become as annoying as the game is by itself.

Thank you for explaining what the numbers mean on the elevation bar.  I knew they changed based on elevation, but there were two and I didn't know the difference between them.  Also, I used a random generator to pick the characteristics I wanted at world gen.  My continent is tiny, but I think it had a decent amount of civs.  It is 500 years old though, and some of the history in my fortress references goblins and humans.  My guess is that they were killed.

I pressed tab but didn't pay a ton of attention to the listed civs at embark.  I guess less fun?

[WanderingKid]

See WanderingKid, I'm not that old nor do I have computer know-how to any real degree.

Ah!  Easy enough to fix.

I only understood the third point of what you said and have no clue what a LNP is or how to blow away directories.  :V

LNP = Lazy Newb Pack.  It's a download that some of the members of the community create (In the latest version, PeridexisErrant, thread here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=126076.0) that is a zip file of everything you need to play.  You can find it here:http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7426

Download that to a directory, then unzip it.  In the first level of folders you'll see LazyNewbPack.exe.  Fire that up and you're off to the races.

'Blowing away' a directory is nothing more than deleting it, then reinstalling.

[Lalasa]

Download that to a directory, then unzip it.  In the first level of folders you'll see LazyNewbPack.exe.  Fire that up and you're off to the races.

Soo... if I need to use this with the directory, what/where is the directory?  You seem to really want me to end up using this, so I might as well know where it actually goes.  ^^;

Do I just put it all in a folder?  Is that okay?  Or does it go somewhere unique?

EDIT: I just stuck a coffer in my hospital.  So much cloth was moved to said coffer I had miners widen the entryway to the room.  Geez!  At least we definitely have supplies now. 

[Sutremaine]

'Directory' is the proper name for 'folder'. You can download the LNP to any folder and unzip it to any folder.