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[nimbus25]

I want to know, are going and exploring caverns worth it? I've gone down into the caverns twice. The first time, I unlocked the third cavern. Later, a Forgotten Beast made of Rock that breathed Leprosy Gas came up and killed everything almost instantly. After a long time, I decided to try again. Some stupid dwarf wandered into a Giant Cave Spider, got injured, and caused dwarves to come down and try to heal him, just to get themselves wounded. Lost about 6 dwarves to it. I know, and looking back, it is kind of funny, but the pain of having to go through it, is it worth it?

[Melting Sky]

There are useful resources in the caverns such as valuable creatures like that giant cave spider you found, a load of exposed minerals and uniquely useful plants such as nether caps. Not to mention the incredibly shiny metal that lies even deeper. Having said this there are also great dangers down there such as the giant cave spider you found or worse yet the Forgotten Beasts. It's up to you if you believe the risk is worth it.

The risk is manageable in most instances, although that rock FB is an example of one of the worst things the caverns can throw at you. You should always build into the caverns as if you expect to be attacked by very powerful enemies from down there. If you wouldn't leave your front gate open and undefended to goblin sieges then you shouldn't expect to get away with doing that on the front lines of the caverns.

You should have a way to defend your entrance in the underworld. Also you should never breach the caverns with your fortress's central stairway. Keep the cavern access away from heart of your fortress since you never know when some flying horror will find its way through a hole you missed. The caverns tend to throw small numbers of quite powerful enemies at you where as the over world tends to send large numbers of less powerful foes instead. Both can be dangerous if you are unprepared.

[Dunamisdeos]

Yeah, man. That FB you got is about as bad as it can possibly get. You've already seen the worst.

You should check out some threads on how to properly breach the caverns, and how to defend your fortress from it once breached. Benefits from the caverns include:

1) An inexhaustible supply of wood. If you wall off parts of the cavern, it is even completely safe.
2) Potential farmland. On a map with little soil in an inhospitable biome, this can transcend from benefit to necessity. Wall it off for the win.
3) Creatures. Not FB's, but normal creatures. Capture that Giant Cave Spider and set him loose on some goblins, or farm its silk for cash.
4) Underground water. This can be used for fishing, fresh water for a well, power..... and all without a connection to the surface.
5) Caverns can often have ores and stones that are not found on other layers.

Really, it can be quite awesome.

[Sadrice]

Make sure that your fortress can be sealed off from the downward stairwell, and make sure the stairwell can be sealed off from each cavern individually, without restricting traffic downward.


A good option for sealable access is floor hatches.  Locked floor hatches can not be destroyed from below, and can be locked instantly by you, rather than relying on a dwarf to pull a lever.  If you think that's too exploity, use lever controlled raising drawbridges.


It's good to place traps in the cavern access.  I like to place quite a few cage traps, because cavern creatures can be useful and/or valuable, but can also come in good sized packs (elk birds, naked mole dogs, and crundles are common examples), and also a weapon trap or two beyond the cage traps in case they overload the cages or I accidentally fill all my cages).


If you wish to use a section of caverns frequently, as a tree farm (or normal farm), find a large  open area with narrow chokepoints and wall them off.  Make sure you block all map edge access and completely enclose or wall off water, in case of amphibious attackers (if you want to fish or gather water, use grates.  Like floodgates, they are indestructible from underneath.  Try to choose an area with a low ceiling, as you will eventually want to extend your wall upwards to block flying FBs.


As for the advantages to caverns, many have already been mentioned, but:
-Forests to chop if you need wood and the surface is inhospitable (active siege, or 1000s of zombies, or what have you).
-Plants to harvest if you need booze and you for some reason screwed up your farming
-Open space to plant farms
-Silk to harvest if you need cloth quick
-Animals for hunting and trapping, many of which are very useful especially cave crocodiles (by far the best egg layer, producing stacks of up to 50, with a high value.  If hatched, they produce valuable (and copious) meat, leather, and bones, and are one of the best guard animals, since they are extremely renewable, physically imposing, and naturally aggressive, offsetting the inability to train them without modding) and giant cave spiders (infinite high value silk to keep your dwarves delirious with joy at their swanky clothes, the ability to trap [TRAPAVOID] creatures, and pretty impressive as guards).
-A huge amount of free exploratory mining.  If you want gems, the caverns are by far the quickest way to get them.

[Lav]

I always breach the first layer of caverns early, and seal it immediately - so I can get free plants in the soil layer.

Sometimes I dump some useless creature into the cave before sealing it, so it would wander and explore it for me.

Plus, once the cavern is breached, it starts accumulating Forgotten Beasts. When I eventually decide to breach the cavern again, there may already be several of them. Free Fun. :-)

[Melting Sky]

I should add that the caverns aren't always as hostile as your experiences would suggest. My last fortress has had the caverns open for years with the worst thing we've faced being a single giant mole which is funny because I actually went down there looking for trouble. It really varies a great deal.

[nimbus25]

K, I'll set up a second gate down there then. Thanks

[Ai Shizuka]

The first cavern is also nice as early training for your militia. A small squad with starting metal armor can deal with most stuff in the first layer.
Some notes:
- Avoid sending a lone soldier against a bunch of troglodytes. They are weak, but multiple troglodytes will overwhelm an unexperienced soldier.
- Avoid at all costs helmet snakes with unarmored dwarves. Not sure if leather is enough, but I wouldn't risk without metal armor. The bite is nasty.
- Giant cave spiders: I don't remember if these can spawn in the first layer, but they can have a useful effect on metal-armored dwarves. They just keep biting the dwarf head forever, unable to pierce the helm. The dwarf is webbed, so he can't do anything. But he isn't getting killed by the spider, either, so he'll train armor user VERY quickly. But he'll die of hunger of thirst at some point. So, to deal with a giant spider, you want to attack it from multiple directions, possibly with marksdwarves.
- The other giant stuff in the first layer isn't generally a threat for novice soldiers in metal armor. I've seen giant olms occasionally chop a limb away, but a small squad shouldn't have much trouble.
- Cave crocodiles. Now these can be nasty. Despite not being 'giant', cave crocodiles are actually much bigger than any giant creature you can face in the first layer. And they are, well, crocodiles. So they will tear unarmored dwarves apart in seconds. Maybe avoid these until your soldiers are a bit more trained.

The above obviously applies if you want to use the cavern creatuers as target practice, but you can catch or kill them with traps.

Be sure to consider the following when planning your cavern entrance:
- traps don't work on forgotten beasts. You usually want a drawbridge to block your entrance.
- I'm not entirely sure, but I think all forgotten beasts can swim, so keep it in mind.
- Also keep flying creatures in mind when planning your entrance. You don't want a giant bat flying around your fort.
- Combine the above: you can get a flying forgotten beast.


Beside what the others already said, the caverns are a very valuable resource if you embark on a glacier. They offer trees, plants, water and farmable land, wich aren't available on the surface.

[nimbus25]

Oh, well I already have full Steel Militia dwarves (high-up Magnetite, Lignite, and Dolomite all next to each other!), with 8 out of 10 being legendary from spending time in the Danger Room. The other 2 are newly added, and they won't fully suit up :/

[Ai Shizuka]

Eight legendaries in steel will demolish anything you may find in all three cavern layers.
Except forgotten beasts of course, wich can range from a harmless blob of vomit to an unstoppable ebola-spitting harbringer of death made of steel.

Still, even if they don't need much training on live targets, you can still use the pack creatures like troglodytes, elk birds or crundles to quickly give your soldiers the 'doesn't care about anything' trait, wich is always handy on skilled, well-armed soldiers.

[PDF urist master]

giant cave spiders alone are worth breaching the caverns. Do not kill them and try to cage trap them. webs are an extremely valuable and versatile resource.

other than that, there are also cave crocodiles, which are very powerful and lay lots of eggs. Rutherers, Drathlas and elk birds all provide a great source of meat.
Jabberers and cave dragons are even more powerful, but reside deeper and makes them tougher to get.

forgotten beasts aren't too trouble if you know how to deal with them. they're building destroyers, which means you can lure them with furniture. luring them under a cave in will instantly kill them, no matter if they're made of steam or steel. Alternatively, you can lure them into sealable rooms and trap them forever.

[Panando]

Another thing with caverns, is instead of walling off sections, it tends to be cheaper to de-ramp sections. Once all the ramps leading up and down have been removed then only fliers can get into that area, and they wont do so very reliably at all (and often fliers can fly over walls anyway).
I normally like to open the caverns and make an access corridor with a half dozen cage traps, you catch some interesting things that way. If you are going to have an open cavern, it helps to have at least a small squad permanently training at a barracks on the threshold between cavern and fortress, since while a half dozen cage traps will be enough for most things, sometimes you get like 15 crundles or hungry heads trying to come in and then it's more convenient to just massacre the things.
2 dwarves, even without much skill, are enough to handle most things which dribble in from the caverns. Such dwarves should be armed with sharp objects like axes, swords and spears because the dangerous cavern life is unarmoured and large, the perfect targets for slicing and stabbing weapons.

[Dunamisdeos]

I have to disagree on the topic of walls and ramps. Alot of FB's can fly, and all of them can swim. Walling becomes absolutely necessary in many areas of the caverns, and I find its a good practice to keep up. This is especially true if the area of the caverns is meant for civilians, such as a farm or wood farm.

[FallenAngel]

I typically have my cavern access on a separate stairwell than my main in one. I've realized that the only things that can pierce a well-sealed door are things like trolls, forgotten beasts, and the one thing you don't want to fight unless you want lots and lots of Fun (and it often leads to !!Fun!!). I still recommend blocking off stuff, but my system makes it a bit harder for stuff to kill you.
Fill the tunnel between the door and the down stair with cage traps to capture any GCS, Crundles, etc.

[StupidElves]

I rarely dig into the caverns. If I do it's because I've exhausted all of the ore above them and I need some more.

If I do go there looking for ore, I build sort of a second colony down there that's self sustaining and I lock it up. I only open it up if I need to get at the ore down there.