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[Goblins]

What are the Pros and Cons of Living Above ground and then pros and cons for living Below ground?

Below ground meaning no access to the above world, and above ground meaning having connections to above, but not really colonizing any caves.

Thanks!

[Urist McVoyager]

Obvious con to nothing on the surface: Caravan trading will be harder to do. You'll need to find a cavern with a wide enough entry at the side of the map to do it.

Obvious con to staying on the surface: You have to build rooms instead of digging them out. It takes more planning.

[GiglameshDespair]

Building on the surface takes so god damn long you have no idea.

[Authority2]

Caravans can come in through the caverns?
...My dwarves will never touch the surface again.

[Findulidas]

Caravans can come in through the caverns?
...My dwarves will never touch the surface again.

Its really damn boring to shut off the surface though.

[Kuikka]

I once made a human city, completely above ground thingy. There wasn't anything interesting to mine anyway so it was trade or die -kind of thing (or most likely, survive until traders arrive and bring more metal and weapons). It was quite fun but horribly slow and required planning. Now that enemies can climb 3-z high smoothed stone walls without trouble it requires some extra effort to stay safe...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You CAN survive without mining metals, given that you have plenty of wood. Of course, you need to mine a bit to get stone... it's refreshing to do an above ground forts once in a while.

[Urist McVoyager]

You need overhangs and fortifications. Preferably they'd be one and the same. And might as well stick a dry-moat armed with traps to annoy all but the TRAPAVOID enemies, and have patrols on the walls to shove away the survivors.

[Aslandus]

Never touching the surface vs never going underground? Both have benefits and drawbacks...

Surface fortress:
+ food diversity
+ plentiful supply of animals and fishing resources, as well as water (if you have a river or brook, otherwise water/fishing isn't much better than cavern lakes)
+ wood is almost infinite (assuming you embark somewhere wood exists)
+ farmable land is plentiful
+ trade caravans are easy to use
+ pastures for grazers are almost trivial to make
+ military can be outfitted with wooden shields, crossbows (with quivers and bolts) and leather/bone armor within a year if you get on it quickly
+ don't have to worry about dangers of the undergound such as cave adaptation and cavern beasts
- hard to build big structures, especially safe ones
- water freezes in winter unless you are in a warm location
- werebeasts can cause a lot of trouble, especially early on
- weather can cause a lot of problems, especially in an evil biome
- stone and metal are harder to come by, and by extension you will be limited to crossbow/wrestler squads until you buy materials/weapons from the caravans
- magma can't be had unless you embark on a volcano
- generally harder to protect your dwarves

Cavern fortress:
+ Cool, often powerful and predictable beasties
+ Easy to secure your base
+ structures can be dug out rather than built
+ don't have to deal with weather, so it can make evil biomes much more manageable
+ stone and metal are plentiful, so your militia will be much stronger when you get it built properly
+ far more likely to have access magma
+ aquifers can be an infinite source of water that never freezes
+ don't have to worry about sieges, thieves or ambushes from other civs
- wood is less plentiful than you may want
- fishing and hunting resources severely limited with only cave wildlife to supply meat and fish
- grassy pastures for grazers less available
- aquifers make building harder
- you will only be able to trade with the dwarven caravans, and even then only if you find a proper location in the caverns
- farmable land is much less available apart from the first soil layers, and you only have the "dwarven" underground crops available
- always the same sorts of creatures, so far less variety than you can find above
- might be a bit of time before you can properly outfit your military
- cave adaptation can be a killer if you ever need to come back up to the surface or have an exposed area of the fortress
- generally not as interesting as keeping the surface open

[Urist McVoyager]

Getting migrants into a cavern fortress would also be a bear. Any route a migrant could take could be exploited by a surface enemy as well, or torn apart.

A Surface Fort definitely has security issues, too. Between climbing and the need for a wall, it's a lot of work to secure yourself. But once you're there, you can find a place outside the walls and begin planning a mine. Or doing one right inside the moat.

[Goblins]

Getting migrants into a cavern fortress would also be a bear. Any route a migrant could take could be exploited by a surface enemy as well, or torn apart.

A Surface Fort definitely has security issues, too. Between climbing and the need for a wall, it's a lot of work to secure yourself. But once you're there, you can find a place outside the walls and begin planning a mine. Or doing one right inside the moat.

Currently I went ahead and have embarked on a Terrifying Biome.  Sounds like fun!  I have gone into a cave and am basically going to live underground for my whole life... probably as six people.  At least I have two miners! 

We'll see how far I get...

[GiglameshDespair]

Getting migrants into a cavern fortress would also be a bear. Any route a migrant could take could be exploited by a surface enemy as well, or torn apart.

A Surface Fort definitely has security issues, too. Between climbing and the need for a wall, it's a lot of work to secure yourself. But once you're there, you can find a place outside the walls and begin planning a mine. Or doing one right inside the moat.

Currently I went ahead and have embarked on a Terrifying Biome.  Sounds like fun!  I have gone into a cave and am basically going to live underground for my whole life... probably as six people.  At least I have two miners! 

We'll see how far I get...

Recommended Reading

[Niddhoger]

Now that enemies can climb 3-z high smoothed stone walls without trouble it requires some extra effort to stay safe...

Height of the wall doesn't really factor into the difficulty unless its so high the climber becomes exhausted (30+ levels?).  You can build safe 1z level high walls by building overhanging floors/fortifications.  You can also make walls out of smoothed NATURAL stone.  Stone BLOCK walls aren't too hard to climb (think bricks with cracks/mortar seams for toe holds), but smoothed natural stone has no seems or "joints."  Its nearly impossible to climb.  If nothing else it means when you build your moat around your walls, dig down into the first stone layer and smooth those.  You do still want the wall to block archers, but the smoothed stone bottom of your moat should make it impossible to climb in/out.  Bonus points if you use weapon traps to push enemies off a narrow walkway.  Ultra-mega Dorf bonus if you have a powerful Forgotten beast that lives in your moat '

To the OP... its pretty much been summed up.  Surface-only forts or horribly impractical due to logistics... building structures out of blocks takes a massive amount of extra time and resources.  You also deprive yourself of metal and easy defenses.  For an underground fort, you can have only 1 entrance into your fort that is sealed off with a simple raised bridge.  Aboveground forts will still need to fear flying enemies (rocs and goblin invaders on flying mounts).  There is also a water issue if you live in a temperate or colder environment.

Underground-only forts forgo all migrants and caravans.  You also have a smaller selection of food diversity, but you have all the food you need cavern-only.  6 cavern plants and only one is a luxury (dimple dye).  The other 5 are food, booze, and/or cloth.  You also have cave spider silk for clothing.  Cavern beasties can be captured and butchered/tamed/bred just as easily as surface versions, and are in fact more valuable typically.

Most forts are underground, but keep a small surface presence.  You still want to trade in the early game to access any metals/materials your site lacks (no flux stone, no iron), or to shore up industries you haven't gotten going yet (buy up cloth/leather/clothing or food).  I cannot understate how easy it is to defend those underground forts.  Set up one lever that is placed in your dining room to make your fort entirely impenetrable in one pull! You can secure your water supply for emergencies and medical use as well.  Personally I like to keep a small above-ground presence.  Usually a small area walled in with a moat and some guard towers.  I farm/pasture early animals here until those get set up below.  Later I use it as a staging ground to meet sieges.  You can raise/lower bridges to control how many enemies get in to fight your army.

[pisskop]

And above ground fortress, i.e. a castle, is literally a megaproject in many cases.
  Actually, I think I might try that.  The first Castle Dwarvenstein!

[utunnels]

Caravans can go underground if you build ramps for them.
Just secure a large enough area for the trade depot.

[Niddhoger]

Caravans can go underground if you build ramps for them.
Just secure a large enough area for the trade depot.

Yeah but they can't spawn in the caverns, can they? You still have to build a ramp aboveground to lead them underground.  You can't seal off all the map edges except something in the caverns and have the caravan use those.  You also cannot dig out the last tiles around the map edge- those can only be carved out for fortifications.