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[schlake]

Yesterday I had a really well going fortress.  I was poking it on the laptop while I played WvW in GW2.  I fought off two minotaurs, but then goblins came, and I ended up with a sodlier who had a cut leg!  The horror!  So I made a hospital.  The hospital needs a well, of course, so I made a cistern.  And then I went back to GW2.

Now that my entire fortress is a giant cistern, I'm wondering what my next fortress will be like.  And I'm thinking about ramps...

In theory, I can make ramps all the way down to the caverns, and build my trade depot there, right?  The ramps need to be 3-wide on the straights, with larger corners if I've read the forums and wiki right.  If I buy lots of food and beer, and maybe five picks, I can in theory get to the caverns and set up farming there to start with as well, right?

[PatrikLundell]

If you don't have an aquifer getting down to the caverns and start farming should be easily done well before you run out of food or booze. Ensuring the safety in the cavern is a different issue, though, but I guess you could brick off a piece of it.
You don't have to receive the first caravan, however, you can just let it pass your inaccessible site by, giving you another year to get your digging done.

There is no pressing need to go to the extreme of going that way, though. You can start some workshops and a farm plot near the top while your miners dig and you secure the cavern (or a part of it). When that's taken care of you can move down.

You should also consider the risk that the first cavern is useless (either mud covered so no underground trees or plants except moss is there, of filled with water).

Also, a ramp cannot be protected with cage traps or drawbridges, but with all the digging you're going to do some straight stretches should be easy to add.

[Corona688]

Yes, caravans can follow ramps.  I've had my trade depots quite far underground before, though not in the caverns themselves.

In theory it's possible.  The first cavern has all the comforts of a fort built outside, like wood, mud, water, and wild livestock.  It also has all the safety of a fort built outside:  Giant olms, giant toads, giant bats, giant spiders.  Even as a temporary situation, my dwarves usually get slaughtered there, but the military is something I still barely grasp.  If you sacrifice a lot to bring more war dogs and axemen, maybe you could do it.

[Albedo]

So many questions... welcome to DF!

First, letting a young fortress just run is risky, esp if you're doing digging around water/etc. Doubly so if you're new to the game. This is not "Sim City" where you can just let it cook along - well, not at first, at least. Takes some management, esp to respond to the unforeseen.

Now, speaking about foresight, it's good to get the basics down EARLY. Hospital, Well, food production chain, defenses - partial checklist here: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/40d:What_should_I_build_first


(Not going to ask why you're in a hurry for the caverns - diff discussion. Have fun!)

Caravan needs a 3-wide path. Ramps only on straights - no ramps "in" the corners. Guard animals on chains ( {b} {v} ) do not block caravans, but "traps" do. (But you could build a U-turn 4-wide, and trap the inside of that corner - that works well!)

But remember - Caravan only stays a certain amount of time, and if "kept" on the map too long bad things can happen (like not returning - if you care).  So you don't want a death-march to/from the Trade Depot. Also, your dwarves need to carry trade goods to the TD - so it should be central to whatever industry(ies) you are going to use to trade for stuff.


If you want to maximize embark, start with (or without) 1 pick and DIY the other 4 picks (and maybe some bronze weapons for early defense - axes, hammers, cross-bows?), and spend the rest on more food/drink.

The wiki is absolutely minimalist - adding more ores/stones helps a lot for very little extra cost: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Make_your_own_weapons#Better_bronze_supplies

(But if you bring just 3 of each booze-seed and put 1 dwarf on growing/brewing asap, you only need maybe 6 of each booze to start - only 1 Dwarven Wine if you bring 5 Plump Helmets and brew those immediately for even more of those seeds to plant.)


OTOH, if you really don't want to medium-manage anything, buying the picks, 16 booze each and buying a mountain of food will do the job just fine.

[PatrikLundell]

My technique for cavern securing requires time:
- Breach the cavern. Brick up ASAP.
- Build cage trap protected airlock. Breach properly when benign wildlife roams the caverns.
- Send in militia to map the cavern.
- Send in dorfs to brick up the cavern entrances (with bridges for future airlocks to let desirable critter in).
- Pull out when the "safe" wildlife starts to leave the cavern using civilian burrows and close the drawbridge.
- Wait until a new bunch of benign wildlife enters.
- Continue working.
- Repeat ad nauseam or until done, whichever happens first.

- If I was to settle in the cavern I'd secure a reasonably small area around my airlock entrance to hold the pasture and farm plot(s), while the rest would be dug out of the rock (need to do something while waiting for the nasties to move on).

- On, if some desirable wildlife, such as a GCS, comes along, I'd try to catch it in my cage traps by baiting with a juicy door. This also means that I'd build another airlock with cage traps on the other side of the farm/pasture area if settling in the cavern.

[schlake]

he caverns, and build my trade depot there, right?  The ramps need to be 3-wide on the straights, with larger corners if I've read the forums and wiki right.  If I buy lots of food and beer, and maybe five picks, I can in theory get to the caverns and set up farming there to start with as well, right?

Well, that was a terrible idea.  :/

[Corona688]

Oh dear.

What was your inevitable death?

[schlake]

Oh dear.

What was your inevitable death?

Mostly I died due to my inability to manage designations.  I got the ramp down to the caverns, but I got impatient and designated more than 4 squares at a time.  The dwarves ended up skipping sections and they couldn't finish all the digging.  The entire ramp was depot accessible except for one tiny little section.  In the caverns I tried to build farms but no one would build them.  Finally, I figured out the dwarves didn't think the caverns were accessible.  I'd built a two-wide ramp down into them, but I apparently misinterpreted the terrain.  I got a really early migrant wave, probably because my mechanic was making some really expensive obsidian mechanisms the entire time.  My carpenter was making beds as well, since I found trees on the surface, even though the embark supposedly had no trees.  But none of the other workshops were being built.  I had two horses living in the caverns that I assumed were going to die soon, but I couldn't get a butcher to make a workshop.  And finally, while I was still tring to force a masons shop to be made, so I could make blocks, all the friendly things in caverns left, and were replaced by terrible things.

[Albedo]

Sounds like a whole pile of common new-player problems all rolled into one small meta-project.   Too many little things to learn all lost in the larger jumble of the over-reaching effort.

(I could take a guess at the root cause of each one, but a lot of digging designations across z-levels is a classic way to fail, at least if you're not VERY careful and know what you're doing.)

I suggest you back off just a bit, set up a more traditional base on/near the surface, just the minimal to maintain the fortress*, and THEN (or at the same time) go for the caverns. Then you can start to move your farms/workshops/Trade Depot lower down, one at a time, and see if it works, or if you made some mistake. That way you can trouble-shoot one at a time, and they don't all synergize at once to kill your fort.

(* a drawbridge for simple security (with or without a moat around your pasture for your animals), Mason/Carpenter/Mechanic,  a dozen farm plot tiles w/ Kitchen/Still, (Wood Burner/Furnace/Forge for a few weapons if you didn't bring them), and a Trade Depot that you KNOW will work. Maybe a couple others, like Leatherworks for a couple quivers, and call it good - just enough to act as a safety net if/when.)

GL!

[Trebor1503]

I build a depot exposed outside for the first year caravan. By the second year I have build a second, more secured depot and torn down the first one. This allows me to travel without some items that I can do without until the first caravan shows up, but I don't have to have my "final" fortress layout in place by the fall of year 1.