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[Emerald-Ignis]

im rather new to this game,having only just figured out enough to have some fun, as a result ive decided it would be a great idea to embark in a area with terrifying surroundings! Anyways, im looking for suggestions on how i could make my fortress somewhat liveable despite being in a evil biome.
Background-
3 of the 16(4x4) embark tiles are not evil,but heavily forested with an aquifer(the evil portion does not have an aquifer)
all the surrounding undead are currently...just dead,and mangled.
in order to ensure they survive, i made my dwarves 4 shield using hammer dwarves,and two striker/wrestlers and one doctor,all equiped with full copper gear.(food and seeds+other stuff are leftover from a previous,failed embark)

so,any suggestions? doesnt need to specifically related to the whole evil biome thing,just anything that could be useful or fun for a new player like me. thanks.

[Telgin]

The general suggestions I've seen revolve around getting underground as fast as possible and preferably having a way to seal off the entrance.  That's mostly important for biomes with evil weather or rain though, so if you don't have that you might not be in for too much trouble.  Especially if it's not a reanimating biome either.

If it doesn't reanimate and you don't have evil weather, then you actually probably won't have all that much trouble.  It won't be all that much different from a regular embark.

It sounds like it is a reanimating biome and you haven't unpaused yet, and if that's the case... others will have to chime in.  I've never actually played in a reanimating biome.

[NordicNooob]

If it is reanimating, you might have problems.

Getting underground fast is important irregardless; just dig a staircase straight down next to your wagon, change your orders to gather refuse from outside, make a dump zone inside a makeshift hole, and order everything in your wagon dumped. While your dwarves do that, get one to make a hatch cover for a temporary seal (which will allow migrants and whatnot while keeping most wildlife out). You'll also want to butcher your pack animals ASAP, so they don't die from some random cause and become zombie yaks inside your dining hall.

When you're safe and inside, you can take a moment to collect yourself and start working on your basic commodities like dining hall, bedrooms, and food production. Note what evil things you have (if it's rain, you probably already noticed), and keep your eyes on the wildlife. Lock your hatch if they get too close for comfort.

If you get far enough to be alive and inside, it'll probably be turning summer (or already be summer, depending on what's in that second wagon), which means migrants. Supposing they get inside your safe area without getting attacked, you'll have a new workforce. Since your starting guys are skilled soldiers, put them to work! Make your first squad and get some of them training while the migrants take over setting up the fort for you. Even if you don't start training, make your squad so you at least have some armed dwarves meandering about the fort. In a good situation they'll do good work hauling, and in a bad situation they'll protect you from death.

Once you've been up and around for a few seasons, it'll start to play more like a normal fort. When you actually get the dwarfpower to start a full time militia you'll be able to be slightly less terrified of the wildlife and should hopefully be able to keep control of the surface, even if you don't use it for anything. In a bad scenario you'll be completely walled off due to an undeadsplosion that started from a murdered migrant wave, in which case you'll need to try to reclaim the surface before you die FPS death and/or run out of dwarves. Best way is probably some artifact mechanisms: most zombies will not be trapavoid, so with a bunch of spiked copper balls in that artifact mechanism trap you can crush most everything and let your soldiers handle the remainders.

Note; the caverns are also super dangerous in a reanimating embark and you should put effort into preventing undeadsplosions. Wall off whatever you can and place weapon traps all over the rest: the zombies must not gain a foothold in the caverns. They inevitably will, of course. You can't possibly defend three caverns from getting a pile of zombies in them. When they get overrun, be patient. Take them back one at a time, make dwarfy traps, beat the hordes back with all your strength, and wall off the layer as best you can. Supposing you survive your first few years and are actually on a reanimating embark, FPS death will be your main opponent, and the caverns will be the battlefield.

There's a lot to evil embarks, and it's highly random how hard a time you'll have. With a lot of caution and a lot of hammers, you should be able to beat the zombies back for long enough to worry about goblin invaders dying and reanimating during siege.

[anewaname]

Consider making your starting fort in the non-evil area, and be observant while building above ground.
Consider tunnels for access to the dead lands.
Put gates and doors everywhere.
Do not let the cats out.
Run from anything abnormal and be afraid enough to pull the gate-raising lever before everyone is back inside.
Make soap as soon as possible.

[Starver]

If you have a segment of non-evil-rain embark to build from (and to make your initial dig-and-dump-wagon-contents spots from), I find it's possible (but challenges your planning skills) to erect bridges over where you want to build a covered walkway¹ or walls atop which there is a covered walkway. Then back-dismantle (all) the bridge(s) and bridged-from infrastructure once you've made your covered walkway and you now have effective command of the surface, including possibly further options to extend from your walkway, if it was made sufficiently above ground level itself, without having to redo the cover-bridges from scratch from the original safe-spot.

Or you can rush up between showers if the ground manages to be non-contaminated between-times, which would work on a full-embark evil-rain liability area. But I never tried that far myself.


¹ Hint: to build a bridge somewhat out into the 'rain zone' you first need to cover the bit that you'll build that bridge from with another bridge, less out into rain zone...  Which may need its own bridge to cover its start out in the rain zone, and rinse and repeat (only in advance, of course), until you end up making your first sheltering bridge in a safe spot.

[Bumber]

There was advice in another thread about digging under the embark wagon and creating a cave-in (after you've already dug out a small shelter,) rather than dumping.

[PatrikLundell]

Most evil rain isn't particularly bad, but you need to figure out what it does. <sapient race> blood, for instance, is just icky (and can cause caravans to bolt), but apart from its mood effect, it's harmless. Evil clouds, however, are bad news. Reanimation is dangerous, and you need to take care to flee or fight to deal with it.
Since creatures die of old age at the turn of the year, there's no need to slaughter animals immediately: it's better to set up facilities to handle any reanimating hair/hides first, although starving grazers may need to be eliminated before you're set up properly. If you've got a mixed biome embark (as described), make sure to place the butchery and refuse stockpile(s) in the non reanimating biome(s), and make sure not to haul dead stuff through the reanimating one (it's bad for your dorfs' health to haul a dead FB up from the caverns along your carelessly dug path that avoids caverns, only to have it reanimate halfway up...).

Getting a place underground that can be sealed off is the top priority. A simple door or hatch keeps ordinary critters out, but not building destroying ones. It can be mentioned that embarking close to a necro tower can reward you with a necro siege the first summer, and that's another reason to make sure you have somewhere to hide set up (assuming you've got a necro neighbor).

[Schmaven]

....
Run from anything abnormal and be afraid enough to pull the gate-raising lever before everyone is back inside.
Make soap as soon as possible.

Don't underestimate how simple these sound.  It's better to lose 5 dwarves on the surface to have 12 giant undead leopards loose in your fort.  Also, without soap, your hospital zone WILL become ground zero for the zombie apocalypse.  Even if you aren't actively fighting anything, your dwarves will scuffle and require medical care.  Then when that first one who needs soap dies and turns, a few more dwarves will likely get injured putting down the animated corpse.  Before you know it, you will be overrun. 

I would add to the advice, make a Dwarven Atom Smasher, and smash anything that can reanimate as soon as you can.

[Libash_Thunderhead]

Don't open the caverns.
Undead kill animals  = more undead = fps death

[PatrikLundell]

Don't open the caverns.
Undead kill animals  = more undead = fps death

Activity occurs in the caverns regardless of whether you breach them or not. In particular, this means you can succumb to FPS death because the caverns get filled with undead that multiply by slaughtering critters migrating into the caverns if parts of the embark are reanimating and some are not (so migrating critters are living ones in those parts).
It's an interesting task to try to clean up a cavern with a couple of hundred undead (atom smashing and cage traps 8for critters too large to be smashed] works, although you tend to have to repair the atom smashers from time to time)...

[Emerald-Ignis]

as a rule i tend to avoid the caverns entirely, while they certainly have some good points,the creatures down there(namely trolls) are to big of a risk in my opinion,so would simply flooding it with magma be a possible solution?

[PatrikLundell]

You can't flood caverns with magma, as it flows out over the edges (and the FPS effect of all that liquid would probably be horrible).
Cage traps in fortress entrance airlocks and burrows to pull dorfs back when nasties enter caverns allow me to wall caverns off (it takes quite a while [as in a decade or two], in particular since building is done only when benign critters are present). Once the edges are walled off the caverns are completely safe.
Also trees in caverns cause FPS issues if not kept in check, and webs can harm your FPS as well after 20 or so years of accumulation.

[Schmaven]

You can't flood caverns with magma, as it flows out over the edges (and the FPS effect of all that liquid would probably be horrible).
Cage traps in fortress entrance airlocks and burrows to pull dorfs back when nasties enter caverns allow me to wall caverns off (it takes quite a while [as in a decade or two], in particular since building is done only when benign critters are present). Once the edges are walled off the caverns are completely safe.
Also trees in caverns cause FPS issues if not kept in check, and webs can harm your FPS as well after 20 or so years of accumulation.

Does walling them off help much with the critter accumulation or is it just to facilitate safe controlling of the trees and webs?  Since walls can't be constructed exactly on the edges of the map, wouldn't that 5 tile perimeter just fill up with reanimated critters?


I also want to further emphasize the importance of getting underground and sealing off the top side ASAP.  I recently embarked in an evil reanimating biome and within the first few weeks a herd of undead yak bulls wandered right into dwarves killing all but 1.  Though examining the carnage, they were only able to partially equip themselves with armor before engaging the herd.  Perhaps ensuring a fully equipped squad as the #1 priority might buy you a few extra days on the surface to create a suitable entrance (drawbridge leading to trade depot).  The fort named themselves "The Amazing Knives" so I'm going to ride out this 1 dwarf fort for as long as I can.  I may have to switch from maces to daggers though.

[Libash_Thunderhead]

And fluid is the best fps killer.

[Emerald-Ignis]

ha,i can see why you want to keep that fort going
.....
mines called doomedwhipped.
thats when i started thinking it might be a bad idea.