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[personofshadow]

I'm curious what people are doing with the new underground caverns? Are you moving your fort down into or near the caverns or are you keeping it near the top and just mking your dwarves walk a lot to get down there if there's anything good to be brought up?

[Naz]

Haven't run into one yet but I'll probably be leaving my fort near the surface, that way I can expand down when needed. also I hear that caverns tend to contain giant, feathered, twitching ass fiends and I don't really want to go pick a fight til I'm good and ready.

[kendo]

I've been building my forts down there, usually in-between caverns. I try to get walls up asap, since most open spaces down there arent very defendable - with all the caves and tunnels.

 its easier access to muddy land for farming, and water and magma. Its just alot nastier and harder with everything that's down there, and that makes it more fun for me.

[LemonFrosted]

I've altered my world to have only a single cavern layer so that I can build closer to magma.

[Orborde]

also I hear that caverns tend to contain giant, feathered, twitching ass fiends and I don't really want to go pick a fight til I'm good and ready.

You're right about that one. I settled on a glacier; since there isn't much point being near the surface, I dug out living quarters inside an underground mountain next to my farms. I'm having all manner of trouble right now from "giant, feathered, twitching ass fiends" (this description is surprisingly on target for the critters I'm seeing) interrupting my workers and running away. My military is going to be in darned good shape from chasing them all over the caverns (if the silly recruits don't die of starvation first).

[personofshadow]

Do the caverns have underground water sources too?

[LemonFrosted]

Do the caverns have underground water sources too?

Yes, but it's only infinite if it touches an edge. On the plus side, though, they do tend to be very large and don't evaporate at any real rate, but aren't suitable to build waterfalls with unless you establish a return loop.

[NTheGreat]

I always try and settle near the caverns. Any merchants that want to trade with us are going to have to bring their stuff a good 15 to 20 levels underground where the upper levels of my fortress reside.

[Copper]

I've been setting up shop in the caverns as well, keeping the main fort safely in nestled in the rock (preferably in a big pillar), waiting to break out out into the main cavern floor until I get a few migrants or forge up some equipment.

A 35 z-level staircase isn't as bad as it sounds, you can easily have industry both above and below; and since the main cavern floor is a danger zone anyway, I don't worry about connecting it straight to the surface (with both ends outside my fortress proper, of course) making it a lot easier to get surface resources down to the level of your fort without additional entrances that need defending or dwarves clogging your main stairs with logs and dead animals.

[InsanityPrelude]

The depot in my current fort is up top, but the fort itself is being gradually built in the caverns, walled or floored off from the rest of the caves until I'm ready. It's going surprisingly well.

[Telcontar]

I'm probably going to be building most of my fortresses amongst the natural caverns.

[AtomicPaperclip]

I might end up setting up a farmers burrow down there just for farming but other than that... not really.

[xtank5]

In my first fort that actually works, I built a fort in the top 5 z-levels.  Then I went 'sploring.  I found the caverns and other underground stuff.  I limited expansion of the upper fortress and developed a magma-works.  Now I'm training up a squad of swordsdwarves and I'm in the first stages of building "The UnderFortress."  So now I'm making a huge cube of workshops down by my magma works, very close to the lowest cavern (I found 3).  I've already planned out my new farms.  After that I have to lay out housing and a dining room.  Then I have to dig ramps for a trade depot, deep underground.

Previously I limited myself to the first 10 z-levels.

[BigD145]

I had to abandon after some hulking thing ripped through every door, hatch, and workshop in my near surface place before going back down into the cavern and disappearing. That and my mason just sat in the mud and wouldn't build a single wall to seal off the stairs.

[Twitch]

I stay near the top and build everything neccesary to support 200 dwarves within the first 7 or so levels (i have nearly made the perfect living complex, will post when I finish) and then I make an airlock of sorts; a long hallway full of traps and emergency magma with drawbridge doors on either end and ballistas behind fortifications, which is the only path to the underground horrors that I expect to find.
My front door is guarded by 2 dogs and nothing else.