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[T600]

Currently, my fort is very boring and I have been just digging around. My fort is fully sustainable, no immediate dangers, no shortage of bedding,food, or anything else that dwarfs need and I recently just hit a huge magnetite vein and like 3 bituminous coal veins, so my metal smithing industry is fine. Anyway I have been digging around in the caverns and came across a giant toad.. which was killed by my hunter. Anyway, what kind of stuff should I do in the caverns? I don't really understand the point of caverns besides creating another front for your fortress to be attacked from.

Any particular advantages? From the looks of it there are just some gems and fungus wood down there and some other things like shrubs and such.

[Foehamster]

You've pretty much answered your own question.  An underground source of wood, seeds and animals.  As well as exposed minerals, water in underground rivers and lakes.

And of course you need to dig through these features to find the magma sea and what lies beyond.

[Thelogman]

Caverns supply fertile ground for growing things, water, fish to fish for, and a large number of the cave creatures can be tamed or even trained into war creatures.

They also, of course, supply a massive new danger, which shakes up fortresses nicely.

And they have webs in them, which are very valuable and allow you to open up the silk economy.

And later caverns have magma, very valuable ores and stones and gems, including flux, and of course, super new dangers.

[T600]

But from what I have seen the caverns seem to not have very much wood or seeds.. or animals for that matter, I think the giant toad that was killed was just wondering around.

Maybe I need to go deeper, also how would I ever harvest or use the water in those lakes? I also want my military to get a little action for once, but I am afraid of digging too deep and getting those infinite spawn monsters or w/e.

Also, I hate when dwarves party, they take up soooo much time just partying instead of working, and its always the miners and the masons partying.. always the ones I need the most.

[T600]

Caverns supply fertile ground for growing things, water, fish to fish for, and a large number of the cave creatures can be tamed or even trained into war creatures.

They also, of course, supply a massive new danger, which shakes up fortresses nicely.

And they have webs in them, which are very valuable and allow you to open up the silk economy.

And later caverns have magma, very valuable ores and stones and gems, including flux, and of course, super new dangers.

how can I ever tell if my army is ready to fight those dangers? My army is about 4 dwarves with spears and full iron armors and shields. Most are proficient spear dwarves.

Side note: My hunter seems to be trying to clean himself, but I get the error message saying "Path is inaccessible." what does this mean? I see him grabbing the soap and then heading off, then I get that message. He seems to be doing this over and over.

[Thelogman]

The best way to deal with the dangers underground is to limit your exposure to them. Many people wall off caverns from their fortress proper until they are ready to deal with them. If you do want to reap the valuables with minimum danger, wall off a section of the cavern.

Make sure to remove any ramps in your walled in area (The triangles) to prevent anything from coming from other z levels.

If you want the ability to access the whole cavern, I would recommend having an entrance that is only one square wide and a few long, and lined with traps. Cages if you want to catch and domesticate, weapon otherwise. Have a military detail constantly posted (or just put their barracks down there) to watch the squares between the cavern and your fort.

4 Fairly well trained Dwarves using iron should be able to take most the monsters in the first level of the caverns, but I would be careful of swarms, or going further down without more Dwarves that are better trained with steel or better.

Let the monsters come to you, and protect yourself well.

My squad of 5 dwarves with 2-3 years of training and copper equipment was able to hold off even undead from cavern one with little trouble, but they were more of a last ditch response, with 3 lines of cage traps protecting my walled in cavern section from the bigger cavern, and another 2 lines of cage traps protecting the fortress from the walled in cavern.

[BigD145]

Maybe I need to go deeper, also how would I ever harvest or use the water in those lakes? I also want my military to get a little action for once, but I am afraid of digging too deep and getting those infinite spawn monsters or w/e.

Cavern critters infinite spawn already, but they may be in the "fog of war."

[T600]

The best way to deal with the dangers underground is to limit your exposure to them. Many people wall off caverns from their fortress proper until they are ready to deal with them. If you do want to reap the valuables with minimum danger, wall off a section of the cavern.

Make sure to remove any ramps in your walled in area (The triangles) to prevent anything from coming from other z levels.

If you want the ability to access the whole cavern, I would recommend having an entrance that is only one square wide and a few long, and lined with traps. Cages if you want to catch and domesticate, weapon otherwise. Have a military detail constantly posted (or just put their barracks down there) to watch the squares between the cavern and your fort.

4 Fairly well trained Dwarves using iron should be able to take most the monsters in the first level of the caverns, but I would be careful of swarms, or going further down without more Dwarves that are better trained with steel or better.

Let the monsters come to you, and protect yourself well.

My squad of 5 dwarves with 2-3 years of training and copper equipment was able to hold off even undead from cavern one with little trouble, but they were more of a last ditch response, with 3 lines of cage traps protecting my walled in cavern section from the bigger cavern, and another 2 lines of cage traps protecting the fortress from the walled in cavern.

hmm this is a good idea, I recently came across a troll and giant gave spider and a cave croc!, I had to kill the cave croc because it struck down a miner sadly. but I did capture a troll and giant cave spider.. but these appear to be useless. I don't think you can train either

[Stik]

a page behind someone asked if they could know if they already for the caverns... my answer is ask around for what the creatures wear and put them and ur dwarfs in the simulator

[Boingboingsplat]

hmm this is a good idea, I recently came across a troll and giant gave spider and a cave croc!, I had to kill the cave croc because it struck down a miner sadly. but I did capture a troll and giant cave spider.. but these appear to be useless. I don't think you can train either :(

For the giant cave spider:
1) Put in sealed room behind fortifications.
2) Dump kittens past the fortifications so it'll shoot webs.
3) Make floodgates so you can block of the spider again.
4) Have dwarves collect webs.
5) ???
6) Profit!

I'm not sure if a GCS can actually shoot past fortications or not. If it can't, a trench should get the job done. Fill that with magma if the spider finds a way to get across.

[Thelogman]

hmm this is a good idea, I recently came across a troll and giant gave spider and a cave croc!, I had to kill the cave croc because it struck down a miner sadly. but I did capture a troll and giant cave spider.. but these appear to be useless. I don't think you can train either

Actually, the Giant Cave Spider can be tamed by a Dungeon Master, and even trained into a HUNTING Giant Cave Spider to accompany your hunters into battle.

Trolls, on the other hand, are not tamable or trainable or any of that. You could, however, construct an alternate spirialing route for goblins through your fortress, and then in times of siege, reroute them through there via a drawbridge being picked up on your main entrance.

Then, you just restrain the Troll in that alternate hallway and he'll kill invasions.

Or you could edit the raws to make him tamable, but I hear that friendly building destroyers tend to randomly rip up fortresses these days.

[Psychoceramics]

GCS require pathing in order to shoot. If they can't find a path, they ignore what's on the other side of the fortifications or trench.

You'll probably need some kind of alternating door set up to keep the GCS from escaping while still being able to path around.

[Boingboingsplat]

GCS require pathing in order to shoot. If they can't find a path, they ignore what's on the other side of the fortifications or trench.

You'll probably need some kind of alternating door set up to keep the GCS from escaping while still being able to path around.

Aw, that's disappointing.

Maybe you could just put the kittens out for sacrifice in exchange for webs? The hard part would be finding a way to seal it back up consistently.

[Vastin]

Caverns look like a really fun resource for aspiring colonies that want to build a 'natural' fortress that has no reliance on surface resources.

You can readily farm, grow wood and perform pretty much all the tasks that you use the surface for in caverns. The trick of course is the beasties that live there.

I'm not clear on how difficult it is to clear the early caverns, or if there is any way to ensure that they STAY clear. But with clever fortification construction, you can certainly devise ways to give even an inexperienced military a big upper hand (and lots of low risk combat training) as long as there isn't anything too terrifying in your upper caverns.

For example, with proper preparations you can punch into a cavern from midway up a side wall and build a fortified crossbowman's turret quite swiftly to use for easy X-bow practice, among many many other techniques. The fact that caverns often have considerable Z-height should be used to your advantage.

[Shoku]

Based on what I've read there's some way to get it to shoot webs through fortifications while it has doors on both sides. Most people would stick two doors at the ends of fortifications and then unlock one for a few turns before locking it and locking the other  to make the spider run back and forth webbing a kitten. (Maybe they had pressure plates doing something there?)

Up on the surface you get a couple of animals that show up off the edge of the map. Maybe a pack of wolves or some giant eagle and probably some small thing as the same time like hoary marmots. If you obliterate a group another one comes in from the edge of the map. The caverns work the same way. If you have a troll that will take up space until it leaves or you kill it. Some pack of smaller things will probably show up eventually an interrupt everyone like above ground bastard animals do. Mostly the place is not crowded though so unless you get close enough that a troll is going chase you you're pretty safe, though they do tend to eventually wander through your camp.

Most of the "wild animals" in the caverns can be handled with a drafted woodcutter (maybe no experience? Important part is the axe being equipped for sure,) and he'll only have a small chance of getting significant injuries back. Trolls have some decent danger level but I don't see how they could take on a whole siege. I know of only one really dangerous one that I see semi-often but the description of it makes it clear that it's rather hellish.
...well, I guess that describes what most of the cavern life looks like but you should get a squad a lot like your (but maybe with more vorpal type weapons,) to deal with that one.

Aside from that single one that wrecked twenty untrained dwarves the game will pause and snap your view over to anything actually so dangerous that one axedwarf can't handle it.


There is a bit of an issue with wildlife running away too fast to be caught (make the squad stand down so they go back to civilian work I guess?) and some people have been having trouble with creatures that won't die (with only one body part you can't cleave them in half of lop off any limbs or stab vital organs. Same stand down solution I guess.)

Now, if you find some animalmen you'll probably want a bigger squad to fight them, though I don't know what kind of armor it takes to negate all of their attacks.