Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Alkyon]

I've been fiddling around with trying to create a completely underground fort as of late, and lately I've been looking at underground tunnels (underground roads that link dwarf cities through mountain ranges).  From what I can tell, if you build a trade depot on these, you can actually get trade and everything without a link to the aboveground on your fortress's map.  They also tend to reveal much of the first cavern level as they pass in and out of it.  Anyways, I'm looking for a new site since the last awesome one I found (a magma vent that opened into the first cavern next to the tunnel) was a bit uncolonizable (I'm running Sarvesh Mossbeard's Underdark mod, and my dwarfs found a drow swordsmaster with an adamantium sword while trying to settle in the first cavern.  My militia of two miners and and two woodcutters turned axemen was slaughtered).  Eventually I came across this:



Apparently, this underground road traveled through an underground lake, causing it to spill over.  I'm going to watch this for now, as some of the water seems to be freezing as it splashes onto the road, but I thought I'd share this.  I love how the world freezes in a sort of perfect equilibrium until seven settler dwarfs arrive.

[TheSummoner]

Urist McArchitect is a dwarf with a mission! Building the underground roads that will connect fortresses... These are his stories!

3rd Obsidian, 1049

Urist McArchitect: Ok lads, look at the plans nice and long and start digging... right here.
Urist McMiner: Eh, you sure? Looks like the plans pass right through this lake right here...
Urist McArchitect: Don't worry about it, it'll be fine.

[Misterstone]

So you can build a depot in an underground tunnel and dwarven traders will show up?  That's pretty cool; I don't think that this info is in the wiki, you might want to add it.

[Uthric]

so that come by underground roads now?

[Alkyon]

So you can build a depot in an underground tunnel and dwarven traders will show up?  That's pretty cool; I don't think that this info is in the wiki, you might want to add it.

I would, but I actually haven't 100% confirmed it, I lose too many fortresses too fast due to version changes, boredom, and getting the unlucky cave full of something that eats too many of my dwarfs, or eats one when I'm not looking (I don't mind losing a starting dwarf of three to honorable combat, but losing even my manager to a cave crocodile when I wasn't looking pisses me off so bad I have to quit).  What I do know is that creating a Depot with access to a tunnel road shows the green "Wagon can travel here" designation.  I'm 95% sure this means the fort can be traded with through the road, but I don't want to post until I'm 100% sure.  I haven't played any more of that one map because I'm thinking of finding somewhere a bit less damp to work.  Though, I have noticed that where the ice blocks are present, the game is actually displaying that the area is "light" and "above ground".  So those areas displayed that have tiled floors might make good vomitoriums or glitch-tastic subterranean greenhouses for above ground plants if you rip up the floor tiles and muddy the ground.

so that come by underground roads now?

Um, I don't quite get what you're saying, so I'm just gonna explain how to find these underground tunnels.  First you need a world with a decent history (I usually stop about 750 just to give my processor a break), and with a decent sized dwarf civ.  Start hunting on the map tiles with Dwarf Cities on them, if you're lucky you should see a dark, black path.  These paths are thicker than the roads and only show up on the map picture with the highest zoom in the site finder (the left window I believe).  Once you manage to find these roads, the hardest part is to find a good embark site.  You either need a utility that lets you embark anywhere (dunno if there's a version for DF 31.xx), or a lucky patch that passes near the edge of the mountain ranges.

Also, I personally do not understand why we can't embark on mountain tiles in DF 31.xx.  In the old versions, yes it made sense because there was little to no food to be found underground unless you were lucky/experience.  In this version, there's caves full of food everywhere, so why can't I force my seven dwarfs to haul their wagon up the spine of my current world?

[Dorf3000]

Roads (especially underground roads) are still really badly bugged.  You'll get bridges over nothing that end in open space, roads crossing murky pools have a bridge but the land underneath is filled in, and diagonal bridges look like they were designed by a blind dwarf who had too many barrels of Sewer Brew.  This is the first time I've seen one go through a lake though.  Usually the road travels one or two layers above the cavern floor and rises and falls with the land.

You can get UG roads between goblin fortresses too, although they don't actually connect up any more with the fortress basement.

[Alkyon]

Roads (especially underground roads) are still really badly bugged.  You'll get bridges over nothing that end in open space, roads crossing murky pools have a bridge but the land underneath is filled in, and diagonal bridges look like they were designed by a blind dwarf who had too many barrels of Sewer Brew.  This is the first time I've seen one go through a lake though.  Usually the road travels one or two layers above the cavern floor and rises and falls with the land.

You can get UG roads between goblin fortresses too, although they don't actually connect up any more with the fortress basement.

I've been looking around on this world and I've bumped into two more locations on this underground road grid that had flooded road segments.  Also, yea, the diagonal "bridges" quickly become "WTF?" material.  The horizontal ones, however, are just fine, though now that I've been looking, any road segment with constructed floors and an open area above it seems to be well lit and "above ground".  Also, the roads tend to stay within a certain range of depth beneath the surface, as tunnels in the mountains can be far above the caverns, while tunnels in the lowlands can dip below the caverns a bit.

Also, I did some research, and I can say from my own experience that the old "embark anywhere" tool for 28.40d still works for DF 31.10, though it does complain about the version you're using.

[TheSummoner]

On the subject of merchants and the underground...

I just got a dwarven caravan.  Shortly after, my sentries spotted an ambush force so I locked my doors.  I had forgotten to unlock my doors when the merchants left, and they started moving deeper into my fortress.  Curious, I watched them go along their way.  They left off the edge of the map underground and did not reveal any of the unexplored cavern as they went.

[Eric Blank]

On the subject of merchants and the underground...

I just got a dwarven caravan.  Shortly after, my sentries spotted an ambush force so I locked my doors.  I had forgotten to unlock my doors when the merchants left, and they started moving deeper into my fortress.  Curious, I watched them go along their way.  They left off the edge of the map underground and did not reveal any of the unexplored cavern as they went.

foreigners, including merchants, diplomats, invaders of all kinds, and untamed animals, will gladly leave by way of the underground if there's no surface access. They may also leave by the underground if the route is shorter, but I never really make my fortress deep or leave any form of cavern access except for a drawbridge specifically for merchant's to leave by during sieges, so i don't know that for sure.

[Alkyon]

Well, I thought I'd test my hypothesis that you could make a completely underground fort on a tunnel and still enjoy trading and migrants.  Turns out I was wrong.  Despite the fact that my dorfs sealed themselves in, and my subterranean depot shows that it's a valid spot, both the latest migrant wave and caravan appeared above ground.  I guess it's currently hard-coded that visitors have to come from above ground.

[Altaree]

Well, I thought I'd test my hypothesis that you could make a completely underground fort on a tunnel and still enjoy trading and migrants.  Turns out I was wrong.  Despite the fact that my dorfs sealed themselves in, and my subterranean depot shows that it's a valid spot, both the latest migrant wave and caravan appeared above ground.  I guess it's currently hard-coded that visitors have to come from above ground.

Sounds like this should be a bug to me.  Allowing merchants and migrants to show up underground would make players have an underground entrance to their fort that HAS to be opened instead of sealed off.

[Scaraban]

he's sayin not tht they always would or even most of the time, but if uv got a dwarf road thru ur fort i fully expect sum dwarven caravans at least 2 use it!

[Hokan]

Migrants are a different matter, but caravans tend to take the shortest, pathable distance to your depot. If there is no top access, then the underground would be the only way to get to the depot.

[Sphalerite]

Caravans will only appear on parts of the map which the civilization which is sending the caravan can reach.  Usually this is not an issue as the entire edge of the map is reachable by most civilizations, but if your map has a river or other travel-blocking obstacle cutting across it caravans may only appear on one side of the map.  The trade depot accessibility screen does not respect this and can claim that traders can reach your depot when they can't.  At the moment the underground tunnels aren't considered to grant access to dwarven caravans, even though they should.