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[zmc]

Hey!
I don't know if this has been discussed before but if it has, it is very difficult to find.

For the next fort, I want savage evil (terrifying) surroundings. The last time I did this, I got run over by undead elephants ten minutes into the game. So now I want "to seal myself off", if that is the right term. Did out a meeting hall and stockpile, get everything inside and then build a wall in front of the entrance.

Is it possible to survive without any contant with the outside world? And what would I want to embark with? I plan to make booze and food from plump helmets, the mud will come from a murky pool that I will afterwards seal with a wall. I assume wood will become a major problem though, I need it for beds.

[TheyTarget]

Embark with lots of wood. Make only what you need. Beds. Use metal to make barrels. Such and such. Break into the caverns. Dig out the soil layers. And grow your own trees. If you have zero interaction. Then you need 7 beds. Cause your getting no new dwarfs. Unless babies. So you wont need wood for awhile. Otherwise. its completely possible to survive, with out any surface interaction.

[EfTwelve]

You could also just lock the doors to your heavily trapped hallway/entrance to get the same effect.

[nbonaparte]

In the current version, you're good as long as you can get to the caverns. Everything you need is down there. muddy ground, water, wood, plants.

[Dariush]

I would say completely walling off is unrational, since it's much better to make an airlock and to let in only migrants. Also I don't get the fuss about the wood - you can easily wall a portion of aboveground for yourself, and there's TONS of wood in caverns, especially in last two layers.

[Yuck]

You will need to bring an anvil. They dont grow in the caverns.

[Lemunde]

For embarking into one of the evil biomes I would say walling yourself in is a very viable tactic.  Remember you don't have to wall yourself in permanently.  I would recommend doing exactly as you said, get everything underground.  Then get a mechanic's workshop going and make traps for a new entrance and set up some kind of gate system.  Stone wall grates work good early on or you can take your time and set up something more complex.  Once you're comfortable that your entrance is sufficiently defended, go ahead and dig out an opening. 

Even after all that I would keep your dwarves excursions on the surface to a minimum.  The entrance in an evil biome should be strictly to allow caravans to come and go and to allow migrants in.  So the gates should be closed the majority of the time.  This is a good strategy for other biomes as well, especially for new players.  The less a new player has to worry about external threats early on, the better.

Since the new version came out I've been doing some variation on walling myself in most of the time.  I also wall off discovered caverns and magma seas as soon as I find them.  I think of all the external areas, the first cavern level is the most tame, so if you need resources you should probably stick to that one. 

Also since I don't like dealing with flooding farms I will usually wall off an area on the surface and put all my farms there.  I send a dwarf out to gather plants and I use the seeds to make wild strawberry and prickleberry farms.  If I manage to get any trade going I also make sunberry and fisherberry and crunchberry farms.  Zero maintenance.  It takes them a little longer to get started as there are fewer seeds but once they do all my food problems take care of themselves.

[Vastin]

As long as you bring a fair amount of wood to start with, you won't have to break into the first cavern for a while - food and drink are definitely the real challenge.

The trick to setting up very early farms is to dig out a fair sized farm space immediately just 1 or 2 z-levels down, and then channel a nearby pond into it first thing (just make sure the space you have dug out is at least 3 times the size of the pond). This is what we call very quick and dirty irrigation.

Now most of your upper fort area should be muddy and suitable for farming. Seal the channel permanently and seal yourself in and once the water evaporates you can continue digging additional rooms and farming normally, which should keep your dwarves alive pretty much indefinitely.

This is overkill of course - a small walled fort on the surface is more than sufficient to keep out the undead hairy marmots and such, and you really only need about 12 squares worth of farming to support a small fortress. Just remember to put a roof on it too, because harpies are kind of annoying.

[zmc]

Okay, it's working fine so far, the dwarves down below are fine. But immigrants keep coming and dieing outside.  It's making me really sad.

[Simmura McCrea]

If you get a migrant wave with a miner + pick, have them dig their own hole. See how many competing mini-fortresses you can make.

[nonobots]

The trick for the immigrant air lock:

outside -> trapped corridor -> "air locked" meeting zone -> sealed corridor -> MAIN FORTRESS

The immigrants will go to the only accessible meeting area and will wait there. When you think it's safe you pull the lever, or unbuild the wall or whatever to let them in.

Trap that corridor HEAVILY. A mix of cage traps and 10 iron serrated disks weapon traps work well. Tie an animal in the
inside part of the corridor to detect thieves and snatcher. They'll run away.

You might have to delete the air locked meeting zone when you open the way to make sure your dwarves don't rush out or the migrants just wait there.

Edit: the air locked area is a nice place to put your trade depot too.

[Dariush]

You might have to delete the air locked meeting zone when you open the way to make sure your dwarves don't rush out or the migrants just wait there.

Why not use a burrow?

[Evergod41]

takes too long...

[jei]

Hey!
I don't know if this has been discussed before but if it has, it is very difficult to find.

For the next fort, I want savage evil (terrifying) surroundings. The last time I did this, I got run over by undead elephants ten minutes into the game. So now I want "to seal myself off", if that is the right term. Did out a meeting hall and stockpile, get everything inside and then build a wall in front of the entrance.

Is it possible to survive without any contant with the outside world? And what would I want to embark with? I plan to make booze and food from plump helmets, the mud will come from a murky pool that I will afterwards seal with a wall. I assume wood will become a major problem though, I need it for beds.

It's doable, even without using the caverns, but one is usually better off, leaving the way open in the long term. For a while it might do good to keep the outside world outside and barricade, once you get a long enough corridor with plenty of cage traps, a bridge or two, a flood gate or two, etc. set up, you may as well let a horde of zombie elephants into the trap chambers to be drowned and their bones used for arrows  Oh, and did I mention a 1 z level up fortification platform to shoot arrows into the flood-chambers? That usually works nicely to welcome any unwelcome guests.

Of course, caves bring in a lot of other kinds of unwelcome guests too. I've had an elven caravan depart through the caves as I walled myself in, but I don't think they arrive through them, Beware of FBs, they come in through the caves and I have most of my caves walled in because of it. Much more dangerous than the outside world or sieges, but they can be handled too..

[Hyndis]

If you embark in an area with undead, not only will the surface creature be undead, but the cavern creatures will be undead as well!

Skeletal cave dragons sure are fun!