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[thegoatgod_pan]

Many people seem to habitually wall-off their caverns.  Why?  A safe fort makes Jack a dull boy!  And all the cool creatures are down there, and Forgotten beasts are sweet!  I have half my forts stage their meeting area in the middle of the caverns. Granted, they don't often last very long, but if they do, the inevitable plague/tantrum makes for a more emotionally stable (read: traumatized) populace.  Who else has happy memories from an executive decision not to wall off, but to inhabit embrace and probably lose a few limbs or an organ or two to the Rot.

[Lagslayer]

Charging head-first into almost certain death is very dwarfy, but having to deal with that lowers you capacity to complete megaprojects as well.

[Girlinhat]

It's all about priorities.  I've enjoyed caverns before, especially setting up small base camps where booze is dumped from the fort above, to the workers who hide behind flimsy wooden walls made of local flora.  A few experiences axers patrol the area while the workers venture out to gather webs and wood.  The gates open once a season, allowing the cavern-created goods to be shipped up to the fortress proper and restock any lost dwarves.  It makes a fantastic training area for medium-level recruits, who have to deal with cave-creatures frequently and train up their weapon and shield skills.

At other times, I prefer to drill down to the magma and leave the caverns for later.  After all, there's plenty above-ground that's interesting as well!

[Gergination]

I'd just rather not get my fortress slaughtered within the first two years.  Once I get a decent military built up, I fully intend to open them up and inhabit them.

[UristMcDwarf]

It may not be very dwarfy, but it's more dwarfy than being dead.

[Girlinhat]

Depends who you ask.  Dead is considered very dwarfy.

[Minnakht]

I only wall off my caverns because I don't know how do I use military yet. It's complicated even for DF standards.

Although I guess I could line a corridor with traps, then open it for the caverns... I mean, I heard that lots of repeating menacing spikes work even against clowns.

[Girlinhat]

If you've got clowns, you've got cotton candy, and you know how clowns LOVE that stuff!

Once you get a handle in the military interface, it's pretty badass.

[UristMcDwarf]

I only wall off my caverns because I don't know how do I use military yet. It's complicated even for DF standards.

Although I guess I could line a corridor with traps, then open it for the caverns... I mean, I heard that lots of repeating menacing spikes work even against clowns.

I don't see why people call the military so complicated.

[Girlinhat]

It's one of those things that you get into, and then forget how hard it was to get into.  Managing the schedules, alerts, and uniforms is a headache for anyone new to the idea.  Just stay with it and it'll make a lot more sense.

[malroth]

Survival is undwarvenly as well.

[UristMcDwarf]

If surviving is the point of the game, and surviving is undwarfy...
THE GAME IS UNDORFY

HOW DARE YOU!
HERERY!

[Girlinhat]

At the same time, Losing is Fun.

[UristMcDwarf]

Looks like the Philosipher noble is no longer useless.

[Starver]

I don't generally wall off the caverns.  Once I invariably dig into them from above I them ignore them until I want to exploit them, because generally nothing happen to wander, path-less, into my fort before I've succumbed to some sort of surface invasion.  Meanwhile, I'll have dipped a near-surface well (or ten) into a cavern pool, and may even have extended my living quarters across the upper reaches of a cavern.

(Worst case scenario, I dig down and 'miss' the first cavern, sometimes even the second, and then have to work very carefully to discover where they are after all to avoid creating something like my bedrooms with more than just a 'view' of that part of the underworld.  All because I just happened to drill down through the centre of a rock column.)

Ok, I might break (walkably) into caverns if I'm desperate to get some webs to satisfy a silk-requesting mood.  But I never just 'wall off' the access.  I would put a raising bridge out from part way up a wall into a suitable pillar, then create access to the cave floor from there.  A lot more subtle than 'walling off', as well as being a largely Building Destroyer-proof solution.  And yes, that is a bit of a scaredy-cat approach.  But it's also classic dwarfish engineering.