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[Jelle]

I read up on some stories and general info of the underworld before I started this fortress. I was going to build a fortress inside the caverns, with as minimal protection from the outside as possible. I succeeded quite nicely!

However it didn't just go nicely, it went unhampered and with nearly no single threat. I was expecting to be bumraped by trolls before I could find metal. Constant roaming gangs of trogs prowling the little dwarven children. Forgotten beasts rampaging my little settlement.

What I got was...one roaming group of creeping eyes or whatever they're called. They've stood at one spot for one year now, I'm not sure if they're actually alive. I see three dead forgotten beasts, apparently they never made it near my fort alive. To top things off I found plenty of adamantine to arm my dwarves and deal with great threats, not that there are any so far.

So what's the deal? Where are all those dangerous monsters I heard of? If anything I wanted to find at least a few giant cave spiders draltha and elk birds to domesticate and harvest. After actually going out there and exploring two whole caverns the only noticable thingI found was a blind cave ogre, wich is not something I want tamed...

My fortress is slihgtly beyond it's one year age now, and about to grow large enough to sport a mayor and a strong economy. I've got plenty of luxurious houses and large fields of fertile lands in case I need them. It's prospering to well!

To make it all worse, the n1 threat from aboveground, the goblins, seem to be conquered by a human civilization. So I can't rely on them causing some trouble fun. I want a bloody arena and lots of ferocious cave monsters to figh in it damn it!

So what's up with that? Am I unlucky? Does armok will it to have my dwarves grow soft? It's the damn third cavern layer, the circus is only several z levels beneath me and they live a life of luxury....

The fortress in question can be found in my sig if  you want to have a look around. It's in the south eastern part of the caverns.

[Jelle]

Also, can anyone explain me how this livestock grazing thing works? I've had several tame animals die from starvation, I asume they need a place to graze.

[BishopX]

Assuming you haven't modified the raws... there are three levels of caverns, the most lethal of which is the deepest. Have you breached all of them? I'm also guessing that the creature spawn rates are still tied to the savagery/evil values of you embark site however.

If you don't mind re genning the world, I would suggest disabling the bottom two cavern levels, which makes all of the cavern creatures spawn in the upper most cavern. You might also want to make sure the history is set short, so that the beasts don't have time to die off.

In terms of grazing, the wiki has a really excellent article here:http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Pasture

The tl;dr is that you need to designate a pasture activity zone (preferably with grass in it) for your herbivorous creatures. If they don't eat enough grass they starve to death. You can't get meat from a creature who starved to death.

[Jelle]

I'm currently in cavern 3, I have acces to cavern 2 aswell (since I know some interesting beasties only appear in layer 1 and 2)
The embark is neutral, I did some evil embarks into the caverns before but there weren't any good spots without aquifier.
I haven't actually breached the first so I must've dug next to it on my descent.

[Ferrus]

The really nasty monsters tend to migrate onto the map at random.

You might get lucky and not see a beast for months on end and then BAM giant cave crocodiles everywhere!

Although I have to admit .19 seems to have made the caverns a little more benign in general. I play with a single open cavern and haven't seen as many monsters as in .18 so far, except for the occasional pack of crundles.

[Jelle]

I read through the article on grazing, question relating to domesticated cave creatures though: Do they graze off cave moss? I don't have any grass nearby. Seems natural they'll feed off the stuff in their habitat.

[Ferrus]

Any grazing animal can graze off of cave moss and such. If you have soil dug out regular grass will also start to grow there.

Edit: Whelp, just opened the caverns and 3 blind cave ogres promptly tore my fortress apart.

[Granite26]

The risk reward ratio for caverns is off...  mining is too easy to get much out of free giant open spaces, no matter how rarely giant monsters show up to eat your face off

[Oliolli]

Just wait for those forgotten beasts made out of stone or something else like that...

[Jelle]

Yeah just got a forgotten beast. A quadrup made out of crystal glass.
Easy killing. It did attack a tame lamb before my military got to it though, now the poor lamb has lost all her four hooves.   

[nenjin]

It's all fun and games until you get one with syndrome attacks.

[Proteus]

It's all fun and games until you get one with syndromes attacks.

Yes, they are really interesting...
usually rather easy to kill, even by a hastily assembled civilian squad.

How deadly they are often becomes visible only a short time after the beast is dead,
when dwarves that helped to kill the beast start to rot

[nenjin]

And then everything they've ever known, loved or talked to starts to rot as well.

[Granite26]

I've got an ash beast that I'm rqther disapointed isn't disolving in my flooded caverns.

[greycat]

Grazing is a bit buggy in 0.31.19 but is apparently fixed for .20, whenever that may be.  Smaller animals like sheep seem to be fine.  Larger ones like horses and water buffalo generally starve in a pasture unless you micromanage them.