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[accoro]

I feel like I'm cheating a bit.

Magma pipe and an abundance of tetrahedrite in the first cavern level

[thegoatgod_pan]

I know how you feel--first embark since .25 where I have flux and hematite, I'm keeping the no magma sea part of the challenge though--wood burning for steel only!

[franti]

I feel like I'm cheating a bit.

Magma pipe and an abundance of tetrahedrite in the first cavern level

Happened to me, but I was in the 2nd so it balanced out.
Tons of nickel, zinc, and native copper. All my furniture was Brass and a weaponsmith made me a Brass Spear. Pretty damn good.
Unfortunately, a Miner went into a mood, wanted PLANT cloth, didn't get it, and killed ~6 people, causing a tantrum spiral.

[franti]

Third cavern is dead and lifeless, except the many bloodthorns that grow there.  Here I will gather wood for beds

Give those woodcutters some armour: the 3rd cavern is no place for smiling.

Update:
1st Atempt - Death by Giant Cave Croc
2nd Atempt - Immediate death by Ant Men
3rd Atempt - Didn't bring enough Plump Helmet Spawn. Slow death by starvation.
4th Atempt - Failed Strange Mood rampage, tantrum spiral
5th Atempt - The best surface map I've ever had. River, waterfall, Flux, fuel, no aquifier. I'm keeping it for later, and I'll be trying another cavern game shortly.

Some more advice:
0 = Wall
F = Fortification
+ = Floor
~ = Cavern

~~~F+0++0
~~~F+0++0
~~~F+0++0
~~~F+0++0
~~~F+0++0
~~~F+0++0

For main passages: Restrict the Fortification hallway, and make the normal one a "high travel" zone so that dwarves will always take the route that won't cause them to see animals and get spooked, and therefore stop their task. Use the fortification hallways to move your Marksdwarves into advantageous positions.
For ranger-only passages: Make ONLY Fortification hallways, and possibly replace the fortifications with walls in places you don't want the cavern denizens to see your dwarves. This is the dwarven equivalent of hiding in the trees.

Makes flanking and shooting down baddies easier.

[UristMcHuman]

Update: I just hit the first cavern layer, found plenty of open space, but didn't find any water right off the bat. I'll have to set up my base camp and farming operations ASAP.

[franti]

Update: I just hit the first cavern layer, found plenty of open space, but didn't find any water right off the bat. I'll have to set up my base camp and farming operations ASAP.

Happened to me. I dug down to level two, and found water and magma.

[Lectorog]

I'm trying this. Just sort of went for it. Took my standard embark crew, including one hammerdwarf, went down into the caverns, and set up. There's not much smooth surface area in my caverns, and the biggest flat area only has two z-levels to work with. I'll cope.

Dug some stores into the wall. All the food has been moved down. I dug out small rooms for my dwarves on the second level - I thought it would be cool if they had elevated holes to live in. I was right.

Farms, workshops, and meeting areas are out in the open. I have yet to see anything dangerous in the season they've been down there (except one giant olm elsewhere), so it should be alright for now.

I also accidentally took 2 cats and 2 dogs with me. I locked them, and the 2 horses I got, in a carved-out pillar.

[UristMcHuman]

I intentionally brought two dogs and cats with me, with the cats going to be assigned a pen in my food stores and my dogs I would have bred for war and emergency meat, had that alligator not killed them. My cats survived, though, so I have a cavern rover. I'm moving my dwarves downstairs into the cavern, and am going to wait (im)patiently for cave vegetation to grow.

That gator also killed one of my future guardsdwarves. Dammit, now I KNOW I have to move underground.

Another question: Is it OK if I make use of JUST the very first Dwarven Caravan?

[Tryble]

I'm sure the information found in this thread might be of interest to the others going for this challenge.  It's data on how the 'Openness' and 'Passage Density' values in advanced world gen affect cavern layout.

Anyhow, I think I'll give this challenge a go.  Gonna go a bit more lax on the rules, though; I'm crazy paranoid of the caverns and have never so much as set foot in one without sealing it off ASAP.  This'll be my first major foray into the depths of the unknown.

[Lexx]

I'm sure the information found in this thread might be of interest to the others going for this challenge.  It's data on how the 'Openness' and 'Passage Density' values in advanced world gen affect cavern layout.

Anyhow, I think I'll give this challenge a go.  Gonna go a bit more lax on the rules, though; I'm crazy paranoid of the caverns and have never so much as set foot in one without sealing it off ASAP.  This'll be my first major foray into the depths of the unknown.

If you have 1 military dwarf starting out you can handle nearly everything the caves throw at you in the first year.

[franti]

Another question: Is it OK if I make use of JUST the very first Dwarven Caravan?

Yup. It's fine. You may want to breach the other two so the trees will spread, though.

[franti]

So, I've been playing awhile, and I've decided I'm making it too easy: bringing too many resources.
I decided I'd bring this, and only this: 4 Picks, 1 Axe, 1 Anvil, 80 Drink (20 each), 80 food, 2 Charcoal.
I'm also bringing some Swardsdwarves so I can get my farms up earlier: I'm paranoid about losing dwarves.

And, on another note, does anybody know which is more dangerous, A Giant Bat, Giant Toad, or Giant Olm?
Also, what's a good cage trap setup.

[franti]

I'm trying this. Just sort of went for it. Took my standard embark crew, including one hammerdwarf, went down into the caverns, and set up. There's not much smooth surface area in my caverns, and the biggest flat area only has two z-levels to work with. I'll cope.

Dug some stores into the wall. All the food has been moved down. I dug out small rooms for my dwarves on the second level - I thought it would be cool if they had elevated holes to live in. I was right.

Farms, workshops, and meeting areas are out in the open. I have yet to see anything dangerous in the season they've been down there (except one giant olm elsewhere), so it should be alright for now.

I also accidentally took 2 cats and 2 dogs with me. I locked them, and the 2 horses I got, in a carved-out pillar.

Butcher the cats and horses for meat, skin, and bones. I think it's ok to take dogs because they're part of your military/hunting program. Although, you would get bonus points for modding Giant Mole Dogs to be trainable into war and hunting creatures, and then capturing them and breeding them like dogs.

[thegoatgod_pan]

At this point Twistedtowns has a legendary dining room with five story high engraved ceilings (I engraved the walls, then removed the floors), a vast array of captured cavern life including a named giant cave spider, who devoured a yak bull and a miner.  I managed to get a statue of it killing the miner.  It stands by his little tomb, carved into a large stalagmite. Other pets include numerous giant rats, and antler birds (is that what they are called?) plump helmet men, and even an odd batch of badgermen than ran down from the surface when I forgot to seal a hatch.  Their curiosity got the best of them there.

For some reason I started a cloth industry.  Seeing as how I haven't built a trade depot and likely won't, don't know why. Would it be acceptable to use it to give gifts and eventually attract the king--he seems kinda cool king/sworddwarf.  I imagine he'd actually be a fun noble to have around and give an adamantine blade.

Current plans include:

Deep Road--huge carving out of a cavern and filling it with roads to attract king

Steel industry--I have iron and flux but not enough labor

Bedrooms--self explanatory

Military--Not enough people to work and train

At this point I am defended by little other than cage traps and a miner militia a F.B. could cut through me like a hot knife through butter, esp. with deadly dust.

*Edit--first one just came, it shoud've been a push-over: "Reci Mongrelbottom: A great blob composed of snow.  It has a broad shell and it squirms and fidgets. Beware its poisonous sting.

First wrestler on the scene punches that shell right off!  However then Reci stings him.  Several times. Injecting extract. Hmm... Captain comes and bashes the stinger off with her mace. Losing the sting only makes it worse.  It immediately "pushes" the wrestler several times shattering the spine and the skull, along with the brain. The commander is next.  She dies quick.  It has three body parts: shell, stinger body.  The shell and stinger are gone.  The devil do I do about the body?

Miner recruit got it.  It killed 7. I'm down to 10 dwarves.  Let's see if the miners tantrum or go berserk. A lot of them got married.

Edit: all dead, year 2, crushed by cave ogre named Stokerampage the Worry of Shocking.  One survivor is the expedition leader.  A craven, if a cripple.  With both arms disabled by a beakbird, Kadol, for that is her name, sent the medical dwarf to die, along with her newborn, while mysteriously not joining the fight.  Perhaps because she is trying to equip herself with no functional arms. Hmm. Oh well, this can't end well

*Edit nor did it, the craven , who "felt fine today", got herself beaten to death by a mitten (with a blind cave ogre on the end of said mitten)

[Crustypeanut]

I'll be attempting this challenge as well, with some minor modifications.  Excluding the initial 7, I will be putting 2-4 dwarves down in the caves to survive on their own, while the rest stay in the fort proper defending against the beasties of the Fort Defense mod.  Both teams will be completely sealed from each other of course.  And I won't be restricting myself when it comes to the magma sea.. for either team. 

Pop cap is at 30, with babies/children allowed up to 100% of the adult population.  Weather and Aquifers are off, and the Fort I've just started supposedly has flux, shallow, and deep metals. 

Oh, and I won't be entirely limiting myself to underground materials, except for after those who are sealed off down there.