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v0.31:Caverns
| This article is about an older version of DF. |
Caverns are huge underground tunnels in the earth. They go up, down, left, right, and about anywhere else. There are usually three cavern levels present on vastly different z-levels, and don't connect under normal circumstances. The cavern closest to the surface usually has few monsters (the occasional giant olm or toad) so it is pretty safe. The subsequent caverns will become increasingly fun, so don't dig too deep without making adequate preperation.
They also reveal metal veins, but finding Template:L is special (read page).
Dangers
There are many, many dangerous Template:Ls in a cavern, including Template:Ls, Template:Ls, Template:Ls, Template:Ls, and others. Also, any cavern of sufficient size will be inhabited by Template:Ls, which can be both benefit and hazard.
When should I start exploring?
Likely the best time is when you get your first migrant wave, and have a military. As you can handle what tries to attack, and you don't have a siege to worry about, earlier is fine, but you will likely get a bunch of dwarves killed.
Not all parts of a cavern are immediately visible; A good portion of a cavern is revealed once you breach it, but other parts remain hidden until your dwarves explore them. Since you often don't know what you'll find in a cavern, they can be exciting places, but also very dangerous. Go in strong or not at all.
Levels
There are three levels of the cavern, meaning each level has a limit to how high and how low they can go, and they cannot expand past it (anything else is not part of it), below it is the Template:L, and everything else you would expect...
Level one: a benign (or as nice as caverns get) level, it has shrubs, Template:L, and Fungi wood, it will very likely have a gigantic pool at the bottom level.
Level two: a level filled with, in addition to the above, Goblin-caps, Spore trees, Black-caps, and Tunnel tubes.
Level three: a level lacking the trees the first level had, while still having those the second introduced, also has, Nether-caps, and Blood thorns.
Special areas
Deep pits: deep pits are... deep pits, they go from one cavern level to the next, and they are a fixed shape, when they hit the next cavern level they end up 'merging' into it (no other way to explain it), and the top z-level, the z-level it hits the next cavern level with, is unmudded rough rock floor where the the normal space of the deep pit and the random rock spires of the cavern collide.