So I started a new fort in that scorching land. Everything is going decently so far, I dug out underground storerooms for all my stuff and moved everyone inside at the first chance. But something seems a little off...
Here is the descrip of my expedition leader.
Udil Fikodarkim has been ecstatic lately. She made a friend recently. She had a fine drink lately. She has complained of the lack of chairs lately. Udil Fikodarkim likes cinnabar, Zinc, Red flash opal, Pig tail Fabric, the color scarlet, hatch covers, bracelets and [U]tentacle daemons for their corrupt intentions.[/U]
Something tells me we might be digging down into hell so she can meet her friends.
1. You needed the pick... they couldn't get it from the body. you could try setting a graveyard up and they will carry the body out if they can... but i just bring a couple extra picks with me anyway.
2) iron chains need metalcrafting skill. but for iron you need blacksmithing. A metalworker should have furnace operator, blacksmithing, metalcrafting on at the very least.
Thanks, I can't wait to get home and try again on my second fortress.
The first one sucked because I tried to build a channel to a brook from clear across the map to get my dwarves some drinking water, but forgot to turn my attention toward food supplies. They even survived winter! Now I know a hell of a lot more.
This game reminds me of SimAnt, especially because of all the burrowing underground.
I've got a question about the military. I've always focused on food production and crafting and never really developed my military very far. Are you better off focusing on one weapon type or diversifying? Also what are the different merits and flaws of each weapon? if they don't use a shield will they hit more/do more damage? What negative effects does heavy armor have if any?
vhzod on
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
edited November 2007
:shock:
I had a rhesus macaque invasion. My axedwarf charged at one, dual-wielded steel battleaxes ready. He hit the damn thing and knocked it !40! squares away.
I had a rhesus macaque invasion. My axedwarf charged at one, dual-wielded steel battleaxes ready. He hit the damn thing and knocked it !40! squares away.
You should try adventure mode sometime. It's probably the most graphically violent roguelike ever made. Especially if you choose to be a lasher, because whips don't do a lot of damage but have a higher chance to maim, so it takes a loooong time to actually kill anything. Limbs flying off, gashing major organs, it's pretty ridiculous, especially when you sneak into a goblin fortress and discover there are so many children it's more like some sort of goblin orphanage.
Someone explain to me how I make a damn lava furnace.
Pick the level you want your furnace on. Carve out the room.
Below that room, dig a tunnel, connect it to the Magma Vent.
In your furnace room, figure out where the dark green part of the Furnace will be (the top middle I believe). Dig a channel there. Then build the furnace over it.
Done.
I usually dig a separate staircase down to the level I'll be moving the magma around on. It's also easier if you can find a level where the lava is wider than it was on the level above it. That way you can tunnel over the vent and use another channel to release the magma, without risking your miner.
MuddBudd on
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Where are my immigrants? 7 Dwarfs does not a fortress make. I have too much work to go around. Its been a whole year now, when are they supposed to show up?
[EDIT] Also, why do all traders starve to death in my depot?
Where are my immigrants? 7 Dwarfs does not a fortress make. I have too much work to go around. Its been a whole year now, when are they supposed to show up?
Have you dug out fancy bedrooms for them? It seemed to work for me - I got 19 in my first wave.
Rhesus Positive on
[Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
I had a rhesus macaque invasion. My axedwarf charged at one, dual-wielded steel battleaxes ready. He hit the damn thing and knocked it !40! squares away.
You should try adventure mode sometime. It's probably the most graphically violent roguelike ever made. Especially if you choose to be a lasher, because whips don't do a lot of damage but have a higher chance to maim, so it takes a loooong time to actually kill anything. Limbs flying off, gashing major organs, it's pretty ridiculous, especially when you sneak into a goblin fortress and discover there are so many children it's more like some sort of goblin orphanage.
Oh, I know. I've played a lot of Adventure Mode. I was just surprised the body flew that far.
Doesn't have to be any particular external square of the furnace either, so long as some of them (one or more, I guess) is over magma.
Also, magma is pretty slow. My miner dug out the wall, left, carried a door from surface to the lava level I was using (10+ levels I guess, plus horizontal movement) and installed it before the magma filled up a 4*8 room. So I'd just risk it, just make sure your dorfs can get the hell out of dodge when they knock down that final wall.
Also, ProTip: Install the doors BEFORE you unleash the magma. That mistake nearly cost me a fortress.
Has anyone really looked into what the composition of the starting level is?
I used to try for rivers, or magma... but the wiki and bay12 forums seem to suggest that if you look for certian starting types of rocks.. you will not be dissapointed.
The combinations I heard were a dark grey stone listed in the upper levels, and a light stone like marble / limestone listed below.. gave you some crazy resources, and you make make all kinds of iron & steel.
I was always going to heavy forest of trees, but this combo leads you to a lot of coal too, so that can fuel your furnace much better..
I wish I could find some way to determine whether an area held anything "interesting" to discover in the depths, so that I know my endgame's not going to be a boring collection of platinum and gold and engravings. I want adamantine! Tentacle demons! Lost souls covered in blood and vomit stumbling towards my elite dwarf troopers!
I just noticed that if your dwarfs often walk over a certain path in the grass, that path will gradually lose grass and become the underlying soil. That's really cool.
Is there any way to increase the priority of a task over another? My mason keeps hauling stuff, when I want him to build. But it's a pain to manually un-select hauling jobs when I want something built, and then re-select them afterwards.
Cannot dig upwards using ramps, only down. Designating and digging a ramp will automatically dig out the floor of the tile above it.
Rather badly worded.
You can only dig upwards using ramps. Digging a ramp automaticall digs out the square above it as a downward ramp. You cannot dig a ramp from above, so you must first reach the square you want to dig an upwards ramp from, for example by digging a set of stairs first.
Ramps are useful for carrying heavy stuff upstairs, which is alot easier through a ramp than a set of stairs (or so I have heard).
Actually... this is all wrong. Yes, you must specify a ramp from below... but there is some other top component that I can't figure out. Try this:
build a 3 wide tunnel on z level 1. At the end of the tunnel, change two of the blocks to upward ramps using (d) --> (r) Upward ramp
You should see the arrows for the up ramp, and on the z level above, see the down slope icon. At this point you can't use the ramps to continue mining on the z level above.
Do the same thing, now use the 3rd tile to make an 'up' staircase on the side, and build the corresponding down staircase above it. You can then dig out around the top ramp... and remove the stairs to be sure you are using the ramp...
I don't believe there is any top component. That is simply the limitation of ramps. You can walk up and down the ramp to get up and down a level, but you can't build or whatnot from the 'top' of the ramp, because the game seems to considers that ramp (and thus anyone standing on the ramp) to only exist at the level it was made on. Or something like that, anyway.
I really need a really simple guide for pumps and power that even a caveman can understand.
Power is generated by windmills and water wheels. Axles and gear assemblies transfer power to things that need it (screw pumps, at this point), but they also consume some power in the process.
Windmills need to be placed somewhere not underground (logically). That is really the only requirement for their use, beyond having other parts for them to connect to. A gear assembly below the center square (a Z-axis level down, in other words) is needed for them to do anything, and you connect your axles to that. They seem to generate either 20 or 40 power, but I'm not sure what causes it. Height, most likely. I'm reasonably certain they can be chained up with axles to generate extra power, but I haven't tested it.
Water wheels go on moving water, like a brook or stream. The most reliable way of getting them to work is to channel the three squares above the water with your miner, and place it there. You change its orientation by pressing (s). From the side of the center square, you can place axles or gear assemblies (definitely on the former, most probably on the latter).
Horizontal axles work on the X- or Y-axis (you can choose the direction by pressing (s) when you're creating it). (u)/(m) extends them vertically, (k)/(h) extends them horizontally, depending on which direction you've chosen.
Vertical axles work on the Z-axis, and need gear assemblies to really do anything, though you could stick a windmill some levels above a screw pump, put your usual gear assembly below it, and a vertical axle straight down to your pump. Obviously, you need to have clear space through the rock for them to be any use.
Gear assemblies are used as joints, so if you need axles to go north and then west, connect them with a gear assembly. Same with moving in three dimensions. They're needed for windmills.
Screw pumps pull water from a level below and to the side of it to their level, and push it out the other side. You'll need to specify the direction of travel with the u/m/k/h keys at creation. The wiki page has examples of how they work.
Gear assemblies are not needed for windmills. They can be hooked up to a lever to stop the system from functioning, though, if you ever need to do that.
Gear assemblies are not needed for windmills. They can be hooked up to a lever to stop the system from functioning, though, if you ever need to do that.
Oh, yeah, forgot the lever part. Tis useful if you're flooding yourself, not that I've ever done that. :oops:
How do you work the windmill without a gear assembly, then? Brief experiments with horizontal axles on the sides didn't work.
I had a rhesus macaque invasion. My axedwarf charged at one, dual-wielded steel battleaxes ready. He hit the damn thing and knocked it !40! squares away.
You should try adventure mode sometime. It's probably the most graphically violent roguelike ever made. Especially if you choose to be a lasher, because whips don't do a lot of damage but have a higher chance to maim, so it takes a loooong time to actually kill anything. Limbs flying off, gashing major organs, it's pretty ridiculous, especially when you sneak into a goblin fortress and discover there are so many children it's more like some sort of goblin orphanage.
They need to make up for their high rate of attrition to adventurers!
Windmills may collapse if they're set up on only a gear assembly and not solid ground, and a lever is used to stop the gear assembly. More to the point, I couldn't power a millstone that was sited one level underground of a functioning windmill - I had to move the millstone one tile to the side and put a gear assembly in the millstone's old spot.
My Liason just became melancholy, but I've got no idea why.
If it takes too long for your Expedition Leader\Mayor to meet with the Liason, he'll become melancholy, or go berserk, or something along those lines.
I read up on this on the official forums, and there's a bug that causes the Liaison to screw up his pathfinding and eventually get into a mood if your leader's (or maybe the broker's, I forget whose job this is) office is more than one floor below the surface, even if you complete the meeting.
Also, I found out that every mountain square on the world map has a hellportal.
There's one pit square in every world map mountain tile. I don't remember if it has to be within one of the mountain squares in the local map.
Orogogus on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited November 2007
OK, this was definitely an odd glitch. As is widely known, sieges are glitchy and effectively non-working at this point. I was being "sieged" by 20-odd goblins, but they literally just stood where they appeared on the map, doing nothing. So, I decided to dig beneath them, then pop out from underground and attack (they had a ton of crossbowgoblins, so I wanted to get in close fast). Anyway, the last time I loaded up a save, they were just... gone. The siege was over, the goblins were gone, and my digging tactic (which were so close to being ready since I just needed to make some armor to be ready) was totally in vain.
Weird.
On the upside, I hit a huge bituminous coal vein on the way, which is nice since I don't have lava on my map.
OK, this was definitely an odd glitch. As is widely known, sieges are glitchy and effectively non-working at this point. I was being "sieged" by 20-odd goblins, but they literally just stood where they appeared on the map, doing nothing. So, I decided to dig beneath them, then pop out from underground and attack (they had a ton of crossbowgoblins, so I wanted to get in close fast). Anyway, the last time I loaded up a save, they were just... gone. The siege was over, the goblins were gone, and my digging tactic (which were so close to being ready since I just needed to make some armor to be ready) was totally in vain.
Weird.
On the upside, I hit a huge bituminous coal vein on the way, which is nice since I don't have lava on my map.
Would you go so far as to say your efforts were in vein?
Considering the massive bugs present with wells, invasions, and trade liaisons, I'm thinking I may just put off any attempt to build a serious fortress until the next patch. That, or give the 2d version a try since I've never played it.
Ok so apparently one of my dwarves thought dropping 2 wolf corpses and an injured dwarf on my stairs was a great idea. now no one can get out or get water and my fortress is slowly filling with lovely purple stink.
My Liason just became melancholy, but I've got no idea why.
Has he been unable to conduct a meeting? If a liason can't meet with whoever's in charge, he'll slowly grow more and more depressed until he snaps and tries to kill himself/every other dwarf in your fortress.
My Liason just became melancholy, but I've got no idea why.
Has he been unable to conduct a meeting? If a liason can't meet with whoever's in charge, he'll slowly grow more and more depressed until he snaps and tries to kill himself/every other dwarf in your fortress.
He met with my leader fine, said he would go back to the homeland and ask for stuff, etc. Next thing I knew, he was just wandering around in the meeting hall.
Janin on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited November 2007
First off, the best artifact item I've had dwarf forge:
Seriously, an iron sword with silver studs, wolf bone decorations, and iron rings? It's like Conan (the Barbarian) walked into the workshop and ordered a sword made to his specifications. Isn't there a glitch that makes it so dwarves can't use artifact armor/weapons, though?
I just noticed that if your dwarfs often walk over a certain path in the grass, that path will gradually lose grass and become the underlying soil. That's really cool.
Is there any way to increase the priority of a task over another? My mason keeps hauling stuff, when I want him to build. But it's a pain to manually un-select hauling jobs when I want something built, and then re-select them afterwards.
You can set priorities and things by going to the 'u'nit menu then to the 'm'anager menu. Not sure how effective it is, as I've personally never done much with it.
My usual solution is just to turn off hauling jobs for important folks, except food hauling, maybe furniture. That means I generally just have a craftdwarf that hauls anything until I start getting immigrants, but it never struck me as particularly important to have guys moving stuff everywhere in the early going.
Frosteey on
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
edited November 2007
So...my newest fortress has a non-frozen river, no trees (I can live with that) and a great location with Untamed Wilds. Building away with my dwarven castle and doing amazingly great. Then I get the bright idea of "Hey, I don't like my guys fishing outside, I'll just mine to the underground river and have them fish indoors?" This superb thought process led to the following:'
* Place two wall tiles bordering a middle door tile so I can lock it in case of river monsters.
* Dig one square ahead again to get just 1 square from the river. Note I am mining in loaming sand.
* Wonder why I can't remove the door and the water pushed closer to the door. Think nothing of it.
* Remove the two walls leaving just a door on one side, and the river pushing against the door on the other.
* Mine out the 1 wall tile between my fortress and the river so as to bypass the aforementioned door problem I ignored.
* Look on to see water pouring into my fortress bottom floor (which contains all the food, lodgings, and dining room, naturally) and not stopping. Now realized that maybe mechanics of underground working on rivers are changed in the 3D version.
* Watch my fortress drown and kill all my dwarves and forever flooding my fortress.
...Well...looks like a new fortress attempt is in my future!
Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
edited November 2007
What the hell? Why won't my butcher go butcher the corpses of the macaques we just slaughtered? I have all the possible tasks I could see being related turned on, but he sits there with No Job. If I activate mining on him, he goes right to mining.
Edit: Oh, duh. Someone mined out the ramp out. Oops.
Actually... this is all wrong. Yes, you must specify a ramp from below... but there is some other top component that I can't figure out.
Okay, each tile has a middle, a ceiling and a floor.
A ramp will dig out the middle and ceiling of the tile designated, as well as the floor of the tile directly above. Thus, there is no need to designate the tile directly above the ramp, ramps automatically include the floor of the tile above.
So, on flat ground, you can go down one z-level, and your dwarves will automatically move to where you've designated (even though it's been designated under you) and dig a ramp down.
The reverse of this is that ramps cannot be used to dig upwards. Designating ramps on your own level does not allow you to use them unless the middle of the area above is already mined out. Ramps only remove the floor, preventing your dwarves from reaching the level above with ramps alone.
At least, that's the best way of thinking about it.
So I decided to start a new fortress (since I left my current developing one at work) and picked a nice looking area, completely forgetting the whole "untamed wilds" "haunted" thing.
I start, and the FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT is "An ambush! Drive them out!". I'm surrounded by trolls, iron men, ratmen, cave swallowmen, and... a GIANT CAVE SPIDER.
The two miner/wrestler dwarves I brought immediately proceed to beat the tar out of the majority of them, only for, in the last moments, the giant cave spider to jump into the fight and devour everyone.
So much for that expedition. I wonder if the dwarven high council would hold that against you? :O
Alright so the blinky Fire man who has ben menacing my fortress and earned 2 names emerged for the 3rd time rampagin across the country and brining his kill total to 15. He happened across a hunter immigrant who had just arrived. now he had already killed 3 other hunters but this particular hunter wasn't having any so he shot a single bolt at the fire man obliterating his body and leaving only his head behind in a pile of smoke and ash. one of my woodworkers was so inspired he made this a couple days later.
This is why I love this game. The only way it could be better if he included an image of a dwarf hugging the fire man and screaming.
Posts
Here is the descrip of my expedition leader.
Something tells me we might be digging down into hell so she can meet her friends.
The first one sucked because I tried to build a channel to a brook from clear across the map to get my dwarves some drinking water, but forgot to turn my attention toward food supplies. They even survived winter! Now I know a hell of a lot more.
This game reminds me of SimAnt, especially because of all the burrowing underground.
I had a rhesus macaque invasion. My axedwarf charged at one, dual-wielded steel battleaxes ready. He hit the damn thing and knocked it !40! squares away.
You should try adventure mode sometime. It's probably the most graphically violent roguelike ever made. Especially if you choose to be a lasher, because whips don't do a lot of damage but have a higher chance to maim, so it takes a loooong time to actually kill anything. Limbs flying off, gashing major organs, it's pretty ridiculous, especially when you sneak into a goblin fortress and discover there are so many children it's more like some sort of goblin orphanage.
Pick the level you want your furnace on. Carve out the room.
Below that room, dig a tunnel, connect it to the Magma Vent.
In your furnace room, figure out where the dark green part of the Furnace will be (the top middle I believe). Dig a channel there. Then build the furnace over it.
Done.
I usually dig a separate staircase down to the level I'll be moving the magma around on. It's also easier if you can find a level where the lava is wider than it was on the level above it. That way you can tunnel over the vent and use another channel to release the magma, without risking your miner.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
[EDIT] Also, why do all traders starve to death in my depot?
Have you dug out fancy bedrooms for them? It seemed to work for me - I got 19 in my first wave.
Oh, I know. I've played a lot of Adventure Mode. I was just surprised the body flew that far.
Also, magma is pretty slow. My miner dug out the wall, left, carried a door from surface to the lava level I was using (10+ levels I guess, plus horizontal movement) and installed it before the magma filled up a 4*8 room. So I'd just risk it, just make sure your dorfs can get the hell out of dodge when they knock down that final wall.
Also, ProTip: Install the doors BEFORE you unleash the magma. That mistake nearly cost me a fortress.
I used to try for rivers, or magma... but the wiki and bay12 forums seem to suggest that if you look for certian starting types of rocks.. you will not be dissapointed.
The combinations I heard were a dark grey stone listed in the upper levels, and a light stone like marble / limestone listed below.. gave you some crazy resources, and you make make all kinds of iron & steel.
I was always going to heavy forest of trees, but this combo leads you to a lot of coal too, so that can fuel your furnace much better..
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
Mrah.
Is there any way to increase the priority of a task over another? My mason keeps hauling stuff, when I want him to build. But it's a pain to manually un-select hauling jobs when I want something built, and then re-select them afterwards.
Power is generated by windmills and water wheels. Axles and gear assemblies transfer power to things that need it (screw pumps, at this point), but they also consume some power in the process.
Windmills need to be placed somewhere not underground (logically). That is really the only requirement for their use, beyond having other parts for them to connect to. A gear assembly below the center square (a Z-axis level down, in other words) is needed for them to do anything, and you connect your axles to that. They seem to generate either 20 or 40 power, but I'm not sure what causes it. Height, most likely. I'm reasonably certain they can be chained up with axles to generate extra power, but I haven't tested it.
Water wheels go on moving water, like a brook or stream. The most reliable way of getting them to work is to channel the three squares above the water with your miner, and place it there. You change its orientation by pressing (s). From the side of the center square, you can place axles or gear assemblies (definitely on the former, most probably on the latter).
Horizontal axles work on the X- or Y-axis (you can choose the direction by pressing (s) when you're creating it). (u)/(m) extends them vertically, (k)/(h) extends them horizontally, depending on which direction you've chosen.
Vertical axles work on the Z-axis, and need gear assemblies to really do anything, though you could stick a windmill some levels above a screw pump, put your usual gear assembly below it, and a vertical axle straight down to your pump. Obviously, you need to have clear space through the rock for them to be any use.
Gear assemblies are used as joints, so if you need axles to go north and then west, connect them with a gear assembly. Same with moving in three dimensions. They're needed for windmills.
Screw pumps pull water from a level below and to the side of it to their level, and push it out the other side. You'll need to specify the direction of travel with the u/m/k/h keys at creation. The wiki page has examples of how they work.
That's all I can think of.
Oh, yeah, forgot the lever part. Tis useful if you're flooding yourself, not that I've ever done that. :oops:
How do you work the windmill without a gear assembly, then? Brief experiments with horizontal axles on the sides didn't work.
They need to make up for their high rate of attrition to adventurers!
Windmills may collapse if they're set up on only a gear assembly and not solid ground, and a lever is used to stop the gear assembly. More to the point, I couldn't power a millstone that was sited one level underground of a functioning windmill - I had to move the millstone one tile to the side and put a gear assembly in the millstone's old spot.
I read up on this on the official forums, and there's a bug that causes the Liaison to screw up his pathfinding and eventually get into a mood if your leader's (or maybe the broker's, I forget whose job this is) office is more than one floor below the surface, even if you complete the meeting.
Also, I found out that every mountain square on the world map has a hellportal.
http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=001176
Weird.
On the upside, I hit a huge bituminous coal vein on the way, which is nice since I don't have lava on my map.
Would you go so far as to say your efforts were in vein?
Edit:
Has he been unable to conduct a meeting? If a liason can't meet with whoever's in charge, he'll slowly grow more and more depressed until he snaps and tries to kill himself/every other dwarf in your fortress.
He met with my leader fine, said he would go back to the homeland and ask for stuff, etc. Next thing I knew, he was just wandering around in the meeting hall.
Seriously, an iron sword with silver studs, wolf bone decorations, and iron rings? It's like Conan (the Barbarian) walked into the workshop and ordered a sword made to his specifications. Isn't there a glitch that makes it so dwarves can't use artifact armor/weapons, though?
Second, that is the worst* pun ever.
*best
You can set priorities and things by going to the 'u'nit menu then to the 'm'anager menu. Not sure how effective it is, as I've personally never done much with it.
My usual solution is just to turn off hauling jobs for important folks, except food hauling, maybe furniture. That means I generally just have a craftdwarf that hauls anything until I start getting immigrants, but it never struck me as particularly important to have guys moving stuff everywhere in the early going.
* Place two wall tiles bordering a middle door tile so I can lock it in case of river monsters.
* Dig one square ahead again to get just 1 square from the river. Note I am mining in loaming sand.
* Wonder why I can't remove the door and the water pushed closer to the door. Think nothing of it.
* Remove the two walls leaving just a door on one side, and the river pushing against the door on the other.
* Mine out the 1 wall tile between my fortress and the river so as to bypass the aforementioned door problem I ignored.
* Look on to see water pouring into my fortress bottom floor (which contains all the food, lodgings, and dining room, naturally) and not stopping. Now realized that maybe mechanics of underground working on rivers are changed in the 3D version.
* Watch my fortress drown and kill all my dwarves and forever flooding my fortress.
...Well...looks like a new fortress attempt is in my future!
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Edit: Oh, duh. Someone mined out the ramp out. Oops.
Okay, each tile has a middle, a ceiling and a floor.
A ramp will dig out the middle and ceiling of the tile designated, as well as the floor of the tile directly above. Thus, there is no need to designate the tile directly above the ramp, ramps automatically include the floor of the tile above.
So, on flat ground, you can go down one z-level, and your dwarves will automatically move to where you've designated (even though it's been designated under you) and dig a ramp down.
The reverse of this is that ramps cannot be used to dig upwards. Designating ramps on your own level does not allow you to use them unless the middle of the area above is already mined out. Ramps only remove the floor, preventing your dwarves from reaching the level above with ramps alone.
At least, that's the best way of thinking about it.
An Example:
Results in:
I start, and the FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT is "An ambush! Drive them out!". I'm surrounded by trolls, iron men, ratmen, cave swallowmen, and... a GIANT CAVE SPIDER.
The two miner/wrestler dwarves I brought immediately proceed to beat the tar out of the majority of them, only for, in the last moments, the giant cave spider to jump into the fight and devour everyone.
So much for that expedition. I wonder if the dwarven high council would hold that against you? :O
This is why I love this game. The only way it could be better if he included an image of a dwarf hugging the fire man and screaming.