Things get "fun" around year 104.

[Onyx Wake]

I've noticed this for every fortress so far.
Weird stuff keeps attacking my dwarves in the field. I have to have constant patrols now.

[Blargg]

invaders are based on fortress wealth/population, so yes, this is normal.

[Onyx Wake]

Didn't know that. Thanks. I thought it was a timed scenario. Not all of my bases were similar.......?

[AlP]

You can look at your difficulty settings. There are wealth/population triggers for things.

Also, visitors spread rumors about your fortress, which attract other things.

[Onyx Wake]

Cool. Thanks.

[zeeb]

Think of it as a living world, because that what it tries to simulate. If your fortress are doing well, others will want that for themselves. So you have to fight for what's yours, just like in real life.

The wealthier you get, the more enemies you get.
The bigger you get, the more threat you pose.

Some may try to stop you, it's your job to make sure they fail.
No reason to feel bad about it, they wouldn't.

Fling them around, drown them, burn them, mutilate them, enslave them or feed them to your carnivorous animals.

They would do the same to you, make sure the history books mentions their annihilation and not yours.

[Onyx Wake]

Beautiful. The game makes you set up a defensive part if you want to survive. Think partitioning part of your populace to only do military things. And equip them well !

[zeeb]

I usually just go viking style and assign all my dwarves to military duty, then I put them on staggered training. Those who dies goes to Valhalla anyway, or the dwarven equivalent to Valhalla at least, where they get to eat, drink, lust and fight to the death every day and be reborn the day after until Ragnarok.

[Sinclair]

Originally posted by Blargg:

invaders are based on fortress wealth/population, so yes, this is normal.

To expand on this, there are certain values of population numbers and generated (not imported) wealth that enable attacks. These values can be found in the detailed Difficulty settings.

Getting attacked is not guaranteed once you reach one of these levels. Rather, what happens is that the AI is no longer forced to ignore your fort when deciding where to strike, or have a monster wander through. Whether or not an attack actually happens depends on how the wider world looks, and what's going on with the various nations/groups.

[Onyx Wake]

Are above ground "events" equal to below ground ? Like if you built your base right at the cavern level ?

[zeeb]

Building your base at cavern layer will most likely lead to a lot of FUN.
Try it out.

I always seal off the caverns when I find them. Once I didn't and my fort got wrecked by a troll, who would've thought these clumsy nasty and evil monsters were natural climbers? Just climbed into my fortress like nobody's business.

[AlP]

Originally posted by Onyx Wake:

Are above ground "events" equal to below ground ? Like if you built your base right at the cavern level ?

The entire embark area is "your base", from the top and all the way down to the magma sea. Everything happens regardless of where you actually build, but some things depend on whether something can path to your things and dwarves.

[kheftel]

I've currently got a cavern level base, and it's quite fun. I get dangerous wildlife and invaders to fight with my dwarves and traps on a regular basis.

[Onyx Wake]

So every increment in FUN is wealth based ? There's no time or population triggers ? Even though I've been playing the same fortress for 2 weeks and the game keeps me at around 100 population regardless of wealth, events and my lack of vigilance. I would REALLY like devs to chime in on these matters because I think some of the old-schoolers might have been playing will false assumptions.

[AlP]

Originally posted by Onyx Wake:

So every increment in FUN is wealth based ? There's no time or population triggers ? Even though I've been playing the same fortress for 2 weeks and the game keeps me at around 100 population regardless of wealth, events and my lack of vigilance. I would REALLY like devs to chime in on these matters because I think some of the old-schoolers might have been playing will false assumptions.

There are both wealth and population triggers. You can see and customize them in your difficulty settings.

[malthenielsen]

Originally posted by Onyx Wake:

So every increment in FUN is wealth based ? There's no time or population triggers ? Even though I've been playing the same fortress for 2 weeks and the game keeps me at around 100 population regardless of wealth, events and my lack of vigilance. I would REALLY like devs to chime in on these matters because I think some of the old-schoolers might have been playing will false assumptions.

I did 3 short forts in Steam and get attack yearly from like month three. Before I even made a tavern :) Apparently that's because I embark close to necromancer towers.

How much you get attacked depend on a lot of things - I think some attacks are hard-coded (I seem to remember you get a werebeast at pop 30 but I am not sure),

It also depends on wealth, proximity to stuff like necro towers and such. If your civ is a war or not, how many werebeasts and vampires are in the world, do you open caverns and let in beasts, do you start trouble yourself by raiding and pillaging. Or Elves attack faster if you start by removing all trees.

It also changes from version to version and idk if Toady always tell us what he does. It might be changed in the Steam-version.