Dwarf Fortress - Haven't Been Attacked

Okay right, so I'm fairly new to DF but have managed to get a semi-sizeable base up and running with some fortifications and a (I hope) half-decent military. Anyways, we're nearly at the third year and haven't been attacked, raided or besieged and I'm starting to wonder why nothing has come along when I've read that everything is out to kill you! Is there a way to force people to attack you just for the hell of it?

Edit: I just got besieged by goblins, guess they had a bit of a treck and I slaughtered an elven caravan, so lets see what the consequences of that are...

dwarf-fortress

Best Answer

Here's a couple simple things to check:

It is entirely possible that during world gen all other civilizations have died off. If this is the case, you will never get invaded, etc., though you should still come under fire from Mega and Forgotten Beasts. A subset of this case is embarking on an isolated island or continent -- there might be elves or goblins in the world, they just can't reach you. You can check this by viewing the neighbors tab on the embark screen. (Press Tab to change modes)

(If the neighbors tab only has Dwarves, you will never be invaded / receive traders)

You have not met the Wealth Threshold for invasions and/or megabeasts. Just make more stuff, and they will come!
Invaders are turned off in the config. Check "d_init.txt" inside /installation_folder/data/init to see what the settings are. There are also "d_init.txt" files within each save directory, so you can tweak these on a game-by-game basis. Depending on where you downloaded the game from, this might have been set to "OFF".