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[Walliard]

You can also speed the game up by setting a high FPS cap like 9000 or something, then it will run as fast as it can up to 9000 FPS. But how fast it runs is determined by your processor speed.

But what if you want [INSERT_OVERUSED_MEME:YES] FPS?

[Deathworks]

Hello!

Personally, I recommend that you keep things simple with your first fortresses so that you get the hang of the basic game before trying out all the neat tricks and things you can do and which can whipe out a fortress faster than you can say "Ooops!".

So, to keep things very easy, start with 3 3x3 surface farm plots (no preparation needed in temparate, wood or grass land, there should be enough sites where you can place them). Use plant gatherers to get berries from the natural bushes and designate the farms to have these berries planted (which your farmers will do automatically once the seeds are free).

Other than that, simply dig around, build and place furniture and produce shell and bone crafts (and maybe rock crafts if you wish to trade with the elves).

Either try to train a military (be very careful, sparring accidents happen often and are usually quite messy) or use the default traps (weapon or stone fall traps; a bit overpowered so they may become anti-climactic) for defenses.

Try to keep your fortress in good shape until you see your first goblin siege and try to produce your own metal items using ore dug up (rather than molten goblin equipment).

I think this should give you enough variety for the start and enough excitement (even though there may be lull phases in between) to keep you interested in learning the physics of the world. Thanks to surface farming, the game can be quite easy to get into nowadays (in the past, you needed to flood areas each year to be able to farm ... you can imagine how many fortresses drowned back then :) :) ).

Anyhow, have fun!

Deathworks

[John Johnston]

Some things are particular FPS killers IME.  Basically, anything which will require large numbers of your dwarves to pathfind* simultaneously.  Obviously that is going to depend a lot on what your dwarves are set to do, but the ones which particularly get me are a) designating a large area to be smoothed and b) designating a large number of items to be simultaneously dumped.  I'd also recommend using wide corridors and laying your fort out in such a way that traffic can flow along big, easy paths.

One other thing which may or may not be useful: it seems to me that dwarves who are partying use far less CPU than active dwarves.  Designating several sculpture gardens, zoos and meeting halls may increase your framerate, at two costs:  firstly, your dwarves won't be doing anything productive and secondly, they'll make friends with each other, which if left unchecked could result in babies and upset. 


*I pathfind, Urist pathfinds, they crawl.

[Willfrey]

I remember my first fort, it was just when we could find caves and whatnot on the map, and I thought it'd be cool to start somewhere that that was pre-dug.  I start on a decent location, and remember thinking.. there is an Ettin in that cave.  What the hell is an Ettin?  I played it safe and started my digging a ways away from it, though eventually the Ettin ventured forth and bludgeoned my dwarfs to death.

[Tormy]

Uh my first DF game...it was in the time when we could only dig into the mountain from left -> right. Remember those versions? 

[Jamini]

My very first fort died to water. An aquifer, in fact.

Considering what a pain warmwater aquifers can be, I'm surpised I lasted as long as I did.

[kyrieee]

I just made my first fort yesterday and my second one today
My Miner / Mason got eaten by fish while drinking  (I think) pretty early on so I quit. Any way to prevent such stupidities? (he wasn't even drinking in my designated drinking zone! weird)

Also, I can't figure out how to pick up items from slain humanoids. Am I just lacking the proper stockpiles?

[Skanky]

Dwarves shouldn't drink water (they work slower when sober), so bring plenty of alcohol instead. I tend to bring 21 units of all 4 types of alcohol.

For picking up items, you may need the proper stockpile. Also, the item may be forbidden. Press 'k' to look at the item, if it is "{item}" then it is forbidden. Press "f" and the item will become available for use again.