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[Erom]

I always bring the anvil because it's ridiculously expensive and without it you can afford a ridiculously easy start. Essentially I deliberately bring the anvil as a difficulty increasing mechanism.

[LordBucket]

I like heavy forested, completely flat 4x4 maps with a river and no aquifer. Sand if I can get it, though I rarely use it. Magma is irrelevant. I prefer cold maps for ice, but in recent versions ice seems to be broken. Terrifying if possible, but it's terribly difficult to get all of the above on a terrifying map, so most of my games end up being in untamed wilds.

I usually find a metal industry not worth the effort, either short or long term, so no anvil gives me more points than I can possibly spend. I usually invest in lots of fish and turtle for shell and bones, some pretty blue and red colored stones so I can color coordinate my workshops and doors and things, and a hundred or two logs to save time cutting trees to begin with.

Skills vary, but this is typical:

Miner/Detailer
Miner/Detailer
Carpenter/Bowyer
Mason/Architect
Wood crafter/Bone crafter
Cook/Brewer
Cook/Brewer

 With no need to mine deep for metal, for the first few years I tend to build only one level at a time, and generally clean it out and make it nice before I build the next level down. So everything is detailed shortly after being mined out. This keeps architecture values high relatively early, meaning more immigrants sooner. Plus it gives my masons a headstart on clearing out untidy stone. I find that because of the inconsistency of dwarves pathfinding and hauling preferences, it's takes about three times as long to clear stone from two levels at a time as it does to clear it out from one level at a time. Twice as much space...three times as long. One level at a time makes stone much more manageable.

The wood/bone crafter is for pumping out thousands of bone and wood bolts for when I have a military.

The Cook/Brewers start out on farm duty, but get pulled off as soon as replacements arrive.

The Carpenter/Bowyer simply pumps out furniture and bows for the first year or two. I tend to have a very difficult time getting legendaries here, so I try to have as little downtime here as possible. Fortunately you don't need to be legendary to make excellent and masterpiece items, and I'm usually able to equip all my marksdwarves with at least excellent bows even with only a moderately skilled bowyer simply by making dozens of them and pawning off the bad ones on caravans.

I don't use traps, or metal, so mechanics and metal workers aren't useful.

[scribbler]

I'm finding that bringing 7 picks to start is a good use of time early on. Let everyone dig and take them off as their professions take over. My carpenter is still doing split duty as is my leader. I'm just trying this out and it's working great. I'll draft my next wave to dig their own rooms and clearing out their own workshops. It just takes some minor micromanaging to preserve ore/gems. I wait until I've taken all the lower level miners off duty to dig them.

I also leave out the axe as I can take 100 logs for that much and save myself the work and hauling.

Smoothing early on seems to be a good idea as well. A quick boost to net early immigrants. I may set my leader to do this next time since smoothing has no quality level.

Oh, and I'm working on a wiki-inspired "character list" of builds that I can mix and match from (baker/miner/etc.) Right now I'm finding a full time guard is a good choice. Use him to dig early on and then station him at the door with a war dog.

[DG]

1 Proficient Miner/Novice Swimmer/Novice Wrestler/Competent Shield User (I never need things dug out faster than this guy can manage)
1 Proficient Architect/Novice Swimmer/Novice Wrestler/Competent Shield User(he's my mason)
1 Competent Axe Dwarf/Novice Swimmer/Proficient Shield User/(he's my carpenter and woodcutter)
1 Proficient Negotiator/Novice Persuader/Novice Appraiser/Novice Swimmer/Novice Wrestler(he's my hauler)
1 Proficient Grower/Competent Herbalist/Novice Wrestler/Novice Swimmer
1 Proficient Cook/Competent Brewer/Novice Wrestler/Novice Swimmer(he's the guy that lets me buy out caravans)
1 Proficient Mechanic/Novice Swimmer/Novice Wrestler/Competent Shield User(mechanisms for bridges and cage traps)

anvil, all of the $5 leather to make some bags if I don't want to wait to butcher something, a couple silk thread if I need to tie the dogs somewhere but I usually just use a meeting area early on when it matters, some bauxite to make a wood furnace, smelter and metal smiths forge, 2 dogs that are trained to war dogs (yes I am cheap), 2 kittens (slows down their breeding early when I don't have a dedicated butcher) the rest goes to magnetite, flux and some bituminious coal. No seeds or booze or food as long as I'm embarking anywhere that has at least a handful of shrubs which is 99.9% of the time.

I give all of my guys at least novice wrestler so I can draft and undraft them as much as I want without them complaining (the axe dwarf quickly becomes a novice wood cutter or carpenter and he starts as a peasant so he has no poblem either). I don't care about furniture quality early on, that's why I don't spend points on masonry or carpentry. Any dedicate professions (like a miner who wont be doing much else) has the remainder available points sunk into military. My miner + carpenter + mechanic kitted out in the steel gear I soon make can deal with pretty much any ambush early on without any sparring required. The cook will make some weapons at the start then get to brewing and then cooking the booze for the caravan (exploit to be adapted when Toady gets to that) when he eventually goes fey he'll be my weapon maker (unless it's a possession, but I artifact seed all of my potential dwarves this way so it's no big deal). The grower will start collecting plants to keep my dwarves from starving or dying of thirst (or worse, drinking water) and once he gets some free time he'll make the armour and shield for three dwarves (seeding him for a strange mood). My trader just hauls stuff and hangs around int he meeting area talkign to no-one because every one else hasn't got a spare minute to do anything, I seed him with what ever profession I want an artifact out of (yes, I am very patient). Oh, and I give all my starting dwarves novice in swimming because I am overly cautious. If you've played adventure mode you know the difference that novice in swimmer can make. I also cancel any dwarves that are on break (with impunity because they all have military skills) in that first year (until Toady decides to do something about that, too).

[ikkonoishi]

If I'm going somewhere with plants and magma I take about 200+ logs and as much copper/tin ore as I can. Food and drinks can be made on site. I don't like seeing the () tags around my barrels of booze.