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[Tizer]

Ok I'm having trouble I'm DF mainly I plan too far ahead but I have never got to this far ahead. ie i make the starting dining room like a 30x15 and stuff and building workshops that i never will use. and when i get the 1st lode of immigrants I don't know what to do with them and end up abandoning the fort (and thinking it was because of bad planing) and my next one is bigger and more empty. *sigh* So i ask you what size should the 1st dining room and where should the meeting be, what to do with the immigrants and what workshops and room should I build before and after the immigrants.

Note: Yes i read the "My First Fortress" page on the wiki

[Strife26]

I recomend building everything big to start. For example, the fort that I just started is in it's early 3rd year. I'm considering starting on the bedrooms. Dwarves can take a lot if they have a big ol' dining room (I should probably start on that too). When I get migrants that I'm not sure about, take them as they walk on the map. Redo their profesions before they get lost in the clutter. If you have a barracks and some shields ready, you can draft some directly (just to wrestle with shields).

If you think that you have to many dwarves to deal with, make half of them soldiers, then you can add them to the civillian population as you go (provided none of them make champion, which should take a year or two).

Planning big is a GOOD thing! Good luck!

[Unreal_One]

Is English your first language? If it isn't, then no problem. If it is, asking the question in a clearer manner will get you a better answer sooner. I'm not trying to be mean; we do get a large number of people who don't natively speak English.

Anyway, in response to your question, I usually build my first dining room as a giant area above my workshops. I just leave most of it empty and ignored until I get my fortress really going. Dwarves prefer a huge empty space with barely enough chairs and tables to a well appointed but cramped dining room

The meeting room is most effective as a 1x1 square somewhere near the middle of your fortress, so dwarves will level up their social skills ridiculously quickly and be close to all of your jobs. This feels kinda exploity to me, though.

As for the first immigrants, once you have some food production set up, you can pretty much have them do whatever. I'd suggest someone cutting wood, someone making beds, barrels, and bins in the carpenters shop, and someone making stone doors, tables, and chairs in the masons room. Anything else is completely optional, though someone making  some mechanisms and traps is useful.

[Tizer]

ok

here are the questions.

1. what rooms and workshops should be a high priority before and after the 1st immigrants come. Like when should I start work on the metal industry.
2. how big should starting dining room and farms be.


Ps.unreal one English is my first language and I can read and talk in it but writing has never been easy for me.

[Helmaroc]

Hey, and welcome to the community! I recommend these links, they helped me VERY MUCH in getting started and without them I might have just given up.

A detailed tutorial to building a simple, efficient fort: http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Indecisive%27s_illustrated_fortress_mode_tutorial

More information about starting out, less step-by-step but still useful: http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Your_first_fortress

And a link to the home page of the wiki, I recommend bookmarking it for future use. There are pages for just about everything, and since it's a wiki, the entries are going to be up-to-date and detailed.

[SolarShado]

high priority workshops: masonry and carpentry, then i usually get a still and a kitchen... after that craft shop, then... depends on the area and what i've come across as far as natural resources.

Dining rooms and farms: i usually start with a 5x5 plot set to plump helmets year round, then after a year or to i'll start mixing up the settings and add another small plot or 2. i don't use actuall "dining rooms" designated from tables (to prevent partying), but i've found a 10x10 or so meeting area take a good long while to get crowded

[Strife26]

One more thing!
It might be helpful to expand by industry.
For example, when you want to set up clothesmaking, you need a relatively large number of people.

1st- you need pig tails, right? So you need a dedicated pig tail plot and a farmer to grow them.

2nd- you have to turn those pigtails into thread, which requires a farmer's workshop and another dwarf (this job should probably be combined with other plant processing jobs, like quarry bush work).

3rd- This thread must become cloth, so you need a weaver at a loom

4th- You want valuable clothes, right? Then you have to dye them pretty colors! So you need another famr plot growing dimple cups.

5th The dimple cups need to become dye, so you need a quern or millstone and another dwarf to work them.

6th - Dyer at a dyer's shop

7th - Finally, you need a clothier at a clothesmaker shop.

You then have 5 or 6 dwarfs busy most of the time.
If you still have lots of useless dwarves around, you can start another industry up. For example, butcher, tanner, leatherworker, bone carving, marksdwarves to shoot the bolts, a forge to make the crossbows, a smelter for the bars, miners to find the ore. See, everyone of those is a dwarf with a new job! There is always work to be done.

[profit]

Just a side note. 

Its almost always better to use HUGE meeting halls, because the dwarves social skills DO NOT Go up.

I know this seems odd, but you do NOT want your dwarves to be friends, as the death of ANY of them can result in a tantrum spiral.

A tantrum spiral is where a dwarf dies and some people become sad because of it, so they tantrum and kill someone, which makes more dwaves sad, who go berserk and kill more dwarves......  Eventually you end up with maybe 4 dwarves if your lucky.

[FluffyToast J]

Eventually you end up with maybe 4 dwarves if your lucky.

More if you're unlucky.

[TettyNullus]

Biggest farm plot you can plant, mason's shop, carpnery's shop, still, kitchen and a farmer's workshop are what I considers the essentinal for a starting fortress. Farm to make food and prerequiste for brewing. Still to give dwarves drinks. Mason's shop to turn the stones into doors, rock thrones, tables, coffers and cabinets ( add crafter's shop if you want stone crafts ). Carpnery for beds and barrels (bins comes after, when you have no worries of barrel shortages ) Farmer's shop to process pigtail into threads and sweet pods into dwarven syrups. Kitchen to make stacks of food from dwarven syrups to save space.

After that, it depends on my environment and resources I can gathers. I tend to set up leather, butchery, tannery, loom, clothier and craft shops to more fully supply my fortress.

As for meeting area, just have plenty of chairs and table nearby, and some foods and drinks so they don't have to travel too far. And well... it depends on how I set my fortress up, sometimes it's a huge strip of room off the starting area to edge of map ( over the road for my traders ) or just a big room centered around the access to underground.

As for tantrum spiral mentioned above, it's almost inevitible if you settles anywhere with anything hostile. Have a big dining rooms with plenty of mechansims and statues ( they're both valuable, and dwarvenish  ) and if something goes bad, designate it as a dining room, I tend to not do it to reduce partying (which leechs off my workforce )

[Samyotix]

What to do with immigrants can be a lengthy decision ...

IMO you'll want to draft about a third, or half, of each immigration wave into your army.

You should make sure your army has chain (for marksdwarves) and plate (for melee), so you need furnace operators and smiths and woodcutters and woodburners ...

... and if the fort is intended to last, you'll want to build all of the industries. Two leather works (just buy all the leather the caravans bring), many mason's and craftsdwarves' workshops in different locations to make them use different kinds of stones; jeweller's; weaver's & dyer's shop, loom ... and make sure to buy any exotic stuff, like silk thread or rare metals, from the traders. That way, when you get moods, you'll usually have e.g. silk and leather and roc blocks and whatever else the mood may need

[King Doom]

Here, this link might help out a little -

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=koZUS2h-Yzc