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[Chunk]

Hey guys, Been browsing Bay 12 for yoonks now and played dwarf fortress since it was somewhat flatter and less Z' levely ;3

But anyhoo, what im posting / asking probibly belongs in the modding side of things but then again it might not...


Im going through a phase just now of blasting through forts with a goal in mind(starting one, getting migrants, being akward and abandoning / suicide missioning due to lack of patience now) and Im curious about:

a:) what you start a fortress with (equipment and dwarf skills) for the fastest time for dwarfs to get awesome at stuff

b:) what addons (if any) you use to change dwarf stats on pre embark, I mean I'd do anything to start with a legandary miner, just to set the foundations out alot faster and cut down the whole getting a fort that looks nice and a fort that works really well barrier down. I tryed using one of the mods on the wiki page but I can't get it to work at all,..


So in short Im more curious about how you get a fort with a (volitile) project active as soon as possible?

Thanks  Chunk :3

[Derakon]

If you just want to get the groundwork laid as quickly as possible, embark with seven dwarves proficient in mining with the extra skills dedicated to masonry, mechanics, building design, and other "constructive" jobs. Spend the rest of your points on seven copper picks, all the wood you think you'll need, and as much food and booze as you can manage. Then when you arrive, set everyone to digging and constructing. Once you have a fort that looks nice, abandon and reclaim. Or just take your starting seven and transition them to more economic jobs like farming, cooking, engraving, and crafts.

Hell, I usually bring five picks with me so the dwarves that aren't immediately useful (like the mason/leatherworker) can at least get some digging done.

[Gergination]

I go with this:

3 miners
-One is also the trader/broker/manager.
-One is a mason
-One is a glassmaker?  It's up to you on this one
Cook/Brewer
Farmer/Herbalist
Mechanic/Designer
Carpenter/Woodcutter

Then I just stock up on as much food and booze as possible.

[Grendus]

I embark with 5-6 mining picks (7 if I'm on a mountain). No mining skill, as it will grind ridiculously fast. Every dwarf who doesn't have a different job, like farming or woodcutting, mines until the foundations for the fortress are hollowed out. I usually have the basis of my fortress mined out by the end of spring, magma tapped by the end of summer (though the channels won't fill til mid-fall), and exploratory mining going up right after the first immigrant wave.

My dwarves are:

1 Weaponsmith/Siege Engineer. Weaponsmithing is easy to grind in vanilla, but in Dig Deeper or Orc mod you need high quality arms fast. Siege Engineer is just fun, and a waste of wood if you try to train it later.

1 Armorsmith/Leatherworker. Nothing saves lives like armor, and combined with bringing along some leather you can get dwarves layered in leather and chain very easily.

1 Metalsmith/Mason/Carpenter. Admittedly I could leave off the mason and carpenter skills, but I like em anyways. Metalsmith is a pain in the ass to level, even with magma, and when you get nobles their high value furniture that can match a baron's bismuth bronze fetish is a godsend.

1 Metalcrafter/Bonecarver/Stonecrafter. Sometimes I leave stonecrafter off and make them a woodcrafter for bolts on heavily forested maps or just save the points. I hate stonecrafting, it's stupidly unbalanced right now, and it will consume bins way too fast even if you mod the value down. Metalcrafting is a goldmine though, you can bring along an anvil and some tetrahedrite and set up for trade in almost no time, letting you have that crafter mine almost nonstop.

1 Farmer/Brewer/Cook. Usually a farmer will have downtime, he can use it to brew an cook. Nuff said.

1 Gemcutter/Gemsetter. If you have no sand, these guys are a pain to train up. Starting out with a decent one saves a ton of time.

1 Leader. Give him two points in appraising and two in judge of intent, then make him the woodcutter. When you get some haulers, give them some copper axes and let them do woodcutting while the leader moves on to administrative duties.

But that's just me. I used to just bring along two half-trained miners but unless you hit some valuable ore right as you start digging your fortress, having all your idlers mining is way faster. Usually I end up with my weaponsmith and armorsmith mining most of the time, taking time off from mining to make armor for the soldiers. The other dwarves usually go fulltime into their other duties, either training up to legendary for fortress wealth or just from high demand (playing with orcs, I have three crafters working pretty much nonstop just to clean up after the sieges).