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[demonator775]

I can always start a game in DF, but i can never get very far, either I don't like the embark site enough, or things arn't going my way... Or an update comes out (this one was recent). I think my problem is I don't know enough about the game, like in my most recent fortress i have given up on, I was making my metal industry and I was digging out the channels for the lava, and my miner was trapped down there. I could not get I'm out... I made stairs for him and everything but no he just decided to stay down there, then my liaison decided to join him so I though hey maybe if I add the lava then he will run, well that didn't happen. And know they are both dead. I just don't know enough, I have never made a successful hospital because of soap making. I don't know how to equip my military with new armor and weapons I have made. In most of my forts I never even get to my first siege... So if anyone could help me, all I am looking for is good strategies for epic forts. And I do understand that I need to play a for to make it an epic one, but I have read about people taking 50 war dogs and putting them in a cage, I have never even trained an animal, I knew it was possible but I never knew how. Then making lava traps... it is beyond me.

[Loud Whispers]

I am looking for is good strategies for epic forts.

Keep playing regardless of how bad the situation is. You're not dead till the last Dwarf is dead!

As for the cage thing, build a cage and (q) (a)ssign your dogs to that cage. Then build a lever and link it to that cage...

How do you envisage yourself learning more about DF?

[demonator775]

By playing it, I hear all of these story's of people catching dragons and invading hell, well my forts wouldn't be able to do that. I doubt I could barley take on the first invasion with my meager military force that I scrounge up by the time that happens. The last siege I had 4  military dwarf with adequate to expert skills, but no armor or weapons.

[Loud Whispers]

Invade the clown car regardless! You learn through failure, build through failure AND WIN THROUGH FAILURE!

If you're going for Homeric Epic on your first fort, you're not going to make it

Keep playing, keep dying and abandon all sense of casual gaming. There is no easy guide that works 100% of the time in DF - you have to adapt to your map

[demonator775]

Thank you lol, I will keep trying, my favorite embarks so far have been on volcanoes.

[NecroRebel]

The game is much easier if you turn down your population cap to below ~60 so you don't get sieged. Ambushes will still appear, of course, and IMO are actually more threatening since they appear without warning, but that can't be helped unless you do some modding. A lower population also means that you don't have to house or feed so many, which makes those aspects easier to establish as well.

Anyway, a lot of the really impressive-sounding things to do aren't actually that tough. 50 wardogs in a cage? That really just means starting with a breeding pair of dogs, getting a kennel, and waiting until puppies grow up, then setting training war animals on repeat until there aren't any more, then getting a cage and sticking the dogs in there. Catching dragons is as simple as having a cage trap when a dragon shows up. Invading hell is tricky, but that's supposed to be the toughest challenge in the game.

You probably have difficulty with military because A) you don't devote enough people to it, and B) you don't go for metal working soon enough. I prefer to have at least 2 soldiers per 10 population (not 1 per 5; they always are recruited and train in pairs), and I go for magma to power forges by the end of the fort's second spring at the latest. I embark with 2 dwarves intended as soldiers and a third proficient weapon/armorsmith because military is so important. The most effective training method short of danger rooms or actual combat is scheduled training with exactly 2 dwarves in a squad, 8 months out of a year.

Working with magma is probably less difficult than you think it is. Try building your magma trap and shop designs with water; it's safer if you screw up, and if you don't screw up with water, an identical design will work with magma, too. Eventually, you'll learn how to use fluids effectively, and then you'll wonder how you ever had a problem with them.

The really epic forts, though, tend to be the chaotic, skin-of-their-teeth ones where utter failure is only a breath away. The people whose stories are remembered are those who have to deal with a lot of major problems but do manage to deal with them. Trial and error, and asking for help when there's something specific, is the best way to learn the game! Unfortunately, asking for general advice tends to be ineffective because the game is so huge that it's impossible to cover easily.

[demonator775]

Would catching goblins and things of that sort and putting them in a room and releasing them for my dwarves to hack away at be better than normal training? And it would be better than normal fighting because it would be safer, in my opinion because if you put a squad of 10 dwarves in a room with a cage with one goblin in it... well you get my point.

[NecroRebel]

Yes, though generally unless you capture huge numbers of goblins you can't manage to keep them doing live combat training for too long. What many people do is they capture goblins, strip them of their weapons but not their armor using the stocks screen, give their trainees very bad weapons (like training weapons), and set the trainees on the unarmed, but armored, goblins. They'll beat on the enemy for ages ineffectually, gaining skills quite quickly.

In theory, though I've never seen anyone who's actually tested this, a necromancer might be even better for this. You could capture a necromancer, pit them into an area behind a wall of windows, a drawbridge, and a second wall of windows, then dump corpses into the chamber beyond. On command, you could pull a lever to lower the bridge and the necromancer would raise all the bodies, just ready to be re-killed. When your soldiers are done, you can then raise the bridge again to allow the corpses to stay dead.

[TSTwizby]

Would catching goblins and things of that sort and putting them in a room and releasing them for my dwarves to hack away at be better than normal training? And it would be better than normal fighting because it would be safer, in my opinion because if you put a squad of 10 dwarves in a room with a cage with one goblin in it... well you get my point.

If you're only interested in training, I find it works best to give your dwarves really weak weapons (wood and such) and make sure you stripped the goblins first (designate that all the items in the tile the goblins' cages are in be dumped (d-b-d) and then reclaim the cages manually. The dwarves will take all the goblins' equipment and dump it for you to reclaim later). This leaves them helpless, and lets your dwarves get a few more whacks in than they would have otherwise. Only do this with goblins though- stronger creatures, like ogres or minotaurs and such, will be able to fight perfectly well with no weapons, and should either be drowned or mobbed by your army in full gear.

-edit    ninja'd, somehow. But yeah, basically what NecroRebel says.

Also, while playing the game is certainly the best way to master it, I do recommend that whenever you have a specific problem, like how to get metalworking started and such, you check the wiki and check the forums for advice and such. So basically what NecroRebel said.

Working with magma is probably less difficult than you think it is. Try building your magma trap and shop designs with water; it's safer if you screw up, and if you don't screw up with water, an identical design will work with magma, too. Eventually, you'll learn how to use fluids effectively, and then you'll wonder how you ever had a problem with them.

Do make sure though, that when you change your trap over to magma, you remember to use magma safe materials. I'd say the last thing you want to have happen is for a wooden screw pipe to burn down, releasing magma into your dining room and setting all your booze on fire, but really that would be something you don't want to have happen at all.