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[nophilip]

Yeah, DF's learning curve is a fifty foot high brick wall. After vast amounts of studying the wiki and using TinyPirate's guides (I still use some of his designs) and having about 5-7 forts totally fail, I finally found a good balance. The Mayday tileset allows me to stomach the game visually and Dwarf Therapist makes the job system bearable. Stonesense (a 3d viewer) is kinda fun for viewing your various forts, projects, and megaprojects.

[Makbeth]

Stop what you're doing and go here:

http://afteractionreporter.com/2009/02/09/the-complete-and-utter-newby-tutorial-for-dwarf-fortress-part-1-wtf/

This took me straight from not being able to tell the difference between my dwarves and the nearby trees to being able to build forts from scratch on my own in 1 day.  Everything not covered here is in the wiki, and what you learn in the tutorials is a good enough foundation that you'll easily grasp the content of the wiki.  IMO, the PDF of those tutorials should come packaged with DF.

[Dearnen]

I agree with all of the above.  With the help of the tutorials, Mayday's graphics, and Dwarf Therapist, my first fortress has successfully reached 200 dwarves, defended itself from several attacks, and uncovered several things that have the potential for great Fun.  All this despite the lack of flux and magma for most of the game.

[RCIX]

Great tips so far, but i recommend you grab Ironhand or Phoebus's graphics sets. It makes the game's difficulty much more tolerable IMO.

[Particleman]

Stop what you're doing and go here:

http://afteractionreporter.com/2009/02/09/the-complete-and-utter-newby-tutorial-for-dwarf-fortress-part-1-wtf/

This took me straight from not being able to tell the difference between my dwarves and the nearby trees to being able to build forts from scratch on my own in 1 day.  Everything not covered here is in the wiki, and what you learn in the tutorials is a good enough foundation that you'll easily grasp the content of the wiki.  IMO, the PDF of those tutorials should come packaged with DF.

This is what I used. It's a very good introduction to the game. It's at a site with both flux and iron ore, as well as magma, so you can make steel easily. While it is for an older version, the basics remainthe same, and the differences between that version and the newest version you should be able to adjust to without much trouble.

[Rkui]

There is only one thing that can save you ... Captain Duck, thanks Captain!

Really watch his videos.

[Craftling]

Tutorials? Just do what I did and repeatedly beat yourself over the head with the game until you get it. More fun that way.

[Cespinarve]

Good protip- despite what most forum goers like to express in as jubilant a manner as possible, magma should be left the hell alone 99% of the time, unless you're putting in magma forges 150 z-levels down. Goblins? Elves? Forgotten beasts? Pumping magma up 170 levels up isn't going to solve your problem in any way you might find efficient or feasible.

[Urist McDepravity]

Good protip- despite what most forum goers like to express in as jubilant a manner as possible, magma should be left the hell alone 99% of the time, unless you're putting in magma forges 150 z-levels down. Goblins? Elves? Forgotten beasts? Pumping magma up 170 levels up isn't going to solve your problem in any way you might find efficient or feasible.

Another protip: setting layer heights to sane values will save you from this pumping nightmare. 50 Z-levels are enough for pretty much everything.

[timtek]

Well it's been about a week and I'm doing ok. I've the basics down, and I can "see" what the screen is showing me, now I'm starting to delve a bit deeper. My fortress is ok, had some food issues at first and today a dwarf went crazy and killed another dwarf, but other than that no major problems. I haven't been raided or anything like that so I'll prolly get slaughtered when I do. Once someone here on the boards explained the manager to me things got much less confusing. I almost want to abandon my fort and start over knowing what I now know, but I'm sure the opportunity will arise to start a new fort soon enough. Thanks for all the tips everyone.

[Urist McFumbler]

A couple of tips I use personally:-

1) No such thing as redundancy in DF, if you have 1 workshop have 2 dwarfs with the relevant skills enabled, if you have 2 workshops always have 3 to 4 dwarfs with the same skill enabled. You never know when the cheeky little buggers decide to sleep, eat, take a break or worse go pick up a sock.

2) Make sure that each one of your dwarven population have a two or three skill sets instead of specialization, you never know when your super duper Legendary Weaponsmith might die, go insane, berserk or just generally flunk out and you need a replacement.

3) More is better, more food, more drinks, more of everything, always have spares ready just in case.

4) Make sure to settle one level at a time, close the gaps to your fortress and make sure it is secure. The whole danged world is out to get you.

5) Military, never too early to start them. You WILL need them. Unless you turn off invasion or use Runesmith to smite every creature in sight.

6) Contrary to belief Elven caravans do not bring better and more tame creatures to sell if you make them happy. They just bring more junk instead.

7) If you have FPS issues do not mess with flowing water or magma.

Make sure you know or remember some of your dwarven population preferences so that you can choose a not so demanding Baron when the time comes.

9) A weak hammerer and sheriff will make your life less miserable.