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[Punished]

I've just recently stumbled upon this amazing game, and followed the text based guide to get me going (http://afteractionreporter.com/dwarf-fortress-tutorials/).

I understand the game for the most part, but I can not for the life of me find a suitable location to embark to on my own. I read on the wiki that three layers of soil before rock is preferable so that you can use the first few levels of your fort as storage and farming area without having to worry about mud. Whenever I look for this, the first layer is always cluttered with stones all over the place and the soil is unsuitable for farming.

What am I doing wrong/what should I be looking for in an embark location that would give me at least one layer of just dirt for farming and no stones?

[bcd1024]

I used to have this problem too, because I believed dwarves want to live in the mountains. This is incorrect! They want to live in a nice flat forest with plenty of wood, wildlife (the meaner the better, caged and trained wolves are sweet), and a lot of soil.

Personally I don't farm or stockpile in the first few levels of soil. I use it as fortification and defense, set up an arena, barracks, and give my markdwarves a nice place to shoot from.

It's also great for training miners.

[Reuzel]

<snip>having to worry about mud. Whenever I look for this, the first layer is always cluttered with stones all over the place and the soil is unsuitable for farming.

The tutorial is somewhat outdated. As of version 2010 (31.xx), you'll need to have mud-covered ground for farming. It doesn't matter wether it's soil or stone. In order to get a nice layer of mud, you have to cover the farm-to-be with water and then drain or let evaporate the water. The easiest way to accomplish that is to dig out a room next to a murky pool and then puncture the pool (by channeling from above).

And, errr, don't worry too much about the exact layers of soil if this is one of your first forts. Just go and have fun. Over time you'll learn how to have more fun.

For more tutorials see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bddOiWj1ZZ4&feature=related

and here:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=28477.0

cheers,
 Reuzel

[Urist McMick]

Edit; Bragh Ninja'd
Still you should check out the wiki http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

[Psieye]

Yeah the whole "you want some soil on your top layers" advice is obsolete now. It's still a little useful for getting early trees and some early training for miners, but there is nothing wrong with embarking with next to no soil around. Trees will be available in the caverns and you'll need to irrigate anyway.

[greycat]

There are two major families of crops: above-ground and below-ground.  For above-ground crops, you need soil, not mud.  For below-ground crops, you need mud.

You can only embark with below-ground seeds, but if you're in a place with plants (rather than some barren mountain top or desert), you can forage for above-ground plants, process them to get their seeds, and plant those.

When you're ready to start below-ground farming, that's when you need to worry about irrigation....