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[monk12]

I custom make each embark, but I do follow some guidelines.

For dwarves, I always make the most physically fit dwarf Military Guy, the most intelligent+intuitive+willpower dwarf Doctor, and the dwarf with the best preferences the Leader- this guy gets the trading skills, organizer, and Consoler and Pacifier; those last two have stopped early tantrums before they got truly started. I pick the most useless dwarf to be Miner (provided he isn't lazy) and the others I assign skills based on their preferences. I keep an eye out for weapons/armor for smiths, brass for metal crafters (I like brass flasks, for whatever reason,) cloth+creativity for clothiers, glass for glassworker, etc. Sometimes I go with two military guys if the stats are there- normally military types do masonry/carpentry so they have good, secure civilian jobs- that way they don't get pissed off every time they go off duty when they have to stick to a schedule.

For equipment, I tend to bring extra booze to handle the first migrant wave (with the preferences of the starting seven determining what I bring the most of,) assorted meats and milk for the barrels, and sheep or some similar animal for the steady supply of thread/cloth, milk/cheese, and meat. If I'm planning to do a lot of farming, I bring poultry instead since the lack of [GRAZER] makes up for the lack of versatility. If I'm embarking somewhere evil I'll bring an axe, otherwise I'll just bring the material to craft one on-site. If I think the wildlife in the area won't savage me within the first month, I do the same for a pick. After that I load up on ore- tetrahedrite and cassiterite are my favorites, since bronze is good enough to get me through the first year or two, and any silver I get from the tetrahedrite translates to a nice silver warhammer for the military.

That all gets further modified by what I want to do with the fort specifically. My current fort is an above ground, no walls/traps military only fortress in a Terrifying Temperate Swamp. I took some extra food so that I could focus on training my military, and I made sure to bring a weapon/armorsmith to equip them. I also brought an extra military guy, and instead of having him train with the commander I gave him different weapon skills so he could head up his own squad, and serve as backup commander in the event of fatal injury. I also brought an extra mason so I could get some buildings up faster.

[FuzzyZergling]

This is my general Embark:

Miner 5/Mason 5
Miner 5/Mechanic 5
Woodcutter 5/Carpenter 5
Grower 5/Herbalist 5
Cook 5
Brewer 5
Diagnostician 5/Assorted Medical 5

2 Picks
1 Training Axe
1 Anvil
~20 of each Seed
~60-80 Drink
~30 Meat or Fish

Additional items such as leather (for bags) or wood (for charcoal/beds).

[dei]

Well, the embark I used for my current fortress went like this…

Miner 5/Brewer 5
Woodcutter 2/Carpenter 5/Bowyer 3
Mason 5/Mechanic 3/Building Designer 2
Grower 5/Herbalist 5
Stonecrafter 2/Furnace Operator 2/Weaponsmith 2/Armorsmith 2/Gem Cutter 2
Butcher 2/Tanner 2/Diagnostician 2/Suturer 2/Wound Dresser 2
Axedwarf 2/Dodger 2/Fighter 2/Armor User 2/Judge of Intent 1/Appraiser 1

A breeding pair of chickens and a breeding pair of turkeys
A breeding pair of dogs
A male cavy and two female cavys
A male cat

Five granite and twenty oak logs
Thirty-six of each booze
Thirty-six meat
Two copper picks
One oaken training axe
Five oaken buckets
One iron anvil
Five tetrahedrite
Five plump helmet spawn
Five sweet pod seeds
Five pig tail seeds
Five cave wheat seeds

Since I have this particular embark backed up since it's one of my favorites, whenever I play it I have the Expedition Leader act as a miner until around the time the first caravan comes. I also end up digging out everything in the loam to start with while my Carpenter makes ten beds and ten barrels. I then dig out the first few workshops that are necessary - Craftsdwarf for pots and crafts, Mechanic for traps, and Jeweler's because this site is loaded with gemstones - and have the Mason make five rock doors, ten rock thrones and ten rock tables after a total of 25 stone is dug out. The farms are usually set up while this is going and by that time it's usually not even the middle of Spring.

It's pretty quick for me to use this build to get set up on this particular embark site I have backed up, but I haven't tried it elsewhere. It's good for me at least because I seem to be dead set in playing this one particular embark over and over again, where my dwarves live in a chalk mine nestled under a hill of loam that sits right across from one westward stream. It's my favorite so I don't think I can let it go.

[warwizard]

The embark selections depend greatly on the resourses you expect to have, if there are trees in abundance, you do not need to bring logs, If you plan to breach the caverns early generally you do not need to bring seed, and so on.

  When it comes to skill selections for the dwarves I advocate only spending 2 embark points per dwarf, crossbow/ambusher to get 7 free metal crossbows and 7 stacks of free ammo call it 1 point per crossbow or stack of bolts.
14 points
  I generally give no skills to my dwarves at all, and run a commune, where everybody has every labor enabled, as the dwarves do the various jobs needed by a starting colony, I can build every type of smelter and workshop and start making stuff that I need without regard to quality, if I need bags, or stone pots/barrels for industrial use, quality does not matter, just that you have them. Later after mood dwarves or highly skilled immigrants show up I'll start specializing dwarves to a particular job and produce the masterwork items for happiness/export.

  That brings us to items.
I recently embarked on a glacier, I had no surface trees or plants, no wildlife, sparse metals, no Iron in the parent civ, and extensive aquifier, but did plan on opening up the caverns.
My equipment:
1 steel anvil
100 units of milk
40 plump helmet
no booze
no meat
no picks
no axes
90 logs
10 metal bars
10 tetrahedrite ore
3 rocks to make into blocks
1 rope
20 bags of sand
4 bags of plaster

The rest of the embark points went for animals: birds, dogs, Yaks, and 1 cat.

Note: if you allow a grazing animal to be turned into a pet, the owner will feed the animal if there is no grazing available. Population controll is by just not petting the unwanted grazers, they'll starve for attention.

I feed my dwarves cheese ommlets (chicken egg and cow cheese roasts)

The sand is for making (low fuel required) items: nest boxes, and pump components, and frees up bags for industrial/agriculturial use.

The plump helmet is turned into 200 booze, which fit into 8 barrels/pots, plump helmet spawn cooking is turned on and 20 seeds are forbidden for future farming.

Logs are made into beds, barrells, bins, and charcoal, the ores are smelted and a selection of ammo, hammers, axes, and picks are made. the surface workshops/smelters are deconstructed and the operation moved underground.
once you've made copper bolts, review the ammo screen and dump/forbid any steel or simurally good ammo you got for free, let the dwarves train on copper/bone, set up a archery target with a catch system to recover used bolts, melt the singles to get a never ending sourse of more metal bars (sparse metals embark).

  This embark equipment maximizes the value you get for your embark points but does require some time to begin mining operations, though you could use the logs to build a wall around your starting position, classify this as a slow start embark.

[0x517A5D]

I see that most every build mentioned has at least one miner.  I've found that to be a waste of skill points.  Mining trains more quickly than any other skill, once you get past the "novice" hump.  Also, "mining" in soil goes very very fast, and trains the skill just as well as rock does.

I fill up my "miners" with trade skills, and just let them train mining up to, but not past, skilled.  (But if I don't get an early migration wave, I will allow at least one to become highly skilled.)

My most recent embark was:

• Brewer 5 / Grower 5.  Role: fort maintenance.  May mine after the fields are planted, or may be trained in a more desirable skill.
• Brewer 5 / Cook 5.  Role: fort maintenance, wealth creation.  May mine after the fields are planted, or may be trained in a more desirable skill.
• Mechanic 5 / Herbalist 5.  Role: early subsistence, wealth creation.
• Carpenter 5 / Potter 5.  Role: builds fortress furniture.
• Glassmaker 5 / Furnace Operator 5.  Role: early mining, later probably smelts.
• Diagnostician 5 / Surgeon 2 / Bone Doctor 2 / Suturer 1.  Role: woodcutter, chief medical dwarf.
• Ambusher 2 / Judge of Intent 1 / Appraiser 1 / Leader 1.  Role: Leader, emergency defense, miner if the area is peaceful.

Note that I do not buy woodcutting, mining, or any of the crafting submenu skills.

Things I did wrong non-optimally this time:

• I experimented with pottery instead of masonry.  Pottery and glassmaking are largely redundant, and both take fuel.  As well, sand is extremely cheap at embark time.
• The duties of glassmaking and furnace operating are often needed at the same time.  I should move one of them elsewhere, or not even bother with glassmaking.
• I need to consider making a crossbow and bolts instead of embarking with them due to the Ambusher skill.

I use cooked meals and mechanisms as trade goods instead of making tons of low-value stonecrafts.  Roasts get five quality modifiers plus four material values, and mechanisms have a high base value, a quality modifier, and a material modifier.  Mechanisms made out of iron ore or native gold are quite valuable indeed.

As far as items, I took:

• 4 copper picks.
• 0 axes.  (I used the training axe exploit.)
• 1 iron anvil.  (Which turned out to be useless, as I didn't crosstrain metalworking skills.)
• 15 plump helmets.
• 25 rock nuts.
• 15 pig tail seeds.
• 1 each of other seeds/spawn (for bags).
• 1 each of the 4 dwarven alcohols (for barrels).
• 1 each of all 2P meat/fish (for barrels).
• 1 of each available type of milk (for barrels).
• 2 pieces 5P leather (reserved for moods).
• 2 cave spider silk thread (reserved for moods).
• 2 wool yarn (reserved for moods).
• 1 10P small cut gem (reserved for moods).
• 4 kimberlite or chromite (for color-coded levers).
• 4 petrified wood or cinnabar (for color-coded levers).
• 4 olivine or (expensive) garnierite (for color-coded levers).
• 4 pitchblende (for color-coded levers).
• 75 bituminous coal (-> coke -> glass and metalworking).
• 50 sand (partly for bags).
• 1 gypsum plaster.
• 0 logs.  (I disassembled the wagon to get the log to make a wooden training axe.)
• 4 dogs.
• 6 turkeys.

And I used these self-imposed rules:

• No moat-the-map or wall-the-map.
• No stonefall traps in places that are 'outside' — i.e. don't have a ceiling.
• Non-stonefall traps only in constructed or excavated & smoothed areas. Traps in excavated dirt areas must have a stone floor built on that tile.
• Metal mechanisms for all non-stonefall traps, all gears, all machines. Stone mechanisms are only for stonefall traps and for trade.
• All furniture to be made of wood, metal, or glass.  (I eventually waived this rule.)
• All structures to be built with blocks or bars.
• All constructions to be built with blocks or bars, except walls and floors that are not in living or working areas.
• Furnaces must be made out of fire-safe material; magma furnaces must be made out of steel. Exception: pumps may be made out of glass.
• GRASSTRAMPLE cut to 1 for civilized and domestic species, 0 for elves and cats.
• Flours and sugar modded out.

[Berserkenstein]

• I need to consider making a crossbow and bolts instead of embarking with them due to the Ambusher skill.

"Dwarves who start with the ambusher skill as their highest non-military non-social skill will get some leather armor, a crossbow, a quiver and a stack of 30 to 40 metal bolts for free."

From this wiki entry: http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Starting_build#Container_mechanics_and_free_items

Which I confirm to be true, since I almost always start with a hunter and I never bring quivers or crossbows. 

However, your hunter will burn through those bolts rapidly so its nice to bring more or assign a temporary woodcrafter to make bolts.