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[Foxhound]

Sounds like you did one of two things!
1)Embarked in an evil area! These show up as purple, or occasionally a very dark red/brown color on the embark screen.
2)Embarked near a tower, in which case you can be visited by necromancers. This can be checked at embark by hitting TAB until it shows the civilizations that can access your fort. If it says "Tower", then you are near a tower.

Regardless of the reason it means that things that should be dead are coming back to life and are hungry for dwarven life (or anything living really). If this is due to an evil biome you might want to consider abandoning and picking a different site, since even experienced players can find evil biomes a challenge. If it is just due to a necromancer then that means that somewhere on your map is a necromancer hiding invisibly. Batten down all of the hatches and set up some traps, or if you have a military you might want to consider implementing them (depending upon the number of undead creatures).

If you aren't sure if you did number 1 or 2, the easiest way is to make a backup of your fortress's save, abandon, and then go to the reclaim menu. You can then check to see if it is an evil biome or if you are just near to a tower (or both!).

Oh shit, there was a necromancer. I follow the quickstart guide to the T so I know the biome was fine.

If I form a squad and do the attack command, will it appear on the list of creatures to attack, like rattlesnake and whatever?

Thanks for that.

[FuzzyZergling]

Oh shit, there was a necromancer. I follow the quickstart guide to the T so I know the biome was fine.

If I form a squad and do the attack command, will it appear on the list of creatures to attack, like rattlesnake and whatever?

Thanks for that.

Not if it's sneaking, which it probably is. You'll have to find it manually by moving your dwarves around till they spot it.

[elimik31]

Another question: Is it possible find out the information about my embark site which I saw on the embark screen even after having embarked? What I mean is, when choosing an embark site there is always a screen with information such as "temperate, trees: spare, wilderness, shallow metal" and so on. But sometimes I embark at a site and I forget what settings I had. An experienced player can tell from the game itself, but I am playing my second fortress now (even though my first one lasted 4 years). The first one was in a warm climate and this time I thought I had chosen a temperate climate, but when I embarked  everything was covered by snow and the lakes were frozen, so I fear that I had chosen a cold climate by mistake, but I am not sure, especially because right after I started digging the snow started to melt. Well, even if it is a cold climate, I found silver right on the surface and I have soil to start farming and enough trees and plants. So I will keep playing either way, I am sure I will have FUN ^^

[i2amroy]

Duplicate your data/save/regionX folder, then abandon in the duplicate. After that if you go to reclaim that particular fort in the duplicate it should tell you what is available at that particular location. And in general for climate temperatures:
freezing = water frozen year round
cold = water frozen most of the year, unfreezes at least for a tiny bit
temperate = water frozen about half the year
hot = water doesn't freeze, surface water evaporates for part of the year
scorching = surface water evaporates rapidly and year round

So it's very possible that you embarked in a temperate area (since you embark right at the start of spring, which is in the "cold" half of the year).

[elimik31]

Thank you for the quick answer. For my first fortress, I wasn't sure if I embarked in a region with metal and it took me a long time to find metal ore in a deep cavern, but that was at the same time as the goblin siege which made me loose have FUN

[Auroness]

I started a new fortress, calm, temperate, plenty of trees, a river, metals (real nice, safe looking site) and didn't think there was a Tower nearby. Found out later there actually was, but it was like 10 tiles away on the world map. I didn't think that qualified as "near". I was wrong. 3 Necromancers and a gajillion undead attacked my fledgling fort.  Just how far away from a Tower is safe enough?

[Vndetta]

I started a new fortress, calm, temperate, plenty of trees, a river, metals (real nice, safe looking site) and didn't think there was a Tower nearby. Found out later there actually was, but it was like 10 tiles away on the world map. I didn't think that qualified as "near". I was wrong. 3 Necromancers and a gajillion undead attacked my fledgling fort.  Just how far away from a Tower is safe enough?

I believe it's 12 squares on the world map - but regardless of how many it is, you can always tell before you embark by hitting the Tab key. It will show you "Neighbors", and "Tower" will be listed here if you are within assault-range of one.

[Auroness]

Yep, right there. It wasn't colored, so I just glanced right past it. I get used to bad things flashing at me or being brightly colored. 

[Foxhound]

What Labor could Fill Pond possibly be? It's none of the Hauling ones.

[FuzzyZergling]

What Labor could Fill Pond possibly be? It's none of the Hauling ones.

Fill Pond, like Haul Item to Depot, is not a labor that can be switched on and off. Any dwarf can do it.

[Foxhound]

In the quickstart guide it says "if you have ten times the plants than dwarves then you have more than enough food". I'm trying to farm all the plump helmets I can with bucket bombing but am I really supposed to have 170 plants when I have 17 dwarves?

I currently have 17 dwarves, 32 food, no meat or fish and 10 drinks.

[FuzzyZergling]

I wouldn't say that's "more than enough", but it should be adequate at least until more dwarves show up.

[i2amroy]

I currently have 17 dwarves, 32 food, no meat or fish and 10 drinks.

IIRC the current ratio is 4 drinks and 2 food every season. So with your current supply you have enough food to last about half a season and enough drinks to last about a quarter of a season (of course since only a few dwarves can drink at a time, you will probably start seeing thirsty dwarves very soon). I highly suggest that you start making some more drinks ASAP, and if you don't have anything planted then get some plump helmets in the ground right away, since a plump helmet takes about a third of a season to grow.

So assuming you have adequate plants already growing it isn't exactly a sign of panic, but you should get some more food production as quickly as possible. If you don't have any food growing though, then it would probably be a good idea to make a well (since you will be running out of drinks fairly quickly) and start growing as much as you can before you starve. Also should any more dwarves show up and you will start to be in some serious trouble.

[A_S00]

My monarch arrived, turned out to be a vampire, and eventually got caught and died from an infection from the resulting beating.  Ever since, I no longer get migrants.  Was it becoming a mountainhome, losing the monarch, or losing the monarch and her having no heirs (due to being a vampire)?

[Sutremaine]

I currently have 17 dwarves, 32 food, no meat or fish and 10 drinks.

I'd say you need about 85 food and 10 barrels of booze. That's for that number of dwarves. Have you had just two migrant waves so far? Those are pretty small. Unless you've lowered the population cap, you should be prepared for the next wave to double your working population and add a bunch of children for good measure.

The good news is that since you're following a quickstart guide, you've probably picked a pretty gentle site. You can make barrels from wood or pots from stone (pots have a higher storage capacity than barrels, but keep some barrels spare for workshops and syrup-making), and you can gather surface plants and pre-emptively set the edible ones to not be brewed. Make several small (ie. 2x2) plots wherever it's currently the most convenient, and get some seeds in the ground. The reason these plots are so small is so you can abandon them in a hurry and not lose too much. Most crops can be eaten raw or brewed, or both, but there are some exceptions. Dimple cup, blade weed, and hide root are dye crops. Valley herb needs to be cooked. Quarry bushes need to be processed to bag and then cooked, but you get 5 units of leaves per harvested plant. Some of the brewable crops can be turned into food with more processing, but ignore that for now. The food produced always needs a container, always needs to be cooked, and is either liquid or in a stack the same size as the plant stack that went into it. When brewing, you get 5 units of booze in the stack for every 1 plant in the stack.

So, in summary of the above, eat raw what you can and brew what you can't, and ignore everything else until you have enough food and drink for at least two seasons.

Have you slaughtered your wagon-pulling animals? Those are instant food, and while dwarves can eat raw tissue it's much nicer to turn it into prepared meals. This also allows you to use the fat from the animal, which needs to be rendered into tallow and cooked before it becomes edible.