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[Insalubrious]

Newbie here, learned about this extremely interesting game from the games forum at somethingawful.com.  Anyway, I was wondering what kind of skills, and what type of equipment you like to begin with?  Also, have any general advice for an aspiring dwarven slavemaster?  

[JT]

I always go for:

Miner #1:
* Novice Miner
* [Average] Mason

Miner #2:
* [Average] Miner
* Novice Mason

Carpenter:
* Novice Woodcutter
* [Average] Carpenter

Fisherdwarf:
* [Average] Fisherdwarf
* Novice Cook

Farmer #1:
* Novice Grower
* Novice Thresher
* Novice Woodcutter

Farmer #2:
* Novice Grower
* Novice Thresher
* Novice Butcher

Trapper:
* Novice Trapper
* Novice Ambusher
* [Average] Marksdwarf
* Novice Armor User

My farmers are my gofers, while everyone else tends to do just their own job.  I usually disable the "mining" task on one of my miners, since my new strategy while mining is to dig straight into the mountainside as deep as I can go as soon as possible in order to find the river quickly, without bothering to establish any sleeping quarters or a dining room.  Meanwhile, my carpenter is making beds, barrels, and buckets; my mason is building thrones, doors, and tables; one of the farmers is chopping trees; the fisherdwarf is obtaining turtles; the hunter is whittling down the animal populations with his crossbow (military-types come with free weapons!); and the other farmer is busy hauling stone.

[JT]

P.S. Your dwarves will enslave you, not the other way around.  But you can starve them to death if they're ticking you off.

[Aquillion]

Skills are really not that important when you're just starting out.  Their main effect is in producting more valuable things and working a little faster, while early on you'll be more concerned with not being eaten by bears and having enough food to stay alive.

Skills also go up fairly fast in the game, so a dwarf who you leave dedicated to a task will become good at it soon enough.

It can help to decide at the very beginning which dwarves are going to focus on what and give them one level in that skill so they'll set off and do it immediately, but you can also handle this from the jobs interface.

Your points are probably better off spent on food, to increase your chances of survival.  Go for plump helmets, since those will leave seeds after being eaten, which can be used to plant more once you have a farm.

You might also want a pair of dogs and/or cats; they'll produce offspring and don't consume anything or require any maintenence at the moment.  I think cats help deal with vermin...  war dogs will provide another layer of defense at no real cost.  They won't do too well against even the weaker enemies on their own, but they're a lot better than nothing.  And, in a worst-case scenerio, I believe unassigned dogs can be slaughtered for food... I'm not sure about that, though.  Cats can't, at least.

Most other equipment (e.g. extra picks) might look useful, but tends to be brought by later immigrants with the necessary skills anyway.  Go for food...  surviving the first winter can be very tough, and once you've managed that you'll probably be able to get anything else you could've bought with your points fairly easily anyway.

And don't forget to build some simple woodcrafts and stonecrafts early on, too, so you can trade them to the first dwarf traders for even more food.  Trust me on this.  Starving is no fun.

(Oh, and start in a 'calm' area on your first fortress.  Really.  With wood and shrubs, naturally, and in as warm an area as you can manage while fitting those requirements.)

[ August 13, 2006: Message edited by: Aquillion ]

[Insalubrious]

Hey, thanks for the information!  Especially the part about military types getting a free weapon - I didn't read that in the ingame help at all (maybe it should be added?)  I wonder if it's worth it to give every dwarf a point in military so they all start with a weapon, just in case anything bad were to happen (like a wandering Balrog or something).

[Aquillion]

I'm not so sure about that...  On my first fort I gave everyone a level in crossbows based on that very theory, but I still only had the one basic crossbow you start with normally.

[JT]

Dunno.  If that's possible it might force Toady to balance the game. =)

[Toady One]

You can't force balance!  You have to move the object on the fulcrum very very slowly.  Over a period of many years.  This assumes you add nothing to the object.

edit:  I *think* it'll just give you a prepared hunter if you invest in crossbow and ambush, something like that.  It's a vestige from '03 or '04.

[ August 13, 2006: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[RPB]

I always hock my second axe and blow all 300 points on skills, so I guess I'm wierd that way. My dwarves admire the hell out of their doors and beds.

[Toady One]

The Play now! selection is just there so new people don't have to press [v p l] so much at the beginning, but it's probably a horrible use of points.

[Insalubrious]

How do I get idlers to actually do anything?  I'm clicking around, trying to set them up with jobs, and they just won't do anything I tell them to.

[Aquillion]

Hrm.  You've looked at their details with 'v', gone to the 'p' screen from there, and hit 'l' to modify their labor preferences, right?  In there, just turn on a job that they can definitely do, such as fishing or plant gathering.

(For the second one, make sure you've designated some plants with the designate command!)

If you've assigned some other jobs and they won't do it, the reason is likely because you don't have the necessary things ready yet.  Most jobs require either a workshop or a tool...  you need picks for mining and axes for woodcutting, for instance, and you start with just one pick and two axes by default, so assigning more dwarves to those jobs won't help just yet.

[ August 14, 2006: Message edited by: Aquillion ]

[Captain_Action]

For me:

2 dogs
2 cats
4 picks
1 axe
as much plump helmets I can get
no skills

I get two wagons, and 2 mules and horses. Lots of pets for everyone.

The start

Lay intial fortess plan, find trees to chop, and dismantle the wagons for the wood.

After some digging, build 2 carpenter's workshop and build 8 beds and 1 bucket. Build  a mason's workshop and make blocks, tables, thrones, doors. Make a mechanic's and make some mechanisms for traps.

Dig out your bedrooms and put beds into them, build your 1st well, and tap into the underground river.

While the flood is residing, build barrels and fish.

After the flood, turn every job off except mining on your miners and dig out a 5x5 area along the river's shore. This needs to be done as quickly as possible in order to catch the summer flood. Make a farming plot, and turn everyone into farmers and plant every plump helmet spawn you can.

When the metalsmith comes, make him into a brewer, fill those barrels of dwarven wine.

You'll need atleast 30 plump helmets and 50 dwarven wine to make it through the winter. (When the traders leave)

If you make through the winter, DON'T BUILD THE ROAD! Thant will really jack up the immagrant rate.

[ August 14, 2006: Message edited by: Captain_Action ]

[Insalubrious]

Does starting in the wilderness help with not receiving so many immigrants?  Or is peaceful a bit better cause there aren't maurading monsters and stuff like that?

(btw sorry about the load of questions, trying to get over the initial roguelike learning curve...)

[Toady One]

The immigrant numbers don't depend on the region, at least not now.  It's just a matter of how large your fortress and how much wealth you've generated.  The type of jobs you do influences what professions you get.  In the future, once it's through the caravan arc, I'd consider forcing settlers to make the journey from existing dwarf cities, but only if this doesn't mess up the world demographics and if the flow of the game is still maintained.  There will be a similar question when caravans are added.  Having caravans actually travel the world rather than being scripted events adds at lot of flexibility to both modes, but also introduces more instability to dwarf mode if done improperly.