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[Basque]

Thanks for being awesome you guys, this thread is going much better than I thought it would at first!

Uronym, since you and Pwnzerfaust mentioned it I can set things up to start making iron weapons with a standard smelter/forge. However, you asked what else you could do with coal? In order to make steel you need Iron + Flux + Coke (which is refined coal) even if you're using a magma smelter. I thought the flowchart here was helpful.

We haven't struck any flux stone yet but according to the embark it is on the map. Making some iron weapons is fine, we just don't want to burn through all our coal on iron since Steel equipment is better in every way (I believe).

FlickerFly, glad to have you! It's great to get people like you, that's one of the reasons this thread was made after all! And yeah, dwarven beer is made from brewing Cave Wheat, because a dwarf cannot live on wine alone, dangit! 

Pwnzerfaust, once we have a healthy number of rock pots I can switch our stonecrafter over to crafts. The default Lazy Newb pack embark didn't focus on bringing up skills as much as I'd like though, so they won't be of masterwork quality or anything just yet.

[FlickerFly]

No, I meant that you wrote dwaven instead of dwarven.
I know how to make dwarven beer.
Anyways, that's good to hear :).

[Vanaheimer]

I'd like to request dwarfing if I can.

Name: Heremod
Gender: Male
Profession: Military, preferably a hammerdwarf but anything melee would be fine.

[Uronym]

...
Uronym, since you and Pwnzerfaust mentioned it I can set things up to start making iron weapons with a standard smelter/forge. However, you asked what else you could do with coal? In order to make steel you need Iron + Flux + Coke (which is refined coal) even if you're using a magma smelter. I thought the flowchart here is helpful.
...

I know about that, I'm just used to using trees for fuel, so I think of any coal as !!extra bonus coke!!. Also, I rarely embark on sedimentary layers so I'm not usually thinking about steel at all.. Iron/flux in this version is feast or famine, you either have unbound bounties of iron/flux or none at all, so if you find any iron, especially that shallow, there's bound to be a lot more as we dig down, the ground being ripe for exploratory mining. Trees are a much more renewable source of energy, too, so I always think about trees/magma before coal when considering fuel requirements.

[Darksilverhawk]

I though iron was only found in shallow layers, though? I swear I've seen recently that it never occurs beyond the first few Z-levels, and I've never had an embark myself that had iron that wasn't visible from the surface.

I'd be in favor of making enough iron weapons to equip a small military, then hold out on anything else until we hit flux. What kind of biome are we in, anyway?

[Basque]

Darksilverhawk, there's a pic of the biome in the first post if you're interested. We should have lots of metals and Flux but I'm not sure if the deep metals will be iron or something else. We could wind up with something like tin or zinc later on, though if we hit silver that would be good for these hammerdwarfs people want to be dwarfed as.

So definitely making iron weapons when we get the chance, I'll try to have an update up tonight or tomorrow.

[Basque]

1st Hematite, 126

The month of iron is upon us! A fortuitous time thanks to our discovery of Iron and Coal. We will forge some mighty dwarven arms as soon as the opportunity arises.

2nd Hematite, 126

"Mebzuth! How goes the...by Tathtak, what's that in your beard?!"

"His name is Shorath and he is my Cat of Many Colors"

Spoiler: Shorast (click to show/hide)

(It seems like all cats wind up with half a dozen different colors of fur in Dwarf Fortress. Perhaps they are some kind of hitherto unknown breed of super-Calico?)

19th Hematite, 126

From across the marsh today came a pair of dwarfs with a young one between them. Thornlens has not only its first new arrivals but also it's first family!

Spoiler: FrankMcFuzz (click to show/hide)

Alright FrankMcFuzz, you got the first Migrant to appear on screen! Novice level skill in Brewing, Plant Processing and Shearing. You're also the only dwarf we have with any kind of military skill so you might just wind up being our militia commander.

24th Galena, 126
While expanding space in our fortress, our miners discovered an expansive cavern! This cavern appears to hold a wealth of gems and coal, along with our second metal ore (Tetrahedrite). A decent amount of trees and shrubs grow near the underground lakes. However, the giant cave spider webs only foreshadow what could be lurking in the depths so until we can arm our military I'm ordering it walled off for now.

Spoiler: First Cavern (click to show/hide)

(This was a real surprise because I hit it on Z level -9, not mining down but sideways. I didn't realize caverns could start that early)

1st Limestone, 126


Autumn came quickly and I didn't get as much finished as I would have liked. The area for smelters/forges is dug out but haven't started forging yet. FrankMcFuzz, I think you and/or your wife are going to be running smelters all this season.

A drawbridge/wall/moat is up but it looks like the bridge may be retracting instead of raising (could have sworn I set it up right but maybe not). Does anyone know a way to check which way a bridge raises after its built?

AUTUMN QUESTION TIME

Autumn means the liaison from Mountainhome is on its way! Thornlens is fairly well rounded and I can't think of anything we absolutely need that we couldn't make ourselves. Here's our status screen for the beginning of Autumn:

Spoiler: Autumn Status (click to show/hide)

What should we preferentially get in trading? Perhaps more importantly, what should we request for next year?

[Uronym]

If you have iron, I don't think you really need anything from the merchants, but a few things that might be useful:

• Alcohol, you can't have too much.
• Wood, for fuel, barrels and constructions.
• Miscellaneous metals, such as copper and silver, for miscellaneous stuff, blunt weapons, nobles and crafts.
• Gems, for encrusting the crafts with.
• Domestic poultry, good, steady, reliable source of food that only requires a nest box.
• Cloth/leather, for quivers and bags.
• Weapons/armor, if you don't think your metal industry will be ready by the time they're back.

[slothen]

I always buy up all wood.  I also buy leather since its cheap and can make bags (important in several industries), waterskins, quivers, backpacks, and cloaks.  Sometimes I buy some of the cheaper (un-dyed) cloth so i can make ropes for chaining kittens/wardogs everywhere.  Its usually not too hard to have enough stuff to get whatever you want from the caravan, so when I have extra crafts to trade I'll buy all metal bars, gems,  cheese (comes in stacks unlike locally produced cheese), and bolts.  If needed I'll purchase cages, animals, dye/flour/sugar bags, booze, and sometimes a crutch or splint so i don't have to bother making them.

as for requests, I usually request high value gems, wood, steel, platinum/aluminum, giant cave spider silk THREAD, exotic leather (they can supply you with a lot of leather from high value animals)  and sometimes ash/potash and lye (imported lye comes in a barrel, avoids the old lye bucket bug)

for a new fort: wood wood wood, booze, barrels, cages, food, leather, a bit of silk for moods, and metal bars.


edit: 

• Gems, for encrusting the crafts with.

I never bother with gem cutting before my fort is several years old.  I have the attitude that if I'm going to go to the trouble to decorate stuff with gems, I'm going to decorate high-value furniture that's going to stay inside the fortress.

[Darksilverhawk]

If the bridge is raising, there will be a wall along where the edge of the bridge is when it's raised. If it's retracting, there will be no such wall. That's the only way to tell, I think.

I say clean the merchant out of wood, booze, and barrels, since you can never have too much of the later two. Also get a several bins of leather and cloth. A little extra food never hurts anything, either. Other than that, maybe a couple pieces of silk, some raw glass of all kinds, and cut gems, in case of future moods.

[FlickerFly]

I usually do not have trouble with getting cut gems in case of moods without any trading whatsoever, but that's probably just because I mostly use cut gems/gem-encrusted crafts for trading. Obviously, unless you can't find any.

Anyways, I say that (if possible) you get barrels, booze, leather, cloth, extra food, if not all types of raw glass then at least raw crystal glass, and some poultry and maybe livestock of some sort because your dwarves aren't vegetarian. I'd also recommend as many metal bars as possible- particularly steel, since you haven't got it yet. You should have no problem getting wood, but if you really want more then go ahead. Silk is good.

Basically, just get anything you can't produce enough of at the moment or you can see yourself running out of, or you might need for a mood and don't have. Although I definitely recommend poultry/livestock.

[Basque]

Darksilverhawk, yeah I'm not seeing the wall so that's why I thought it was retracting, but got a job cancellation messages when it closed so it seems like it blocks pathing like a wall. I'll just do some experiments to find out.

For trading I'm hearing the basics of food/drink/storage and grabbing a bit of everything for future moods. The requesting is important because it's going to determine what Pwnzerfaust gets during his turn. For requesting definitely poultry, which as a side note is good to add at embark for any fortress if you use a custom embark (I usually go turkeys but if anyone has suggestions we can get anything). And otherwise it seems like everyone agrees on most things but it is literally most of the things the traders brings, so if anyone (especially you Pwnzerfaust, since you'll be getting this stuff) has a specific request for a type of leather/metal/gem/etc. let me know.

I'll start playing Autumn tomorrow and plan to have that update up by the end of the day, and finish the year by the weekend.

[FrankMcFuzz]

I don't mind being the militia commander, as long as you don't kill me off before my turn, otherwise I'm adopting his son as FrankMcFuzz Jr.
Twenty four is pretty damn young for a dwarf.
As a word of advice, don't look at the military skills, look in the character attribute sheet. If you have a legendary swordsdwarf, they're still gonna suck if they're "Quite flimsy"

Never ever put flimsy dwarves in the army, oh sweet lordy no.

[Basque]

We'll be sure not to draft your wife then, FrankMcFuzz.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And UPDATE, upon closer inspection of the caverns it looks like Tetrahedrite wasn't the only new ore either:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There's gold in them there caverns!

Looks like only a small deposit since it doesn't seem to be anywhere else, but it might be the start of a vein or cluster.

[Greasemunky]

Sign me up, I've run a few forts, but most of them don't get terribly far.