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[GhostDwemer]

I'm a lazy creature of habit so I tend to do things the same way fort after fort. I dig out a 12x12 room and put in eight 3x3 farms surrounding a workshop. I turn off hauling on my farmer and switch to 'only farmers harvest.' I plant four fields in spring, then two more in summer, then two more in winter until all are in production. This is far more than enough farmland to sustain a maxed out fort with food and clothing. Once my main farmer skills up, if no other skilled planters have arrived I train up some peasant, using fertilizer to keep him from producing measly little stacks until he's skilled.

I also raise blue peahens and geese. I can buy out entire caravans with four or five stacks of my masterwork quarry leaf, plump helmet, dwarven ale and goose egg roasts. Roasts can make you rich. Oh, and on flat spots, dig a trench, remove the ramps, dig a trap tunnel in and out, use hatches to prevent entry. Even a towering 50' tall flame demon is utterly stymied by a wooden hatch over his head. Unless he can fly around it of course.

tl;dr What Kohaku said. Double ditto on the farming. Dig a trench.

[Kofthefens]

Just wanna say that fishing is "fixed".  Vermin now reproduce on their own, and fishing is renewable.

WHAT?! I might have to look into that.

[KodKod]

Oh lawdy! I was hoping it wasn't a dream, far too few rainbows.

I had no idea that fishing was working properly and I've been avoiding it all this time.

Hoo hoo, hee hee! I'm ecstatic! Free hugs shankings for you all! I haven't been this enthused since... I'm drawing a blank.

[Frogwarrior]

I generally don't like fishing, because once someone starts there's no way to get him to stop fishing and run away from the goblins except to either draft him into the military and give him the sads or let him discover the surprise with his spleen. So I usually just fish until I get 5 shells or so, then turn it off until I need moar shells for moods. Although I might do something, like, build a hut over a portion of the stream and just hope that a giant platypus husk doesn't pop in to say hi.

girlinhat, what do you mean by messy? With autofisheries and Zone-Only Fishing, it can be one of the lowest-maintenance industries there is. And it doesn't generate seedsplosion like some industries I could name.

[KodKod]

I'm not sure that I understand why any of that would be a bad thing.

If the goblins attack and kill a fisherdwarf then you've just had some early warning about an ambush. They require no tools, are easily replaceable, and skill levels aren't overly significant to the point where the loss of a legendary fisher is a big problem.

Everyone wins, especially me.

[Buttery_Mess]

The thing about dwarf fortress is that you have to know how you're going to build your whole fortress before you leave the "Prepare for your journey carefully" screen.

It's fiendishly difficult to teach someone how to build a fort, because there's no 'right' way to build one. I had the joy of giving someone a woefully inadequate 30 minute intro to the game today, then told him I spent ten hours watching tutorials and reading the wiki before I even broke ground, and then a month playing almost constantly, before I learned how to play the game.

You have to fail several forts to work out how to create a sensible embark profile, which is where it all begins.

Once you've worked out a sensible embark profile, you'll probably be doing the following;

1. Dig out spot to keep food underground.
2. Dig out some underground soil to farm plump helmets and other subterranean snacks.
3. Set up a craftsdwarves workshop to make stone pots for booze, and food.
4. Set up a carpenter's shop to make beds.
5. Set up a mason's shop to make doors, tables, and chairs.
6. Hurriedly place the beds before they take their first nap.

Then, you basically expand however you want. You balance your efforts between building a place to house the incoming tide of migrants and establishing a defense for your fortress.

[Kofthefens]

3. Set up a craftsdwarves workshop to make stone pots for booze, and food.

This. It was a long time before I learned about this. This makes booze production a lot easier, as it doesn't depend on wood.

[KodKod]

I was under the impression that stone pots have considerable less capacity than barrels, and as such I’ve mainly been using metal to store all of my food and drink.

[Frogwarrior]

I'm not sure that I understand why any of that would be a bad thing.

If the goblins attack and kill a fisherdwarf then you've just had some early warning about an ambush. They require no tools, are easily replaceable, and skill levels aren't overly significant to the point where the loss of a legendary fisher is a big problem.

Everyone wins, especially me.

Well, I suppose if you don't care about the lives of your citizens like I do....
On the other hand, it's especially annoying early on when I really need a lot of junk hauled and WHAT ARE YOU DOING FISHING, pick up the... PICK UP THE WOOD DAMNIT and so on.

[KodKod]

Well, I suppose if you don't care about the lives of your citizens like I do....

Oh on the contrary. I would care deeply about the life of the dwarf in question if he or she tore the goblins apart with her bare hands, but until she becomes noteworthy she is a nonperson.

C'est la vie.

[Loud Whispers]

Hunting -> Good source of food if you have at least two-three hunters with decent skills using crossbows made of bone and bolts of bone - i frequently get Proficient Archer/Observer/Ambusher/Hunters oneshotting their prey. They haul the corpses back, and provided the auto-butcher order is on, you get huge amounts of food coming in near constantly.

Military > Hunting

[Mitchewawa]

Fishing is fantastic, you only need an indoor source flowing from a river, and 3 fisherdwarfs can support 100. 6 dwarfs total if you count the fish cleaning, and the constant hauling to stockpile. Plus, those 3 fisherdwarfs can be drawn from your useless migrants, because the skill levels up so quickly.

[Mushroo]

Fishermen, hunters, woodcutters, herbalists, etc. make great military trainees. As opposed to having a military doing nothing but patrol the surface for ambushes, you can have your off-duty military out there gathering food for the fortress, and you can activate their squad a moment's notice when they find something.

The thing about dwarf fortress is that you have to know how you're going to build your whole fortress before you leave the "Prepare for your journey carefully" screen.

Strongly disagree; "Play Now" is fine in most situations. I would advise a first-time player to skip "Prepare for your journey carefully" until they have played a few forts.

[Loud Whispers]

Strongly disagree; "Play Now" is fine in most situations. I would advise a first-time player to skip "Prepare for your journey carefully" until they have played a few forts.

The default embark vs a specialist embark, the specialist embark'll win on account of being suited to the environment more.

[cats on evil biome = why]

[Uronym]

FISHING IS FINALLY FIXED?!?!?!

Fishing is an excellent source of food, it's just that in previous versions, if you depleted all of the fish, no more fish would ever come, making it great to start, but a really poor long-term food source. So, ever since, I have banned fishing in my forts to prevent fish from going extinct, and sometimes their population would grow nicely!

But, this is news. Now, we could, for example, much more easily have a hunter/gatherer society that fishes for food. And with the new taming system, fish make an excellent treat for your beasts being trained. This is really a revelation that will change the way I make my forts...