Hello c32!
Welcome to the best game ever and to the rest of your life :) :) :)
Seriously, once you have even taken a sip of it, this game won't let you go. I don't recall the details of how I started as it was a little while ago when dwarf mode was limited to one height level which always had the same row of features (like a river outside, a deep chasm, a river of magma). Although things were a bit more predictable, surviving was actually a bit harder, since some nice features were missing.
Actually, I am not sure how much the Wiki will help you as a complete newbie to the game. As you have probably already noticed, there are a lot of details and mechanisms in this game, and there is no such thing as an official in-game tutorial level. Thus, allow me to give one or two pieces of advice on how to get started in dwarf mode. I myself never moved beyond a casual gamer of DF, but even after an absence, a single sip has re-ignited the flame with ease.
My advice would be as follows:
1. Thoroughly work yourself through the files d_init.txt and init.txt in the data/init directory. Each setting has some kind of explanation attached, and you may want to set graphics mode and so on to your liking. The important settings I strongly recommend are:
d_init.txt:
*[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
*[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:YES]
These two settings cause the game to pause upon the change of seasons and save. This ensures that the game won't run too far away should you forget to pause it.
*[INITIAL_SAVE:YES]
*[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
These are similarly helpful. Especially pause on load is important to give you time to get your bearings when you continue a game in progress.
*[TEMPERATURE:NO]
*[WEATHER:NO]
*[INVADERS:NO]
*[ARTIFACTS:NO]
The most important of these is INVADER:NO, because this prevents hostiles from entering your map on the surface (there may still be nasties underground, though). Temperature and weather are a convenience for starters, as freezing and thawing of pools and rivers may cause accidents. However, if you have turned weather off, you should have a brook on your embark lot. Artifacts are a rewarding, often also frustrating extra feature, but until you know how to get all the goods you need, you may want to have them disable.
Personally, I still prefer to play with invaders off, but all the others, I like to have.
*[POPULATION_CAP:7]
As your fortress prospers, more and more immigrants will come. While this is a good thing, it can easily overwhelm you when learning the ropes. The population cap sets an approximate limit with immigration stopping a while after you reach the number given there. And a few waves of immigrants in the beginning can not be avoided. For learning, I recommend this low setting until you understand how your dwarves work :)
Mmmmhhhh, checking through the file, I see that init.txt are more things of personal taste and nothing relevant for making things easier for a starting player.
When choosing a place to embark, I recommend something without an aquifer, with lots of vegetation and a brook as you might need water if a dwarf gets injured. Something that pros tend to frown upon, but which I find very convenient for starters is farming surface plants - that is, plants to grow under the sun, rather than in the caverns. While you can't start with seeds for them, you can easily get seeds from plants you have gathered - this is why I recommend lots of vegetation. Simply build 2x2-sized farm on the surface and regularly check with 'q' whether you have anything you can plant there, and tell them to plant the available things all four seasons long.
Well, it is not much, but I hope this kind of helps.
Yours,
Deathworks
Author
Topic: New to this, and just WoW. (Read 10002 times)