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[The Dog Delusion]

Try TinyPirate's guide too. It's an older version, but it applies to a lot of stuff in DF2012. Plus, you can learn a lot about the older versions and their glory.

THIS THIS THIS.

TinyPirate is the reason I'm in love with this maelstrom we all call Dwarf Fortress.

[Deathworks]

Hello!

Some people have pointed this out, but I think it should be stressed again, as it seems to be an important piece of advice:

Dwarf Fortress is a game you can not win as there is no winning condition or anything. There is not even a score system, although you could argue that adventurer mode actually has a score system in the form of legends mode.

Thus, reaching a game over situation is not necessarily a bad thing, as you can not fail at reaching something that is not there anyway. Yes, you lose the chance to continue playing that particular fortress or that particular adventurer, but beyond that, you have not lost the game.

With this in mind, I think it is important to see DF, especially in dwarf mode, as a game of exploring. For the first one or two years of playing it (just kidding :) :) :) ), you will be exploring just all the possibilities in the game. What you can do, how you can do it, and how you can do it differently. And then, you will be doing more and more exploring of the worlds you have created, accessing their histories, their culture, enjoying all the diversity that has gone before your playing.

So, in a way, DF is the embodiment of the way being the goal.

Thus, never worry about failing; just go with the flow and have fun. And if you have any problems or are confused, don't be shy, ask the community for help.

Yours,
Deathworks

[miauw62]

Holy hell you guys respond fast, that's great. Nothing keeps me more interested in a game than a live community. Thanks for the tips, I will definitely dive into the wiki.

Live may not be the best description for this community, but anyway, the wiki is of good help.
I spend more time on the forums and the wiki then i spend actualy playing the game.

[Blizzlord]

Holy hell you guys respond fast, that's great. Nothing keeps me more interested in a game than a live community. Thanks for the tips, I will definitely dive into the wiki.

Live may not be the best description for this community, but anyway, the wiki is of good help.
I spend more time on the forums and the wiki then i spend actualy playing the game.

Same here bro.

[Howando]

The first thing I did was watch about 5 hours of Captain Duck's tutorial videos for the then current version.

After a few major updates, I felt like I was starting again, with the military and zones and increased insanity, so I went back to Captain Duck's latest video set and followed it *to the letter* until I'd successfully set up my first ever magma forges and built a proper entrance and defences.

Now, I still have a lot of trouble finding good embark sites, but I have discovered that there are lots of good worlds and embark sites posted on the forums.

In summary, I would absolutely recommend a play-a-long tutorial to start.  This will let you play the game through but remove the obstacle of making decisions about what to build when and where.  After that, play a few forts, get the hang of it, and then upgrade to whatever's fresh and keep on digging.

[Talvieno]

At the OP: I dove in. I had no clue what I was doing. I didn't look at the wiki, I didn't read the forums, I didn't even know about z-levels until a few forts in when I happened to check the control keys. I had more fun than I've ever had in my life, of both the uppercase- and lowercase-F varieties. If you dive into it, you'll fail. You'll fail hard. But you'll learn from your fails. You'll grow stories more awesome than anyone with a copy-paste tutorial fort could ever brag of (no offense to the tutorialists). Your fails will define your playstyle and enable you to adapt to almost any situation. If you're dwarfy enough, they'll give you the desire for more - that greed that drives even the sanest players to harvest mermaids, torture children, shishkabob whales, and - if you're lucky - kill bronze collossi with fluffy wamblers. I salute you and wish you the best on your quest.

And now I go to read the rest of this thread.

edit: And now I've glanced through a lot of the thread. Knowledge beforehand is worth it (but it's a LOT more fun without it), and it's guaranteed you'll run up against things you weren't prepared for. Just pause the game and remember - the wiki is your friend.
And of course, we are too. Any questions, just post them up. We'll have them answered in a heartbeat.

editedit: spelling. I like to imagine I'm OCD.

[Amallar]

I would say that Dwarf Therapist is absolutely essential, in terms of keeping the game relatively organised. Just check out the modding forum in general to find tools which would make the game more comfortable for you.

You can easily learn most of the features by yourself; the only things I think you would actually need to look up would be the recorded designs for certain displacement machines and power generators.

[MiniMacker]

I deeply recommend that you start out fairly blind, with only basic knowledge of what you're doing. (Know how to set up farms, make rooms and info about stuff like Dwarf Therapist.

I missed this opportunity because I was afraid to start a game without knowledge about it. I didn't want to lose and it is only now when I can call myself an experienced player that I wish to go back to my age of youth, where I would change the way I discovered more about the game we call Dwarf Fortress.

I beg of you. Don't quit when things look grim. Play it until the end. If a goblin breaks into your unprotected fortress, don't abandon. Losing isn't fun at first, but the unexpected and engaging that might lead to loss is.

[Jachim]

I deeply recommend that you start out fairly blind, with only basic knowledge of what you're doing. (Know how to set up farms, make rooms and info about stuff like Dwarf Therapist.

I missed this opportunity because I was afraid to start a game without knowledge about it. I didn't want to lose and it is only now when I can call myself an experienced player that I wish to go back to my age of youth, where I would change the way I discovered more about the game we call Dwarf Fortress.

I beg of you. Don't quit when things look grim. Play it until the end. If a goblin breaks into your unprotected fortress, don't abandon. Losing isn't fun at first, but the unexpected and engaging that might lead to loss is.

incidentally, I had a goblin ambush hit me when my fortress was young, and it was repelled by a very angry mother who'd lost her child to the chaos wielding a stone throne well, that and some mean fauna outside but still! She became my militia leader .. so dont flip tables when things get grim, sometimes your dorfs will do miracles

[Garath]

DF is famus for throwing things in your face, such as a kitten getting an enemy to drown itself.

[c32]

i haven't watched anymore of the tutorial and I will resume doing that when I am absolutely stuck at a stand still in terms of getting my dwarves to advance any farther. I'm currently having so much fun just trying to progress even though I'm not getting anywhere. The new place I embarked seems to be full of rocks and no soil so it's taking long to mine and i can't farm inside This is going to be a quick death

[Talvieno]

On the embark screen it'll show whether you have soil or not. It'll be at the right side of the screen - where you see "little soil" "flux stone" "shallow metal" and other things. You don't want aquifers (not this early, that would definitely be a quick death), but if you found shallow or deeper soil somewhere it'd help out a lot with farming.

Also, glad you're planning on playing (and learning) it by ear! +1 to you for that. You are well on your way to being a very dwarfy player.

[ledgekindred]

Holy hell you guys respond fast, that's great. Nothing keeps me more interested in a game than a live community. Thanks for the tips, I will definitely dive into the wiki.

Make sure you take our advice, to the letter.  We exist only to sever serve. 

_{And certainly not to try to convince you to take on the legions of hell without telling you what you are up against.}

Heheh hehehehe... HAHA MUAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!

ahem

When I got started, the first time I looked at it, mashed a bunch of buttons and went, "What the fucking hell."  I had no idea what I was doing, had no idea the forums were here, had no idea there was a wiki.

Then I read Boatmurdered and decided I needed to try again.  I found the forums, and discovered - joy of joys - they were extremely active and helpful, as was the wiki.  I mainly used the wiki's Quickstart Guide, and from then on it was all trial-and-error.  I've been playing since early 40d days (four or so years) and I'm still learning.

Get your farming industry up quickly and start brewing everything you can.

Make lots of rock crafts to trade for food and drink with the first caravan.

Appoint a manager so you can use the job manager (j-m-q) to queue up new tasks for your dorfs.  If you are lucky they may actually do them.

Magma is your friend, except when it kills you.

As others have said, you are now one^{one of}_oneof _{of us}^us us so don't expect to do much outside of hang out here and play DF.  All else will pale in comparison.

[Teneb]

The wiki is often enough. That is how I learned, anyway.

Either way, welcome and remember to dig deep and greedily.

[micha]

I have just been going through the quick start guide on the Wiki. I am starting to build a farm. it's weird that I am excited for my guys to get wiped out just so i can see how well I can do what I just did with out consulting the wiki. Even though I literally haven't accomplished anything yet.

DF is about stories. "Loosing is fun" is the motto simply because all good stories must come to an end. That said, from what you write it sounds to me like you 'got' the game already. Never let accomplishments get in the way of the story; Its not about you being able to dig through an aquifer, its about the dwarfy disasters in the mayhem of the backstory of you even getting whatshisname to make a meal for the guy who makes the parts for the pumps. Stuff like that.

I repeat <g> its not about my self contained 30x30x30 cast obsidian borg cube, its more about the broken bones, crazy murders, and how they came together to make their journey to the inner world without ever having been seen or heard from again, leaving only their dead and some rotting carcasses behind.  sure, engineering's fun, but watching how your melee champion makes do without arms or legs, that's game.  and DF has plenty of that.  welcome!