Farming is very effective, you shouldn't run into any food problems.
Yes, the hauling is buggy and not using bins helps, but I ignore it for farming, since I don't even know what to do with all the food. Having a dedicated seed stockpile near your farms helps, do that for all your worksites.
Use only 1-2 dwarves for farming, but deactivate all other chores for them. 3 or 4 plots are plenty, maybe make them 5x5, but it doesn't really matter. They will learn quickly and improve the yield, usually I embark with 2 growers. Wait with the pig tail farming until you got enough food. Use different crops for different plots to reduce the hauling bug. If you're really low butcher animals and send a dwarf to gather local plants.
Don't let the kitchen cook your plants, brew them first and use the drinks to cook, it's 5 times as efficient. First only use a still, no kitchen, dwarves eat anything, but they're choosy with their drinks. Have a dwarf brew all the time, later you can even deactivate all other tasks for your dedicated brewer. Make rock pots or if you have too much wood, barrels.
Strange moods are a good thing, you'll get an artifact and often a legendary crafter, if you're lucky even a legendary smith, but they want certain materials. If you cannot provide a workshop and the materials they will go insane instead of crafting an artifact. Have normal and silk cloth ready, as well as a few blocks (material matters only for the value), that should take care of most problems. Some glass might be useful, too. Only shells are hard to come by. Using "q" on the workshop will reveal what the dwarf desires.
Trading is not that hard, the first (dwarven) caravan arrives in autumn, the next (elven) in spring. You cannot have any traps blocking the way, nor stones or trees. That means anything from the traps menu. Use "q" on the trade depot to move stuff to trade once the caravan enters the map and request your broker to come to trade. You can use a burrow to force him. Elves will not accept anything containing wood, so be careful. Always give more than you get, 30-50% more is a good range.
In the first year mechanisms are a surprisingly valueable trade good, especially made from flux or obsidian. Later make crafts, especially from valuable materials by a good crafter. Let your gem setter encrust finished goods. An aluminum craft can be worth several thousand and when encrusted by a skillful gem setter you can trade one against an entire caravan. Train your crafters with worthless stuff. Most valuable are a good metal crafter and gem setter, but basically any good crafter will produce more valueable trading goods than you can ever use. Even a good clothier will make you very rich, especially if you go through the hassle of dyeing your cloth.
Garbage dumping and refuse are different things, make a refuse stockpile outside to get rid of carcasses, build coffins for your own dwarves. Garbage dumping is a way to gather stuff in a single tile. Use d-b-d to mass-dump stuff. Useful for clearing large areas or disarming caged prisoners. (Use k-d on the cage, so it doesn't get dumped with the stuff.)
Military is a little bit more complex, but for starters a few marksdwarves with wooden weapons work nicely. Carve fortifications to protect them.
There are different weapon grade metals: Silver is only useful for blunt weapons, copper is the first one you can use for anything and produces fine weaponry, if you have cassirite (tin) you can make bronze or bismuth bronze, which is even better and on par with iron. Steel is the best metal before you get really deep, but harder to produce. Iron can only be found in sedimentary layers, usually near the surface, but often there is none at all, so smelting stuff is your only option.
General advice:
- Have as much miners as possible, buy/craft more copper pickaxes soon.
- Several masons and mechanics are useful, too. Make everything you can out of rock. Only allow your best masons to craft stuff.
- Traps are very powerful, pave the map with cage traps, dump trash weapons in weapon traps.
- Use drawbridges, easy to build, but very useful and versatile. Caravans pass over a lowered bridge.
- Chain some wardogs or other animals at your entrance to detect thieves and snatchers, but inside to protect them from enemy archers. Caravans ignore chains and animals.
- Good food, drinks and a large dining hall make your dwarves happy and are easy to provide. Give them some furniture for their quarters and they will never rebell.
- Ask the dwarven liason for stuff you cannot get easily, usually I ask for every type of leather, wood and silk cloth (for moody dwarves) in the first year, they willl bring tons on their second voyage. If you miss iron/steel ask for the following: steel, iron and pig iron bars, anvils, hematite, limonite and magnetite. If you're very rich and very low on iron ask for armor.
Did I forget anything?
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Topic: Some newbie hlep please. (Read 3231 times)