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[Maestro Ugo]

Hello everyone!

I'm new to this masterpiece of a game, and have a few questions. I have watched hours of let's play/learn DF as well as read a few tutorials.

In my first fort, I just had a migrant wave of about 10 dwarfs which puts me over 50, and am at a loss. I choose a good embark site with shallow and deep metals, flux stone, clay, soil and a river. So far, I have managed to establish a quite successful food/booze industry as well as stone and wood crafting. I recently started producing charcoal from trees and coke from lignite so I have an abundant amount of fuel. The only metal I found so far is silver, so am still struggling to get my weapons industry up and running.

I have several assorted questions:
1. I am yet to conduct a successful trade. First dwarven caravan didn't want to accept my offer and left insulted. An elven caravan declined to trade as I offered them stuff in wooden barrels and bins (those bastards!) and were slaughtered for it by my 5 men wrestler squad. A third caravan is stuck at the northern border of my area an never approached my trading post. So, how to trade succesfully? Is there a way of knowing actually what items you are trading, as everything is in bins, pots and barrels? Any tips?

2. I produced some silver warhammers and have "acquired" some waraxes from the elves, but I'm unsure how to equip my blokes. I have opened (m)ilitary screen, selected my squad and choose (W)eapons for every squad member and set it to waraxe. How can I be sure they will actually equip them? i'm asking becouse on the same scrren it says they are wearing metal armor, and i'm pretty sure i have none. Do I need to switch to training axes when training, or is this done automatically? Also, why are my soldiers still called "fisherdwarf" and so on?

3. What is the best way to find Magnetite, Hematite or Limonite to produce iron and steel?

4. I have a bunch of idle dwarfs, should I diversify into leather, glass and so on? I don't really see the benefits, as I can produce enough valuable trade-items from cutting gems.

5. How do I go about burying my dead? I created stone coffins, but can't figure out how to employ them.

Thanks for your inputs!

[Loud Whispers]

So, how to trade succesfully?

Give the traders profit. Usually a lot to start, maybe even offer a load of useless crap you don't want lying around like bad quality mechanisms and their like. This keeps merchants happier. As your broker gets more skilled you'll be able to get away with much narrower profit margins for the merchants.

Is there a way of knowing actually what items you are trading, as everything is in bins, pots and barrels? Any tips?

You can search for the things you want to sell with the (f) search tool in the depot, and when the stuff is actually brought to your depot - the individual items are shown already along with the bin/pot they are in. You can just individually select the items without selecting the bins to sell them as such.

How can I be sure they will actually equip them?

(v)iew their (i)nventory.

I'm asking because on the same screen it says they are wearing metal armor, and I'm pretty sure I have none.

Your Dwarves will equip armour they find then - if it's available, and only if it's available. Hence why you can assign your Dwarves with candy armour and they'll regularly try to equip themselves with the best available armour up to candy. Unless they get attached to something, but that's not important.

Do I need to switch to training axes when training, or is this done automatically?

No need to ever make training weapons. Dwarves spar gently... Unless wrestling.

Also, why are my soldiers still called "fisherdwarf" and so on?

They're off duty. Fiddle around with the (m) (s)chedules screen to order them to train at their designated training barracks, or just simply station them somewhere with the (s)quad (m)ove command. This will make them go on duty, pick up their equipment and follow those orders to the best of their abilities. Once being on duty at least once, they'll carry around most of their equipment (if you keep the uniforms as (over clothing), but this is on by default so again, don't worry) unless they've already got some civilian uniform. The only Dwarves with these civilian uniforms are miners, hunters and woodcutters.
The above three can waste a lot of time changing between uniforms.
Whilst off duty, your Dwarves will revert to their civilian jobs - hence, fisherdwarves.

What is the best way to find Magnetite, Hematite or Limonite to produce iron and steel?

Dig. If you find it you have it, or else you most likely don't. Steel let alone iron ore isn't necessary, it's a later-stage Fortress industry.

I have a bunch of idle dwarfs, should I diversify into leather, glass and so on?

Up to you to decide what industries you want to pursue. I'd recommend taking them on one at a time.

How do I go about burying my dead? I created stone coffins, but can't figure out how to employ them.

(b) (p) -> Places the burial receptacle
Then either use the burial receptacle as (b)urial grounds, or designate it a tomb and assign it to the deceased/living Dwarf.

[Adventurer]

If you have lots of idlers just make up the difference with food and drink and slowly expand to whatever industry, meanwhile you can make them soldiers and keep them as haulers.

[Clover Magic]

This is your best resource.  Here are some more detailed answers, though.

1.) Trading goes as such -> Select all items you want from the merchants.  Now, select your own goods.  If items are in bins, then there will be a list underneath them of their contents, which is slightly indented to show it's in the bin.  These can be selected individually so you don't ahve to trade away your valuable bins.  Barrels will be labelled with what they contain ("Meat Barrel" and so on), and unfortunately you cannot select their contents to trade, so if you want to trade food or drink to the elves you have to have metal barrels or rock pots.  A good rule of thumb, if you want to guarantee that they'll accept your trade, is to make sure that the Trader's Profit at the bottom is at least half or more of the Value of the trade goods you've selected, which is to the right of the Profit numbers.  If the Profit is red, that means that the traders are at a loss and they will not trade.  They want to make money, after all!  I'm not sure about the third caravan, though - are you sure that your depot is accessible?  No trees in the way?  No gaps or channels or raised bridges?  If you are confident with your goods and profit level, just press 't' and that will trade.  They will say "thanks for your business" when they accept, "I can't fathom you ending up with that many goods" if they think they're not making enough profit, and if you were close to acceptance but not quite, they might make a counter-offer, where they'll add some goods to your offer in order to bring them to a comfy profit.

2.) Dwarves will grab their weapons on their own.  To simplify orders, I recommend making custom uniforms.  To check if they've equipped themselves yet, inspect your dwarf with the 'v' key, and set it to 'i' view, which is Inventory.  It will show what each dwarf is carrying - once a dwarf grabs a waraxe, it will show up in this list, being carried in one of their hands.  (If you got waraxes from elves, though, I recommend tossing those - if they're wood, they're little better than useless in real fights.  Use those silver warhammers instead - those will pack the best punch for a warhammer!)  And they are still called "Fisherdwarf" and such because they are not active military.  They will train in their off-time, however, if they have a training barracks available.  To make them all-around active, go to your military screen and choose 'a' for Alerts.  Set your squads to the 'Active/Training' alert - this will make anyone in the squads full time and they will train only and do no civilian jobs.  This is bugged currently, and they'll get mad for "long patrols" while just training though.  There is a binary patch somewhere to fix that, as well as a DFHack plugin if you use it.

3.) Dig around.  Unless you want to cheat, there's no other way to find things except exploratory mining.  The wiki has some explanations for good patterns for maximum efficiency.

4.) Leather is good for cloaks for your military - which add a little protection - and bags and such.  You can never have enough bags.  Leather armor can also be made for your archers.  Glass is very useful in my opinion, as once you find magma and have a patch of sand on your map you have infinite resources for many things like furniture and traps.  Raw green glass is also a great way to train your jewelers until they're a good level to work with your precious gems.  Cut up a bunch and encrust random mugs with it, improves your mugs and trains them just as good as real gems!  Also, if you haven't already, make a clothing industry.  Dwarves get very very mad if their clothes rot away and they have no new ones to wear!

5.) Build a coffin with the b -> n command.  Once it is built by a Furniture Hauling dwarf, examine it with 'q'.  You can set it as available for burial, in which people will assign a corpse to it and haul it to be buried, or you can make it a tomb for specific dwarves.  If the dwarf is already dead, assign the tomb to the dead dwarf with the 'a' key -> tombs designated but not assigned to anyone will not be used, so if you make tombs make sure to give them to somebody.  Nobles get mad if peons have nice tombs, though.

[Burnup]

That is a lot of questions, which is good

you built coffins? now build burial recepticles under the building menu. 'b' then 'n' I believe.
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Coffin

For leather: your dwarves clothing wears down over time and use. making leather clothes, and cloth clothes is advisable.
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Industry

For the iron ores, just dig deeper, and over a larger amount of space. You'll find them in viens.
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Ores

Military equipment: It says metal armor because that is what they aim for. Not what they have. I suggest for now just putting them to individual choice melee weapon.
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Military

Trading: They will rip you off, so be prepared for a one sided trade (atleast until you have a good trader) If there is a river, put a 3 wide bridge across it. Make sure your depot is accessible through 3 block wide entrances. (allows for wagons) if not 3 wide, they will still come, but with much less stuff.
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Trading

My post was kinda late lol

[Metalsoul212]

1. Trading is best down with a dwarf that has some Appraiser Skill and assigned as the Broker (n)oble. The appraiser skill allows you to see the value of the items your buying an selling, and unskilled dwarf will only 'appraise' the weight of the items and which is useless.

2. Do you have your dwarfs assigned to a squad? To "activate" a military dwarf you have to dive into alerts and schedule parts of the (m)ilitary screen. There u can set partols and training drills for your military. The (s)quad screen also lets u quickly set alerts and patrols as well as letting u attack specific targets with your squads.

3. Ores depend on the embark sites themselves its very possiable that your site doesnt have and any ores of iron. It all depends on the sedimentary rock layers the game generates. Some
Embark sites are better then others! From my experience if ur finding silver thats all your going to see/:

4. Put them buggers to work! Give them all masonry and smooth out all the walls and floors and dive into other industries!

5. Go to the (b)uildings menu and find coffins(forgetthe hotkey) and constuct a coffin the (q) to selet the coffin once its up and enable (b)urial on it and your dwarfs should automatically entomb your dead!

[maltapotamus]

the only thing i have to add is about the stuck merchants. their path may have been obstructed by any traps if you have them, or if im not mistaken trees can block them as well? but im not 100% on the trees... you can also hit "D" to see if the access to the depot is good enough for wagons.
but i have to admit, in my first two forts, i never got any wagons. had my entrance filled with cage traps, but i still got everything i wanted hauled in on the backs of mules and the like. and that was with all 3 civs.

also with coffins, make sure to disable "bury pets" ((q)-(p) i believe) otherwise they will get filled with your dead pets and let your dwarves rot on the floor.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Everyone already have awesome advice, so I will try to fill in a few useful and more obscure details.

1. Trading: Elves can always be robbed. Hit (s)ieze during trade to take what you will. Doing this with humans will bring bad goods and possibly a siege, but elves are peculiar. If they love you they bring optimal goods by weight, which prioritizes light and expensive cloth. If they hate you they bring cheap (by weight) giant animals. Since I prefer tame giant tigers to piles of cloth, I piss off the elves with impunity: next time, just pick what you desire and hit "s".

Surprisingly, this highway robbery actually gives training. Whatever random dwarf conducted that trade is probably now a good appraiser. Go to the (n)obles menu and hit enter over appraiser, the following menu prioritizes dwarves by trading skills, which include less vital social skills (so a master liar will be above a skilled appraiser). You want to find appraise (anything) and after robbing the elves you will definitely have one. As soon as someone with appraise is appointed you will see the value of every item and know exactly how much trade you are giving.

Speaking of which, is your broker drinking when he should be trading?  Turn off only broker will trade at the depot, as long as you give the merchants good profits any dwarf will do, and every last one will learn to appraise from the trading experience, so if your broker meets Armok, you will have a few ready to replace him/her.

2. Military: the default menu is alright, but it is a lot easier to make your own uniform and then use it forever in that fort.

Mine goes: Helmet, Chain shirt, Breastplate, Cloak, Cloak, Cloak, leggings, greaves, boots, gauntlets, shield, shield, shield, shield, shield, Melee weapon of choice or, if archer, ranged weapon of choice. Note this doesn't specify materials, so they will grab whatever is best, be it leather and copper or candy. This way if I initially find only copper and silver and later import steel or dig for candy I won't have to fiddle with the settings. Shift+Enter to assign a uniform to a whole squad at one time.

If you get a cool item, like an artifact battle axe, just remember the dwarf name vaguely and find it in assign unique item: this menu is hell since it lists every damn axe, or whatever, in the fort, but artifacts will have the longform dwarf name and should be easy to find.

Remember: multiple shields save lives, multiple cloaks do too: exploity, but still demands making the damn shields and cloaks, and if you are a boss, decorating them elaborately. Exploit turns to awesome, and still more cool than a danger room. (speaking of which, a perfect danger room takes three tiles: armor stand, door set to internal--so barracks can be designated through it-- and permalocked, ten wooden training spears *and only training spears, not wooden spears, or Armok help you wooden spikes* in one spot wired to a mechanism, wired to a lever outside, whole thing should be isolated from pets. babies will have to bite it).

3. Ore is based on luck, sometimes you just can't make steel. Those times you try a fort that wears the bones of its enemies for armor, copper and obsidian blades and if lucky, silver warhammers (which rock anything except giants made of metal or similar substances).

4. Industries in Dwarf fortress are never totally necessary but add complexity and fun. A good clothing industry might just produce enough stuff to keep everybody happy, or produce beautiful cloths in a variety of dyes and with elaborate unique images sewn on every item. As always in dwarf fortress, increases in complexity are available and enjoyable. Same goes for beekeeping and the like.

Glass however deserves a special mention. Glass in incredibly useful if you have a source of sand and magma. With a magma furnace glass can become anything from blocks for construction to trap components, to windows, to barrels. I've decked out forts in glass for everything but beds. Sand never runs out, and if you ever wish for an f.p.s. efficient fort that won't ever demand stone glass is your best friend (your other best friend is clay: never runs out and good for building and surviving)

5. Burial. build a coffin, designate it to be a coffin with q, turn off pet burial with p (I like to keep my pet buried apart from my dwarves/with their masters). If there is no body, or if the body cannot be easily reached a slab made in a mason shop and engraved for the right dwarf in the craftdwarf shop will keep pesky ghosts from rising.

[Findulidas]

There are loads of guides on youtube on how to do most things. I made one myself, although that one probably isnt the best one out there.

[0cu]

My best advice at the beginning is to increase the population limit step by step so you can keep up with your food industry.

[Maestro Ugo]

Wow!

Amazing answers, thank you lads! This will keep me occupied for some time.

A few follow-up questions:

1) Why exactly do I need running water? Except for my hospital? I have a canyon river a few z-levels below my sleeping floor, should I pump it and where?

2) How do you go about keeping track of your dwarves? I'm having a hard time with 50 dwarves, and i know there are forts with 200+, so how to do it? Is there a way to unclutter the (u)nits screen? For example, I would like to put all my focused dwarves (those doing exclusively one thing on repeat) in one category, my military dwarves in another, and keep only the rest (haulers, all-rounders and such) in the (u)nits default window so I can manage them for projects and under changing circumstances. Does DwarfTherapist help?

3) How to deal with DF capturing your RL? Since I started playing, I dream about dwarves, think about dwarves while working, wake up with dwarves on my mind and go to sleep with them there. I'm struggling to live...

[Jase]

You play DF without DwarfTherapist? Of all tools, this is the most needed one. It displays Dwarves with Names and Sex, what they are currently doing (working,sleeping,on break, etc), which jobs they are allowed to do (and allow/disallow them) or how happy/unhappy they are. And you can sort them in many ways, i.e. how many labors are assinged to them or in which immigrant wave they were.

[Bigheaded]

1. Useful for things such as moats (to force entrance from only 1 side, easier than building great big walls but can take a while to fill), also useful for making larger farm plots, as using just murky pools generally isn't too effective. Can be used in traps, not as effective as magma but you can still drown goblins from an ambush by locking doors in a ~10x10 chamber and filling with water. with 3 floodgates it won't take too long to fill up.
I'd say the main two here were for farming and for hospital use. Clean water is hard to get hold of for new players.

2. Large militaries and ignoring them is my answer. Most people will answer dwarf therapist, which lets you assign lots of tasks i.e carpentry, armor smith to many dwarves at the same time and is very easy to use.
Dwarf therapist will help. My suggested method for you to use it, is to remove hauling from any dwarves you want to keep doing what they do. This then leaves all your dwarves who you want to do projects being the only ones who haul, so in dwarf therapist, we can now click on one of the hauling activities (lets say stone hauling) to organise by who has it enabled (usually it will organise by their skill level, but as hauling has no skill levels (legendary -> dabbling/unskilled), it organises by who has it).
So lets say you wish to make a huge structure with 300 blocks of stone, you can access all those haulers and give them all architecture + masonry within 2-3 minutes.

3. Who knows?

[Loud Whispers]

Why exactly do I need running water? Except for my hospital? I have a canyon river a few z-levels below my sleeping floor, should I pump it and where?

Running water is only important if you want to make power stations with water wheels, clean water is what you should try to get for the hospital. Worse comes to worse, any water will do. Just make sure you build a well over the water source  (b) (l).
If you make a water cistern, just make sure it's at least two zlvls deep.
>> More info http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Reservoir

How do you go about keeping track of your dwarves? I'm having a hard time with 50 dwarves, and i know there are forts with 200+, so how to do it?

Every Dwarf migrant I sort out on the spot with their labours/names being reassigned as I so see fit. When there are idlers, I use the (j)obs screen to locate the idlers (found at the bottom above the military orders), and sort out the problem as necessary.

Is there a way to unclutter the (u)nits screen?

The units screen is automatically divided via labours. Miners at the top, masons below them, then rangers, metalsmiths, jewelers, craftsdwarves, farmers, mechanics and then soldiers... Which are split up as hammerdwarves, [speardwarves and everything else] marksdwarves and wrestlers. Then the children.

For example, I would like to put all my focused dwarves (those doing exclusively one thing on repeat) in one category, my military dwarves in another, and keep only the rest (haulers, all-rounders and such) in the (u)nits default window so I can manage them for projects and under changing circumstances. Does DwarfTherapist help?

You play DF without DwarfTherapist? Of all tools, this is the most needed one. It displays Dwarves with Names and Sex, what they are currently doing (working,sleeping,on break, etc), which jobs they are allowed to do (and allow/disallow them) or how happy/unhappy they are. And you can sort them in many ways, i.e. how many labors are assinged to them or in which immigrant wave they were.

Personally I've never used therapist and won't still, it's a challenge I overcame and that's something I feel DF's all about.

How to deal with DF capturing your RL?

Yes

[Maestro Ugo]

Thanks again for all the useful hints. A few more questions, though:

1 Trap placement. I have this inconsistency in my head about traps: I remember reading that wagon caravans can't go over traps, and on the other hand while browsing over fort design, I see a lot of people use long hallways filled with traps as their entry point. Does that mean that one forfeits caravans in that case or am I missing something?

2 Will my animals on a pasture be safe in case of a siege/ambush, or do I need to build pastures within my fort? I'm guessing gobos would be more than happy to butcher all my precious livestock. How do you go about establishing a sucessful livestock industry than. I had an idea of channeling a large pit from the surface layer and wait for a few seasons for it to be populated by grass/trees (if possible) and than building a glass ceiling over the pit for the sun to come through. Would this work as my semi-internal pasture zone?

3 Does z-hight increase the usefulness of marksdwarfs? For example, am i better of stationing my marksdwarfs on 3rd level tower than on z-0, or does it make no difference?

Cheers again!