just to warn you, captnduck in my opinion, whilst doing a good job, takes a stinking AGE to tell you what to do.
Eventually might do one myself if i can ever be bothered.
anyway,
#0 WELCOME!
#1. You can designate multiple layers to be drilled out at once. so go to (d)esignate - (i) up/down staircase, select the top left square of your staircase, press enter. go to the bottom right of your staircase (do not press enter yet!) now go down 7 layers at that point, now press enter! zing! you should get a 7 z level staircase!
#2 My guess is that you somehow can't access these items for whatever reason, have you locked doors? I just read #3.
so joint #2/#3
In my opinion, you have built the wrong type of staircase. possibly all "down stairs" staircases, for some reasons dwarves cannot go up these staircases. which is why you use an up/down staircase, which lets you travel in both directions.
My suggestions to get you rolling:
IGNORE A LOT OF THINGS!
you literally only need:
Carpenter, Masons workshop, craftdwarf shop, metalsmith forge, smelter, wood burning thingymajig, kitchen, still and some form of way to get food. The way he shows you how to build a farm is WAY TO COMPLEX for a new player. really, it's much easier to hit the caverns and just build one in there and block off the entrances. Or to hit caverns and then just build in the soil/clay/peat/whatever layers near the highest z levels.
After you've built all of the above items (metalsmith/smelter/wood burning are to produce armor/weapons, so not quite needed yet)
get your carpenter to build beds and some barrels (i swear wiki is incorrect about pots storing booze, i have never soon booze stored in stone pots), so you have somewhere for booze and to sleep. Just chuck the beds somewhere, you don't even need to dormitary them, dwarves will find beds.
Mason should build doors,thrones (chairs), tables, armor/weapon rack.
Kitchen to produce meals, easy is best to start with, eventually you'll reach a stage where you'll only use lavish.
Still to produce booze, with any luck you brought a minimum of 60 with you, this is enough for a good long while, but you need to be ready to make more.
Personally, i use 16 chickens and 2 roosters, this gives infinite food for newbs. set your kitchen for easy meal and job done!
For booze you'll need plants, i suggest herbalists myself, really easy to use, don't need to worry about farm plots yet.
Lastly is a military.
If you have a serious problem the fastest way i can suggest to deal with it:
go to (m)ilitary screen, make a squad (any type except archer), put 7-10 dwarves in this squad, go out of military menu. Go to (s)quad menu, press (a) to select newly made squad, use (k)ill from (l)ist then select what you want to kill. this will just set them all to bash them to death.
In my opinion, this is ALL you need to know for the first 2-3 hours of playing.
As a different embark (as you'll probably need one)
Use the region you already have
Dwarves as follows:
+5 miner +2 appraiser
+3 carpenter +3 wood cut
+5 herbalist (optional +5 grower)
+5 cook
+3 stonecraft +3 masonry
+5 swordsdwarf
+5 swordsdwarf (yes, two of them)
Items: from the default:
remove 1 pick
remove 1 axe
remove all the wooden items at bottom (cart/bucket/splint/crutch, these are EASILY made)
Add:
2 copper swords
12 hens, 2 roosters
1 male + female cat
The point of this embark, is to give you a working military from the word go. Build an armor stand INSIDE (outside works too i suppose) as soon as possible, make a (m)ilitary squad put the 2 swordsdwarves in it, select the armor stand with (q) make (hotkey?) barracks, press (t)rain. now go to (s)quads and select active. This gets them training from the word go. They don't even need better equipment because they're semi trained already (proficient is actually fairly good!) and they will only get better (and they get better FAST! as they're already friends usually, so begin sparring early).
Set the herbalist to grab all plants.
Get the woodcutter to cut 3 trees and to then make carpenter then make the carpenter make the armor or weapon rack.
get the miner to dig into a hill, if you have no hill, dig a 3 length channel then go down one z level, then dig next to where the channel above is (also 3 length), then continue with up/down stair case next to the dig.
When inside get a kitchen and get cook to start cooking. go to z menu NOW select kitchen, and select all your booze and stop your cook from cooking it (highlight and press c)
stonecraft builds nest boxes + rock pots. when you have 4 nest boxes, make a 10x10 area for chickens, once its been dug out, press (i) for zones, and select the entire area, make it a (n)pasture and select all chickens into it (they do NOT need grass/anything to eat) leave that menu then go to (b)uild menu and build the 4 (N)est boxes.
Lastly build trade depot. trading is much easier than it first appears, but needs practice. I suggest you build it outside to increase the chance of it being accessible.
Let us know how you get on whatever you choose to do! pm me if you have anything direct, i work 8-5 GMT, but am online 5pm-12pm (1 am now lol).
time for bed