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[PotatoOverdose]

edit: actually to be perfectly honest, just a military dwarf (sword 5/shield 5), couple of miners, a farmer, and whatever else I feel like at the time. Maybe an animal trainer for bears/cave crocodiles. It really doesn't matter all that much. Most of the time I spend the additional point on materials to build an aesthetically pleasing castle or some such.

[Brenticus]

7miners and picks, if I'm in a hostile embark 1 smith and rocks.   And cats, lots of male cats so that you don't have to worry about being surprised when you mine out layer after layer of rock.

[Ashery]

Recently i've taken to raw material embarks as well. Taking bismuthinite, cassiterite, malachite, and bituminous coal, with a piece of coke to start smelting the coal right away. Bismuth bronze gets you slightly more bars to work with for cheaper than plain bronze I think. An anvil rounds out my initial production setup.

Bismuth bronze actually takes more work because you're required to work with bars instead of ores. With straight bronze, it takes a single unit of fuel to produce eight bars. Bismuth bronze, however, requires eight fuel for sixteen bars. Bismuth bronze's main advantage is that it requires less tin, but that's a non-issue when embarking.

Anyways, the next setup I use will be something like:

4x Armour5/Teacher5
1x Farmer5/Cook4/Weaponsmith1
1x Diag4/JoI1/Appraiser1/(Other med skills)1
1x Weaponsmith5/Armoursmith5

~25-40 food, three different varieties
60 booze, fifteen of each
3 dogs, 2f,1m
8 peacocks, 6f,2m (Possibly less)
9 plump helmet spawn
4 all other underground spawn
3-5 thread
5-8 logs
3 magma safe stone
1 anvil
Rest: Ore for bronze production

Yes, I bring a *ton* of ore. My starting four get full suits of bronze armour and I have enough left over to equip my militia with the basics (Helmet, mail shirt, weapon) for at least a couple years.

I might bring bit. coal and a piece of coke if my civ has it, but my past few embarks haven't had it available.

[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

If I use the advanced embark screen to pick my own gear and dwarves, I can't even give myself the typical "Play Now!" stuff without running out of points, so I just use "Play Now!"

[MrWillsauce]

664 Rabbits

[krenshala]

I bring seven peasants, three dogs (two female), two cats (one each), and whatever the wagon provides.  For starting equipment I remove the axes, picks, bags, cloth, thread, rope, crutches, splints, wheelbarrows, and quivers.  Sometimes I do add some thread, cloth, bags and rope, however, I select them to be made of cave spider silk instead of pig tails because they cost half as many points.  All the remaining extra points I use to get 8 to 10 copper bearing ore, and half as much bismuthinite and cassiterite (I like the color of the bismuth bronze stuff ), 10 to 12 bituminous coal (or lignite if coal isn't available) and the rest go to get rocks. Lots and lots of rocks.  You can get about 225 boulders (aka 900 stone blocks) with that, more if you completely skip on the thread/cloth/bags, and lose a few seeds you probably won't be able to use before you can buy more from the caravan.

I tend to embark near necromancer towers and/or on the edge of evil areas with undead, so I make four of the peasants into mason/carpenters (for building log walls, wood block (aka hardwood) floors), while the fifth turns the ore into equipment, the sixth chops wood and makes beds/barrels/bins (workshop profile so the official carpenter, and not the masons, makes everything), and the seventh gathers/processes/farms surface plants until I get picks to dig in.  I end up with a surface keep and walls, usually mostly done by time the first caravan arrives.  The fun part is, if I take my time before digging underground I usually don't have much fortress wealth, so I get very few migrants in the first few waves. Makes it easier to keep everyone safe, except for those times I need lots of troops early (I lost a fort to a zombie siege about a week before the first caravan once, because I didn't take the time to properly wall off the work areas; i got half the wall done before the zombies started interrupting things).

[Hurkyl]

Bismuth bronze takes more work to make, but it is cheaper to bring the ore, as you can replace half of your cassiterite with the cheaper bismuthite.

This remains true even if you are bringing your own fuel too (in the form of bituminous coal); it only costs 6 more fuel to make 16 bars of bismuth bronze than it does to make bronze, but you save enough money to bring another unit of coal, netting you 2 extra coke overall.

Of course, we're beginning to split hairs by this point. Bismuth bronze becomes more attractive if you also want to get a couple bars of silver out of the deal by using tetrahedrite for your copper (e.g. to make war hammers).

[Mushroo]

Meh, I just buy pre-made weapons/armor from the fall caravan. Hunters with bone/wood ammo can take care of most threats until then.

[Ashery]

Bismuth bronze takes more work to make, but it is cheaper to bring the ore, as you can replace half of your cassiterite with the cheaper bismuthite.

This remains true even if you are bringing your own fuel too (in the form of bituminous coal); it only costs 6 more fuel to make 16 bars of bismuth bronze than it does to make bronze, but you save enough money to bring another unit of coal, netting you 2 extra coke overall.

Of course, we're beginning to split hairs by this point. Bismuth bronze becomes more attractive if you also want to get a couple bars of silver out of the deal by using tetrahedrite for your copper (e.g. to make war hammers).

Splitting hairs indeed.

A bit over six extra jobs in the early game to produce a whopping two extra pieces of coke. It looks like even less when looking at the embark points: Sixteen bismuth bronze bars will save you three embark points before looking at fuel and will use up six of the eight fuel produced by a single unit of bit. coal, so you save less than a single embark point.

[zimluura]

no points spent on dwarf skills

I ditch all axes and picks, keep the anvil
then i get lots of an iron ore (magnetite, hematite, or limonite)
3-10 granite, 20+ oak logs.

immediately assign several architects, a mason, a wood burner, furnace operator, and weapon/armour/black-smith
make a masons shop, make 4 granite blocks from 1 granite
make a wood burner, smelter, & forge w/ granite

@wood_furnace make charcoal
@smelter make 4 iron bars from 1 magnetite + 1 charcoal
@forge make 2 picks and 2 axes (not wussy copper ones either) and still have tons of iron ore left over for swords

usually get some bone carvers next...for trade - the dead-fall traps in my fort import goblin sieges and export bones.

[lwCoyote]

Ive been playing a lot of MW lately, so I tend to customize my skills based on talent/savant-ness when its there. Otherwise, I go 3 miners (and 3-4 picks, depending on embark points), a Mason, a Grower, a Soldier, and a Scribe (manager/bookkeeper, also usually my broker) - if I have spare points I set some of them up to multi-task, like having my scribe be a b utcher/tanner, the soldier being a stonecrafter, etc. So that everyone is busy early.

For stuff, I usually go 10-15 logs (unless in a heavily treed area), 2 guard animals (dogs, mastiffs, war boars, depending on what version is being played), egg layers (crabs/turtles in MW rather than chickens, to get shell), a couple of vermin-hunters (cats or frill lizards), and then I load up on food/drink/seeds for the rest of my points. If Im able to take a soldier I take a warhammer, chest and leg armor.

I always make wooden training axes for woodcutting, and wooden shields for my soldier at the start; better than spending points on them

[Hamiltonz]

Lately I've been working on getting a steel armored squad ready before the first caravan.  This is in anticipation of playing my first evil biome where the dead rise immediately.

My initial seven dwarves consist of a doctor with points spread evenly in every doctor skill, a worker with points in metal smithing and armor smithing, and five soldiers with points in weapon (axe for now, mace later) and armor using (for the increase in movement speed).

I use all available embark points to bring: one barrel of wine, an anvil (iron), seven plump helmet spawn, 22 flux stones, and 17 iron ore stones.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The iron ore will produce 68 (17 times 4) bars of iron when smelted.  Using 33 flux stones turns all but two into 66 bars of steel.  The 65 (5 times 13) bars of steel will create 5 complete sets of steel gear for my soldiers.  The gear is: axe, mail shirt, breastplate, greaves, helm, gauntlets, high boots, and a shield.

Immediately after embark I break the wagon down and turn 1 log into a Carpentry workshop.  I then create 1-2 wooden training axes which I use to chop 3-4 more trees to turn into training axes.  I set all 5 soldiers as lumberjacks and harvest every tree available (they wont be chopping wood once they are all geared up).  I set the Doctor up as a farmer/gatherer of above ground plants.

Using the worker I use one of the stones to make a Wood Furnace workshop and turn several logs into charcoal.  I create another furnace using one of the pieces of charcoal and dismantle the first workshop.  I use another charcoal to make a Smelter to process all of the ore into iron bars.  I process all but 2 of the iron bars into steel bars.  I build a Metalsmiths's Forge using the anvil and a charcoal.  I use one steel bar to make a pick which I then use to dig an underground farm.  I use the other 65 steel bars to make 5 complete suits of armor and 5 steel weapons.

This all works great except that when the first caravan arrives I have nothing to trade.