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[extremejon]

I mucked around adventure mode a bit then tried my hand and making a dwarf fort. I just selected the "play now" Button, since I probbly don't know enough yet to try to customize my equipment.

So, I've restarted my game 3 times and I always end up in this snowy area next to a rock wall, And I can't find the area anywhere On the world map.

So, I'm a little confused. Do I have to dig into the outside world? Does the game only use the world map for adventure mode? Or do I only get to use the areas dipicted in my map when I "Prepare carefully" for the journey?

...Also, how do I make the Mini-map scroll?

Thank you for your patience.

[JT]

Play Now selects a random site to begin a Dwarf Fortress, and gives you a basic loadout of miners, carpenters, masons, fishers, and farmers.  You [d]esignate a mine shaft into the mountain and start building a colony.  You can't select a different site: it all chooses automatically.  Think of Play Now as a quick start.  Nor can you migrate or travel: as soon as you can see your dwarves, that's your fortress site and it's now time to build it.

The Getting Started article on the Wiki has a lot of useful information on getting yourself set up.  Quickstart Guide is an alternative that assumes you already know how to prepare for the journey, and concentrates a little more on construction and mining.  Surviving Your First Winter contains information on the loftiest goal you'll have to face at first.

You can't scroll the minimap when building a fortress (in this version -- the next version allows you to).  You can only choose from a very limited selection of possible fortress sites, presumably scouted in advance by your civilisation's elite geographic surveyors.

[ October 20, 2007: Message edited by: JT ]

[extremejon]

Another question:

I get my farmer to cut down some oaken trees, make a wood stockpile, and tell him to turn on wood hauling. And he has yet to haul any of to the stockpile.

Any idea what I did wrong?

[Mad Jackal]

It might be that you just didn't give him enough time to get to that task.

Look at what other types of things he's doing and turn them off, if you want him to haul the wood right away. Otherwise, give it a little time and he should get to it..

[Skeeblix]

Depending on how many trees you told him to cut, he's probably still cutting them down. I've noticed that if you still have trees that need to be cut, woodcutters won't usually haul the wood until they're done cutting.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Cutting trees seems to be a pretty high priority job, so woodcutter/carpenters won't make beds if they have trees to cut, won't haul wood back to the stockpile... they really just like cutting trees.

[extremejon]

I just figured out what the problem was.

Apparently I accidentally hit "Dwaves ignore wood" at some point.

Dur.