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[ScratchtasticZ]

Hey guys. Something I've always found interesting for vanilla DF (and MDF by extension) is what different people do starting out. Some people take the same stuff every time, others tailor it based on what kind of fort they want, others use the environment to pick their strategy, while others will purposely limit themselves to certain things. Now, the way I understand it is that MDF has a lot less "optimal" stuff and it's more about playstyle. With that in mind, I'm just trying to get a feel for what everyone does so I can start to formulate my own, doom-destined plan for a majestic fortress.

So, I suppose you, the one reading this, can take this topic one of two ways: (1) advice for noob - who/what should I take?!, (2) who/what do you take?

I'll be using 100% default settings, FYI.

Appreciate any responses I get.

[jonveck]

It's perhaps a tad more advanced, but I always eschew bringing any picks or axes in favor of the raw materials to create them on site.  The approximately 44-points it costs to bring a copper pick can instead buy you enough coal boulders and copper ore to create a half-dozen or more (depending on whether you're playing on hard smithing or not) when you arrive.  Of course, if you embark in an evil biome, the couple days it takes your dwarfs to erect the smelter and forge (rather than immediately dig a hiding hole) can mean the difference between life and death.  Likewise, you can skip the copper chopping axes in favor of either wooden training axes (approx. 8-points) or a log to carve one yourself (3-points).  Just remember to embark with a handful of boulders for building your workshops.

And sand (1-point) comes with a free bag.  And each type of food comes in its own barrel.  If you were to purchase one salmon, one crayfish, one perch, one cave lobster, and one meat, instead of 5 meat, you'd get 5 barrels instead of one.

All that said, as much fun as it can be to game the system to squeeze as much as possible out of the embark points, you can always simply edit the advanced settings of the realm you generate to give yourself 9999 embark points.  It's not very sporting, but for new players, it isn't a bad idea to get a bit of a leg-up while learning the game.

[Meph]

I usually embark with 1 woodcutter/carpenter and 5 miners, 1 fighter. +1 point in appraisal, for the broker. 1 axe, 5 picks, 1 sword. No meat, I butcher the 2 wagon-pullers. A lot of drinks. Rest of the points in special pets for animal breeding and vermin hunting.

I embark, designate all the trees for cutting and start digging a my fort. No one does anything else for quite a while. The carpenter/woodcutter makes beds, the miners dig. Sleep, drink, butcher oxen, eat, dig, sleep, dig... then migrants arrive... dig, find fossils, build archeologist, get some valuable tradegoods... dig more, set all migrants to mason-labor, build walls/bridges/levers/traps, wait for the caravans. Buy everything I need with the gems/fossils I found.

The one military guy has 5 skills in sword and 5 skills in dodging, running around the surface slaughtering all the wildlife constantly to train. I chose the dwarf with the highest agility for this, its the most important skill for fighters.

And thats it. OR you embark with "embark everywhere" on a tomb, fortress or town, or startdwarf yourself 50 dwarves... or play Orcs or Kobolds... then everything is different.

[Repseki]

I've recently started going with the raw materials path as well, although I usually set myself up to make a few Steel weapons for the 2-3 military I try to embark with to get a jump on training.

For dwarves I usually bring a Armor/Weaponsmith, Mason/Carp, Brewer/Cook who ends up farming/butchering/tanning in the beginning, someone with Judge of Intent/Appraiser, and maybe a doctor since I tend to have dwarves leave limbs in various places they really shouldn't. If I start out with a specific plan this can change to add in a Glassmaker or whatever I need for what I am thinking I will do (and then later completely abandon).

If you play with Harder farming on you will probably want to start with some above ground seeds. And you will probably want to bring a Armok's Ward along with your vermin eating creatures or choice if you are new and not familiar with some of the FUN things they detect.

Other than that just the usual squeezing of points and barrels/bags like jonveck mentioned. There is some good info on the wiki about things you can do to get the most from your points, so you can see what you might want to try.

[Meph]

I dont understand the thought process behind: I have 1300 points and I'll use 1 drink of each type to get more barrels, and take sand to get free bags, and take raw materials to save points instead of tools, if you can just open the Adv-Worldgen and change your embark points. If you are so keen on taking more stuff, why not set it to 2500 points?

I think in the future GUI I include a little option for simple worldgen settings that allows such changes, without people needing to learn the Adv-Worldgen. ^^

[Apani]

One is called "exploit", another cheating. That's why.
Anyway, my embark plan for Kobolds now is: don't invest in any skills, too complicate with castes and all, care only about the ones that can make better results out of limited resources (e.g. leatherworking, weaponsmith, farming). See if you have anyone good for military and give him some points (I give spear and shield user to Turtles, for example). Bluebirds make goods hunters/surface wanderers since they're at peace with nature. For livestock, I bring Shalswars for eggs and scales (I don't know how good they are at fighting, they don't seem to follow my hunters/soldiers, and one got his head ripped off by a nith, at best they'll help me to spot thieves), Giant Jack Rats for food and leather, maybe a pair of changelings, trap spiders are also helpful for defense (if you don't mind to fight in the webs), but you are very likely to get one or two Drowspiders training your wagon anyway. I don't really like to start with some overexotic animals like cave turtles, drakes or unicorns (Ogres are fine for me, but they are too expensive for embark). I bring a clay boulder to make a kiln and start collecting more boulders immediatedly, a copper shovel (you can avoid this one if you butcher a wagon animal, set up a boneyard with his leather and make a shovel out of his entire skeleton), a chopper and a melee weapon for military-hunting. The plants that can help you most are: Rat Weed for tea, Sun berry for juice, Rope Reed for well, ropes (double pun ), hide root for oil, kobold bulb for poison, woodstalk depending on the biome and all the warpaintings-producing plants you can find. You can replace these plants with other that have the same function, but those are the ones I find available at embark most commonly (Kobolds civs are never too successfull during worldgen, but you should find at least one which has all those).

[ScratchtasticZ]

Well as far as squeezing points goes, I think it's interesting to some people to play the metagame and see just how much they can take with the points they're allotted, rather than just arbitrarily give themselves more. It's kind of fun for me but I don't really like to abuse that as much as I used to. I used to take 100+ different types of meat. Those don't exist in MDF anyways... and it took like a full season of hauling just to get all the stuff inside.

Some interesting ideas. Keep them coming, I'd like to see more!

[Meph]

And while you are at it, maybe design some mod-specific embark profiles

[silentdeth]

I always have a doctor, really hard to train up in vanilla, so it is a bit of a hold over. With harder farming someone with good herbalism to pick the plants and not fail. Moleweasles for meat, drakes for shearing scales. Rigid scaleplate is a lot less labor intensive to produce than lamellar leather. If there isn't going to be undead, a crossbowman/hunter, a good trader to eek out every dwarfbuck from that first important caravan. Mastiffs for defense, again if there isn't undead. Then the usual stuff, mason, carpenter, woodcutter, brewer, farmer. I have a dwarf therapist optimize profile set up for the first few dwarfs that I run on that screen and tells me who gets what skill.

When my current embark dies, I want to try a few out of the box things. Like praying for food and drink, or taking a bard and using the no food/drink song instead of a herbalist, things like that. 

[ScratchtasticZ]

And while you are at it, maybe design some mod-specific embark profiles

Maybe... perhaps if they actually prove useful I will submit them to you.

I always have a doctor, really hard to train up in vanilla, so it is a bit of a hold over. With harder farming someone with good herbalism to pick the plants and not fail. (snip)
When my current embark dies, I want to try a few out of the box things. Like praying for food and drink, or taking a bard and using the no food/drink song instead of a herbalist, things like that. 

I actually hadn't really thought of taking a doctor, but now that you mention that you're right. It's one of those things where you're improving it in the midst of tragedy in the fortress. Not the best time for Urist to learn how the body fits together and what all that red stuff is for...

Isn't farming the skill for picking planted crops? Or is herbalism used for that as well? EDIT: Oops, I see what you mean. A herbalist to run around and pick the natural plants without wasting his time.

Yeah, I saw the bard could remove the need to eat/drink. That would be interesting to watch. If he stopped playing...

[Vinum]

Dwarfs:

3 miners
1 mason/architecht/carpenter
1 Metalcrafter/armorer/weaponsmith, working as a wood burner and furnace operator at the very beginning
1 farmer/brewer/herbalist with 1 point in mechanic
1 axeman/dodger or fighter, who will act as woodcutter while i set up the forge

Items: the standard plus
an extra pick
only one chopping axe
remove wheelbarrow and medical equipment
2 war dogs
1 lizard
a ton of anthracite

Dig a hole of a few z livels hoping to struck some metal ores; start digging the furnaces area and the food storage, then the stone workshops, dining room and quarters. Burn the anthracite as soon as you can to get the fuel, possibly in an area rich in metal ores.
Meanwhile, chop all the trees and gather all the plants.
Soon the metalworker should be able to make a decent battle gear; dig a channel around your fortress and remove every ramp except two for passage.
Butcher the two wagon animals as soon as you have the needing, then assign anyone idling the task of tanning their hides.
By that time, immigrant should arrive and you should have found fossils or precious metal ores and gems.
Assing to everyone (except important dwarves) the jobs Mason, Engraver, Farming, Oven Operating, Furnace Operating, Mechanics and Machine Operating. I usually assign strong and agile dwarves to the army. Hunters can go shoot the local fauna for a while, at least until the start flipping over the ammunition dilemma; then, the draft.

The fortress can now rise.

This combination hardly works on terrifying biomes.

[ScratchtasticZ]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dwarfs:

3 miners
1 mason/architecht/carpenter
1 Metalcrafter/armorer/weaponsmith, working as a wood burner and furnace operator at the very beginning
1 farmer/brewer/herbalist with 1 point in mechanic
1 axeman/dodger or fighter, who will act as woodcutter while i set up the forge

Items: the standard plus
an extra pick
only one chopping axe
remove wheelbarrow and medical equipment
2 war dogs
1 lizard
a ton of anthracite

Dig a hole of a few z livels hoping to struck some metal ores; start digging the furnaces area and the food storage, then the stone workshops, dining room and quarters. Burn the anthracite as soon as you can to get the fuel, possibly in an area rich in metal ores.
Meanwhile, chop all the trees and gather all the plants.
Soon the metalworker should be able to make a decent battle gear; dig a channel around your fortress and remove every ramp except two for passage.
Butcher the two wagon animals as soon as you have the needing, then assign anyone idling the task of tanning their hides.
By that time, immigrant should arrive and you should have found fossils or precious metal ores and gems.
Assing to everyone (except important dwarves) the jobs Mason, Engraver, Farming, Oven Operating, Furnace Operating, Mechanics and Machine Operating. I usually assign strong and agile dwarves to the army. Hunters can go shoot the local fauna for a while, at least until the start flipping over the ammunition dilemma; then, the draft.

The fortress can now rise.

This combination hardly works on terrifying biomes.

I like this. I've never really attempted or successfully completed a metal rush. My dwarfs are always poor stone-grubbers.

[Apani]

Embark on a cave, possibly making it the center of your embark grid. Bring some military/warbeasts. Set up a squad and send them on patrol. Enjoy the mass slaughtering (extreme fun bonus if the cave had already an owner). Now see how careful your embark plan was by trying to butcher every single torn piece without letting anything rotting. Some soldiers might have got some minor injuries from the beetles' boiling juice, but you planned for that too, didn't you?
OR you could try to peacefully approach the "friendly" inhabitants of the cave by setting up a shantytown for them, complete with stables for the beetles. You don't want them paying visits to your camp accidentally murdering your people due to overcrowding (niths seem a bit sturdy about these two points, the visiting and the murdering, you're going to want to lock them in first).
But the last one is more a megaproject than an actual plan.

[ScratchtasticZ]

Embark on a cave, possibly making it the center of your embark grid. Bring some military/warbeasts. Set up a squad and send them on patrol. Enjoy the mass slaughtering (extreme fun bonus if the cave had already an owner). Now see how careful your embark plan was by trying to butcher every single torn piece without letting anything rotting. Some soldiers might have got some minor injuries from the beetles' boiling juice, but you planned for that too, didn't you?
OR you could try to peacefully approach the "friendly" inhabitants of the cave by setting up a shantytown for them, complete with stables for the beetles. You don't want them paying visits to your camp accidentally murdering your people due to overcrowding (niths seem a bit sturdy about these two points, the visiting and the murdering, you're going to want to lock them in first).
But the last one is more a megaproject than an actual plan.

This sounds delightfully horrific...

[Repseki]

If you embark on a kobold cave you should be able to get your early military a bit of quick training, and some trinkets the kobolds graciously offer up to melt down or trade away at the first caravan. They are awfully generous little buggers.