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[Grotug]

Hi there!
I am in the process of building some mechanisms in the hope I will eventually figure out how to pump water and channel it into my fortress in the mountain before winter comes (it's summer now).  The last fortress I attempted (and my first one) everyone died of thirst.  This time I have a good plot of land as I have all resources available to me, wood, minerals and some 7/7 water holes in the mountains.  After I dug through a few layers of clay I found some nice opals.  I have lots of minerals lying around and I don't know how to move them somewhere where they can be made into nice things to sell to the merchant when he comes or what have you.  I built some chairs since everyone always asks for them, but I built them underground near the cherry opal deposits, since I figure the dwarves would like to sit near the precious stones.

 I accidentally built a whole bunch of up/down stairs and wondering if I should remove them or just leave them.



Also, hopefully some dwarves will soon mine a path to that pool that I designated them to mine!
Thanks for reading; I'm looking forward to becoming part of a community for this zany game!

[acetech09]

1) Your dwarves don't drink water. They drink booze. Set up a brewery and farms and pump out what your dwarves will actually drink.

2) Those up/down stairs are fine, I guess - but kinda pointless.

3) You're digging into the side of the pool, so it'll flood back into the tunnel and evaporate. But you don't need it anyway. Your dwarves will just go up on top of the hill if they really really have to drink. But seriously. Make booze. Dwarves don't work on water.

4) The dwarves will actually like to sit near the minerals. But build some tables next to the chairs. That way they have a place to eat.

5) The quickest way to make stuff for trade is to build a craftsdwarf's workshop near a bunch of stone, and making rock mugs with a stonecrafter. You can also build a jeweler's workshop, assign a dwarf gem cutting labor, and cut out jewels. But you have to build a trade depot for traders to arrive.

[MaGicBush]

You may want to look at a guide and follow it, it helped me a ton through my first fort(though I ended up losing it to a tantrum spiral after about 5 years). Also yes build a brewery, and have some herbalists(should start with one) go out and grab plants(using the d-p keys) to use in the brewery(q to select it and then a to add task). Then just keep a stockpile of about 5-10 barrels of booze and that will last a few month's or more. When it gets low(checking the status screen for "drink" with z) build another 5-10 wines.

[Grotug]

Thanks guys.  I did make a trade depot and some guy with a caravan started talking to my trader guy.  He had tons of stuff I wanted but I couldn't figure out how to make the trade happen and I think we both left with nothing. 

I google whatever I have a question with and that usually brings up some wiki page that his often helpful.  I did notice that every dwarf cannot get through a working day without alcohol, but thought they needed water, too (only because alcohol dehydrates humans, but apparently not dwarves). 

Right now I have a starvation problem.  I figured out traps too late (it's now autumn and no wildlife to be seen).  However, my dwarves won't kill and eat all the nice tame animals roaming around my camp, such as water buffalo, yak and guineahen.  I tell them to kill and trap live animals but they just walk right by the guineahen without killing it or trapping it.  It's autumn now (but no snow yet, I must be in a southern New England or northern mid-atlantic type biome) Not sure if I'll be able to make any booze now?  Certainly I'll try.  Not sure if my farms have even produced anything.  I have about 15 plots or so, but all of them are built on a silty/clay soil with a yellow warning about needing mud.  (I don't know how to make mud yet).  I'll try this brewery thing tho, and see how it goes.  Thanks!

edit: I killed some nearby boar with my militia, but ran out of ammunition, even though I built a bowery and crossbows and saw arrows flying across my screen.  I built a bunch more crossbows.  I now see a herd of boar in my camp! but I'm afraid they'll move on before I solve my ammunition problem.  Any ideas?

[Laurin]

To butcher your tame animals, build a butcher's shop (and a tanner as well) and a kitchen of course. You can choose tame (unnamed) animals to be butchered from the z screen.

You can make alcohol from gathered plants, if there are any. Mark a larger area for plant gathering and your dwarfs will bring in at least some plants.

As for trading, the wiki has it all:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Trading

[madmario]

Be sure to press t to trade, not o for offer. You think you're making an offer, but you're really making an offering.

[MaGicBush]

Be sure to press t to trade, not o for offer. You think you're making an offer, but you're really making an offering.

You will also need things to trade with and move those goods to the trade depot, stonecrafts are great for trading(built in the craftsdwarf shop).

[BoredVirulence]

I have about 15 plots or so, but all of them are built on a silty/clay soil with a yellow warning about needing mud.  (I don't know how to make mud yet)

You should be able to farm on clay. My strategy for farms is to farm near the surface in the soil / clay, and that always works. The reason I do that is because irrigating a stone floor just for a more central location takes too much time, and by then my farms are already set up. Although I do access it with a secondary non-central staircase for security reasons.

You probably have a few spots that are not clay, and its giving you the warning because of that. Other wise you may have forgotten to assign plants to each season of the year. Also, 15 plots is way to many. I typically use 4-5 10X10 plots which is hugely overkill. I believe the common recommendation is 1-2 4X4 or 5X5.

edit: I killed some nearby boar with my militia, but ran out of ammunition, even though I built a bowery and crossbows and saw arrows flying across my screen.  I built a bunch more crossbows.  I now see a herd of boar in my camp! but I'm afraid they'll move on before I solve my ammunition problem.  Any ideas?

You need to build bolts. Bolts are made at a craftsdwarf workshop, or metalsmiths forge if metal is used. I recommend wood or bone bolts, metal is a waste of resources unless you have silver pouring out of your coffers and you don't like to give dwarves nice things. I even recommend wood or bone bolts for marksdwarf squads, unless they are highly skilled. But my strategy is more bolts rather than fewer, better, and more well aimed bolts, as some of my colleges might say, more dakka.

[Aslandus]

Not sure if my farms have even produced anything.  I have about 15 plots or so, but all of them are built on a silty/clay soil with a yellow warning about needing mud.  (I don't know how to make mud yet).  I'll try this brewery thing tho, and see how it goes.  Thanks!

edit: I killed some nearby boar with my militia, but ran out of ammunition, even though I built a bowery and crossbows and saw arrows flying across my screen.  I built a bunch more crossbows.  I now see a herd of boar in my camp! but I'm afraid they'll move on before I solve my ammunition problem.  Any ideas?

Don't forget to use q to set orders for what to actually grow on the plots, otherwise they'll just sit there. The farmers will run the farms automatically from there, giving you food for all your hungry dwarves (also, you need plants to use for seed to plant the plots). Bone bolts can be made cheaply at a craftsdwarf workshop, and you keep refilling supplies from the kills. Make sure there's an available butchery station, otherwise they might leave the kill to rot. Cage traps will allow you to capture, train and eventually domesticate animals, though boars will require grazing, so you may want to find an animals that doesn't have such needs if you don't want to dedicate vast amounts of land to the herds you'll eventually get...

[TheKaspa]

Tip for farming
For each plot, surround it with a stockpile that allows only seeds needed in that farm.
Create another (bigger but not too much bigger) stockpile nearby that allows only the plants you'll be growing in said plot, so that dwarvesUristMcMoronMcFarmer would gather them.
Set both stockpiles to not use barrels/bins, otherwise you'll get tons of "Cancel seed, items inaccessible" because every gatherer would move the whole barrel, blocking access to the seed or the plant.