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[NeoHelios]

Hi Forum,

First post, and the result of spending the last 3 days trying to learn the basics of this game (instead of actually playing...!).  Tried searching the forums, youtube, and the wiki, but no clear results, so here is some context and my question. 

After drawing inspiration from the original Urist story, I am starting a game with ZERO POINTS spent in ANY skills, but I'm finding difficulty with forcing the dwarves to complete tasks for which they are "dabbling".  For example I want to de-construct my wagon for the wood.  EVERYONE has the dabbling skill in EVERYTHING, and I made sure to enable the skill in the user interface by [ V ]iewing the dwarf, and by hitting [ENTER] to enable.  The wagon is set to be destroyed via the [ q ] Building Task and [ x ] to Remove the Building.  The Wagon now shows "Needs Carpentry" in blue text.  I unpause the game, and the dwarves just stand there despite having "Carpentry" enabled (white text in the [ v ]iew | [ p ]references | [ l ]abor menu).  Will be using Dwarf Therapist in future, but I digress.  I also cannot gather plants with similar [ v ]iew | [ p ]references | [ l ]abor setup, and already set up a stock[ p ]ile for [ f ]ood. 

They're just standing there.  In the middle of the field.  I think can feel their quiet, little dwarf eyes hating me for only sending them out with an anvil & a stack of copper, but at least I sent them out with a year's supply of food & booze.  *sigh*  can't please everyone, I guess.

Question is:  am I missing something, or are there certain skills which are absolutely critical for starting gameplay (like the "first anvil" argument but from a sense of basic, essential skills).  Better question--where is this info that I obviously overlooked in the wiki?  ...some "primordial skill list".

THANKS SO MUCH!

[MetalRocks]

The wagon is set to be destroyed via the [ q ] Building Task and [ x ] to Remove the Building.  The Wagon now shows "Needs Carpentry" in blue text.  I unpause the game, and the dwarves just stand there despite having "Carpentry" enabled (white text in the [ v ]iew | [ p ]references | [ l ]abor menu). 

The Quickstart Guide says "Even if you don't have trees, you can obtain 3 logs from your embark wagon. Press q, place the cursor on your wagon, and hit x to deconstruct it. This will flag the wagon for disassembly. Eventually a carpenter will come along and turn the useless wagon into a few units of wood. (Removing other buildings is done the same way.)"

Question is:  am I missing something, or are there certain skills which are absolutely critical for starting gameplay (like the "first anvil" argument but from a sense of basic, essential skills).  Better question--where is this info that I obviously overlooked in the wiki?  ...some "primordial skill list".

There are recommendations, but there are no critical skills.
Most of the people start with at least the following skills: 2 miners, carpenter, woodcutter, Cook, Brewer, Farmer and eather a fisherdwarf or a Hunter. But none of these are necessary, they just make the starting easier. Others think long term and prefer to focus on the industry they are going to build (if you are going to survive thanks to the metal industry then starting out with metal working skills might be a good idea, or maybe you are planning on having a great army and you  prefer to focus on combat/teaching skills). It is up to you.

Edit:
Here you have the embark skills explained.

[NeoHelios]

I think I recall some those points, thanks for the reminder.  What really helped was your suggestion that EVENTUALLY someone would come along.  In my attempts to "get the thing to work" I must have locked something out, because the dwarves proved that they are more stubborn than I; they didn't budge for MONTHS!  However after starting over from scratch, I simply enabled the skill as mentioned above, and waited a bit longer.  ...and it worked! 

I really wish I knew what i did to lock it out, though.  I'd hate to get a few years into a game, encounter the same conflict, and have to resort to starting over again.  At any rate, I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it again.

Thank you so much for your quick reply!  Happy holidays

[Garath]

as a slight note, unless you consider yourself a gamer with godlike skills, or at least mastermind level, a traditional embark might be better to get to grips with the basics

[WhimsyWink]

I started out trying to learn more before embarking myself.  I was consumed by the tile set and what every symbol represented.  When I came to the "play now" vs "prepare carefully" I was painfully conscious that I didn't know enough to make those decisions.  My trust was that that "play now" made some generic decisions rather than embarking empty handed.

a couple years in game passes pretty quick.  Starting over is no big deal.

Have fun

[xcorps]

a couple years in game passes pretty quick

If it's passing too quickly or slowly you can change the framerate with ALT + or ALT -.  Beware of sending it below 10, it causes a bug.
Beware of sending it way up, because you will miss a LOT of important notifications.

Just an FYI.