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[Tsuchigumo550]

I'm going to try and build a fort based around siege difficulty- the main entrance is heavily guarded and trapped, the secondary entrance really isn't an entrance but a way to release land forces to the enemy, a link between agriculture sector and main sector that is heavily secure (A minecart bridge/walkway that's only open when the drawbridge is down for the main sector and when the main fort has "accepted" travel via another lever). The agriculture sector is likely the least secure, as trading will also happen here, as well as animal pastures and possibly cavern breaching. There's a third way in connected to this, but you have to go from the surface down to the caverns and up again, so it won't be easy.

There's a third building connected to the main sector via underground that also breaches into the caverns. This one is as secure as I can make it.

The mainsector entrance has a moat, archer barracks, and a cave-in ring. The agriculture subsector has only a bridge and wall.
The third building has only a door (as it's going to connect to the caverns, and not the rest of the fort directly through anything but a bridge.

---

A secondary plan is to subsector the fort in three ways: the main sector which handles mining and production of goods, the agriculture subsector which is almost entirely aboveground including a minecart bridge and walkway, and the Expidition subsector that indirectly connects to the fort and the caverns.

[doublestrafe]

The only skills I believe in embarking with for their own sake are mining, herbalism, farming, cooking, and appraiser/judge of intent. Everything else goes into weapon/armorsmithing, so that they will be the highest moodable skill on everyone but the miner. Herbalism, farming, and cooking supply everything you need for a thriving underground aboveground farm that beats the hell out of plump helmets, and will provide plenty of expensive food to trade away by the time the first caravan shows up.

I've never understood the idea of embarking with military. You can't give them enough skill or equipment to survive even a minor threat, so why bother? Get underground, I say.

[MaximumZero]

3 miners, 3 grower/brewers, 1 doctor/appraiser.

[Sutremaine]

I've never understood the idea of embarking with military. You can't give them enough skill or equipment to survive even a minor threat, so why bother? Get underground, I say.

You can get underground pretty quickly with just seven peasants, so skills and digging in aren't mutually exclusive...

For me, 'bringing military' means setting up some dwarves with Proficient Teaching plus Proficiency in one other combat skill per dwarf. If you get attacked as soon as you unpause, very few of them will last longer in combat than the average dwarf. Their value is in their ability to spread their skills to each other, and increase those skills until the time when you can make some equipment for them.

On safer maps my military dwarves usually spend the first month or season lugging things about or producing plants and logs. This gives them a profession, and helps me get set up for my first delivery of migrants.

[4maskwolf]

I think it depends on the biome.  Evil biomes: Miners.  Lots and lots of miners.

Anything else: miner, herbalist, various farm workers, plus a mason to make furniture.  I know masonry is easily trained, but it's a pain to enable masonry on a dwarf every time rather than have it already enabled.

[ImagoDeo]

I've never understood the idea of embarking with military. You can't give them enough skill or equipment to survive even a minor threat, so why bother? Get underground, I say.

The main point is to get a headstart on training. By the end of the second year, you can have two starting military dwarves at legendary and two or three others from migrant waves at Professional. And you actually can start with enough skill and equipment to massacre troglodytes or even blind cave ogres. I've done it several times and it's become my default start, unless I'm doing the single pick challenge.

[Andrew425]

Miner/Engraver
Miner/Engraver
Axedwarf/Dodger/Fighter/Wrestler/Striker
Diagnostician/2 of each medical attribute
Peasant
Peasant
Peasant

[SixOfSpades]

IMO, starting skills are overrated: Dwarves learn skills so rapidly that all essential labors will become Legendary before you know it. Add to this the fact that you're going to be getting Master Whatevers migrating to your fort roughly every other season, and allocating skills to your starting 7 quickly starts to seem almost completely negligible. Save your embark points for tools & raw materials.

The one exception is my mayor/noble: If one of my starting 7 has a cool name and preferences for materials easily found on-site, and finished goods that I'm going to be making anyway, I take steps to ensure that they're the expedition leader & future mayor: I assign them 1 rank of every social skill. Yeah, I could manually reassign the position of mayor every summer, but I'd rather they just fall into the role naturally.

[Loud Whispers]

Soldier/Teacher [Untrained Mason]
Soldier/Teacher [Untrained Mason]
Farmer/Brewer [Untrained Mason]
Farmer/Brewer [Untrained Mason]
Carpenter/Woodcutter [Untrained Mason]
Miner [Untrained Mason]
Miner [Untrained Mason]

BUILD IT HIGHER

[roughedge]

7 miners/herbalist. They breach the cavern early and dig a large soil room for fungus to grow, so they can get cavern plants.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Miner x6
"Leader" type with skills to suit the situation

The miners just carve out the fort for the 2nd and 3rd migrant waves, who start the actual farming and other stuff.

[blue emu]

Skill-1 Miner
Skill-1 Miner
Skill-1 Miner / Skill-1 Mason / Skill-1 Building Designer
Skill-1 Lumberjack / Skill-1 Carpenter
Skill-5 Grower / Skill-1 Weaponsmith
Skill-3 Brewer / Skill-3 Cook / Skill-1 Armorsmith
Skill-1 Mechanic / Skill-1 Diagnostician + Social Skills (Persuade, Appraise, Organize, Console, etc)

The point of giving the two Farmers one point each in metalworking skills is that their main skills (Growing, Brewing+Cooking) are non-Moodable. This way, if they get a Strange Mood, I end up with a Legendary Weaponsmith or Armorsmith instead of a Legendary Bone-Carver.

[mobucks]

miner
grower/brewer
mason or mason/carpenter
lumberjack/animal trainer (train animals and go out to trees with backup)
doctor (diagnoser/surgeon/bonesetting) appraiser/judge of intent <-- expedition leader
teacher/axe or sworddwarf
teacher/armor user

If I don't bring two sets of armor and weapons at embark, the two military dwarves get pickaxes and mine. Otherwise I begin training as soon as a weapon rack is set up.

As others have stated, taking two dwarves with teacher/military skill is a huge boost to the future military.

[Tsuchigumo550]

I've started bringing a Woodcutter/Axedwarf/Teacher, a mason, a carpenter, a brew/grower, a cook/grower, and two miners. Miners will have engraving and possibly another military skill, I dunno.

[Remuthra]

Two miners, a grower/herbalist, a mason/building designer/mechanic/bonecrafter/woodcrafter, a woodcutter/carpenter/stonecrafter/tanner/butcher, a noble, and a swordsdwarf/dodger.