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[Darkgamma]

So, basically, I've decided to try my hand in actual Dwarf Fortress. So far I've been learning and playing with the game with various cheats enabled: I finally decided this is just wimpmode. Embarked my first actual fort in a calm, cold forest. Brought six cats and six pigs and the following dorfs:

• 2 Miner/ 2 Engraver/ 2 Thresher/ 2 Mechanic/ 2 Bowyer
• 5 Gemcutter/ 2 Mason/ 2 Carpenter/ 1 Architect
• 2 Record Keeper/ 2 Organizer/ 1 Judge of Intent/ 1 Intimidator / 1 Liar/ 1 Negotiator / 1 Persuader/ 1 Appraiser
• 2 Woodcutter/ 2 Weaponsmith/ 2 Armorsmith/ 1 Furnace Operator/ 1 Woodburner
• 5 Herbalist/ 2 Butcher/ 2 Tanner/ 1 Leatherworker
• 5 Grower
• 5 Cook/ 5 Brewer

Came with some two hundred units of dwarven wine, about four hundred seeds and about ten different types of meat (from various animals). The stocks tentatively say ~300 meat and ~50 fish and twenty logs for absolutely no reason at all. I was still left with about four thousand embark points even after purchasing five silver maces and five steel shortswords. I got about sixty barrels in all. No wheelbarrow, I can make that later on. Well then, let's strike the Earth.

[Talvieno]

That's an astonishingly high number of embark points. I'm guessing you used advanced worldgen to give yourself extra points?

(Really, though - extra (or less) starting equipment doesn't make it all that much easier in the long run, believe it or not.)

[Darkgamma]

I didn't actually think of it since they were my default settings (which I seem to have modified now that I think of it) but yes, advanced worldgen. Hope it won't lower the difficulty too much

(Really, though - extra (or less) starting equipment doesn't make it all that much easier in the long run, believe it or not.)

Hoorah on that, at least. Hope to see some fun haha

[neblime]

some skills are more useful to invest in than others.  For example mining gains experience so fast that there isn't much benefit to increasing your dwarf's skill straight up. 
Herbalist and grower don't increase super fast, but they don't really make that much of a difference. 
If you have the embark points to invest in dwarf skills you probably want one or two with combat skills, I recommend putting most, if not all, into dodging, because that's what will keep your dwarves alive most of the time.  even with dabbling weapon skill a dwarf can defeat anything if he stays alive long enough.  A dwarf with legendary weapon skill is not much use if he can't dodge or use a shield (speaking from experience here)

Also if you have TONS of embark points:
bringing more alcohol was a good decision
maybe try more variety of animals, cats aren't that great, bring some dogs so you can train them for war/eat them
bringing some of the more exotic strange mood requests can help, like shells, glass, specific types of cloth.
bring 1 unit of coke to save you the trouble of having to make a wood furnace and make 1 charcoal if you find coal/lignite
weapons are fine but armor is good too.  Especially if you have access to steel, but might not at the site.

[Urist McVoyager]

I'll accept this as baby steps on the no-cheating front. The vanilla points are in the 1300s range, not multiple thousands. To get the full feel of the game, you should have to be selective about what you bring.

There's also a lot of skills in your set-up. While I can see the use in a dedicated trader/bookkeeper, you don't necessarily need the book-keeping skill as a starter. Even without it, I've managed to set a no-points keeper to highest precision within a season or two. With a grower and so many seeds, you don't really need an herbalist. You could swap that butcher to trapping, if you're looking to feed into the leather industry.  I generally set my carpenter and mason as two separate people so the carpenter can be doing beds while the mason triples up on doors, chests, and cabinets.

The set-up I was given involved 2 miners, a mason, a wood cutter, a carpenter, a grower, and a brewer. With the new version, I'd double up the mason as a mechanic and add in architecture so it can set up defenses early. A grower won't be constantly busy, so you could double the grower as a brewer. You'll be constantly mining for more space/stone, so you might want your miner to be dedicated/hauling for the few down moments it has between rooms.

Sorry for the wall of text, I'm just passing on how I do things in case you can pull ideas. Play however you want.

[Darkgamma]

some skills are more useful to invest in than others.  For example mining gains experience so fast that there isn't much benefit to increasing your dwarf's skill straight up. 
Herbalist and grower don't increase super fast, but they don't really make that much of a difference. 
If you have the embark points to invest in dwarf skills you probably want one or two with combat skills, I recommend putting most, if not all, into dodging, because that's what will keep your dwarves alive most of the time.  even with dabbling weapon skill a dwarf can defeat anything if he stays alive long enough.  A dwarf with legendary weapon skill is not much use if he can't dodge or use a shield (speaking from experience here)

Also if you have TONS of embark points:
bringing more alcohol was a good decision
maybe try more variety of animals, cats aren't that great, bring some dogs so you can train them for war/eat them
bringing some of the more exotic strange mood requests can help, like shells, glass, specific types of cloth.
bring 1 unit of coke to save you the trouble of having to make a wood furnace and make 1 charcoal if you find coal/lignite
weapons are fine but armor is good too.  Especially if you have access to steel, but might not at the site.

Hmm, noted, definitely useful stuff.

I'll accept this as baby steps on the no-cheating front. The vanilla points are in the 1300s range, not multiple thousands. To get the full feel of the game, you should have to be selective about what you bring.

There's also a lot of skills in your set-up. While I can see the use in a dedicated trader/bookkeeper, you don't necessarily need the book-keeping skill as a starter. Even without it, I've managed to set a no-points keeper to highest precision within a season or two. With a grower and so many seeds, you don't really need an herbalist. You could swap that butcher to trapping, if you're looking to feed into the leather industry.  I generally set my carpenter and mason as two separate people so the carpenter can be doing beds while the mason triples up on doors, chests, and cabinets.

The set-up I was given involved 2 miners, a mason, a wood cutter, a carpenter, a grower, and a brewer. With the new version, I'd double up the mason as a mechanic and add in architecture so it can set up defenses early. A grower won't be constantly busy, so you could double the grower as a brewer. You'll be constantly mining for more space/stone, so you might want your miner to be dedicated/hauling for the few down moments it has between rooms.

Sorry for the wall of text, I'm just passing on how I do things in case you can pull ideas. Play however you want.

(No problem, thanks for the wall!)
Yeah, I might have made some not so stellar choices, but I tried to pick a loadout that gave me as much variety and squeezed the most use out of the seven (at least, the most vital functions).

I probably could have gone for some military skill but what's done is done; I hope to make that up with training rooms.

[Talvieno]

(Really, though - extra (or less) starting equipment doesn't make it all that much easier in the long run, believe it or not.)

Hoorah on that, at least. Hope to see some fun haha

Don't get me wrong - it'll make it loads easier the first year or two. But in the long run - not so much. Your chance of surviving longer is high. Your chance of a challenge is low. At least - until you reach year 3+.

[Urist McVoyager]

The thing to remember is that your first season is generally just setting up the basics. The second and third seasons provide migrants that will flesh out your skills. So you only need to rely on those starting seven for a season or two. In that first season you're mostly digging out and furnishing farms, storage for food and resources, workshop spaces, bedrooms, and workshop areas. The digging out alone will take a while, especially with only one miner. Once you get the carpenter and mason shops up, you'll start furniture making and setting. And remember, every piece of furniture set is going to take time away from other things, so your people are going to be plenty busy doing stuff other than those economic jobs for a while anyway.

The bedrooms and dining hall are critical and should be done by First Season's end. Between the morale issues of not having them, and the Internal Meeting Hall function of the dining hall, they're management tools that'll keep your fort safe. Otherwise your migrants will gather at the wagon and be easy prey for animals and enemies.

[Darkgamma]

Random question: why the hell did my dwarf die?
He was digging a hole in the ground which I was going to use for a food stockpile, a hole that used to house the roots of a tree above. The moment he struck the ground, now empty of roots, I got the message: "there has been a collapse on the surface" and the miner died - underground!
This hasn't happened to me in 40.01 O:
What sorcery is this

[Urist McVoyager]

You dug out roots. He might have accidentally taken out the tree. Those things are bonkers on collapses, and sometimes send logs crashing through several levels of solid material.

[Darkgamma]

You dug out roots. He might have accidentally taken out the tree. Those things are bonkers on collapses, and sometimes send logs crashing through several levels of solid material.

That's definitely a bug
The trees seem to disappear when their roots are dug out, then they collapse once the soil under them is dug out and mysteriously leave no wood behind.
Also, my herbalist has now become king and demands royal everything. I barely got bedrooms and a dining room!

[Urist McVoyager]

Yes, the tree thing is a bug. You're completely new, so you might not know what an epic change these trees are. They used to be nothing more than a one-tile wide symbol on the ground that yielded a single log when cut. Now they're behemoths that can fuel an entire fortress within ten or twenty cutting jobs. So, going from a single tile to massive structures in their own rights is definitely going to involve growing pains.

And that King might be a bug, but it might also be a sign that your Civ is undergoing unrest. If the old King died and your citizen was his heir, he just became King and you're going to have to house him or kill him and hope he doesn't have other heirs in your Fortress.

[Darkgamma]

Yes, the tree thing is a bug. You're completely new, so you might not know what an epic change these trees are. They used to be nothing more than a one-tile wide symbol on the ground that yielded a single log when cut. Now they're behemoths that can fuel an entire fortress within ten or twenty cutting jobs. So, going from a single tile to massive structures in their own rights is definitely going to involve growing pains.

Yay. Growing pains that include random collapses and teleportation through levels <_<
Well, good to know. Ought to avoid digging so shallowly.

And that King might be a bug, but it might also be a sign that your Civ is undergoing unrest. If the old King died and your citizen was his heir, he just became King and you're going to have to house him or kill him and hope he doesn't have other heirs in your Fortress.

I can neither house him nor kill him right now, though. Damn. Can he do nasty stuff if angry? I mean, I don't have a hammerdwarf ready or anything.
He's also the only noble listed in the civ screen.

[Rickshaw_Watcher]

Six cats? Male and Female?

Random question: why the hell did my dwarf die?
He was digging a hole in the ground which I was going to use for a food stockpile, a hole that used to house the roots of a tree above. The moment he struck the ground, now empty of roots, I got the message: "there has been a collapse on the surface" and the miner died - underground!
This hasn't happened to me in 40.01 O:
What sorcery is this

With all those roots gone maybe there was nothing to hold up the rest of the soil and it fell in. If he was buried alive and crushed that might explain your situation.

Yes, the tree thing is a bug. You're completely new, so you might not know what an epic change these trees are. They used to be nothing more than a one-tile wide symbol on the ground that yielded a single log when cut. Now they're behemoths that can fuel an entire fortress within ten or twenty cutting jobs. So, going from a single tile to massive structures in their own rights is definitely going to involve growing pains.

Or that. I must say, coming from learning the basics with 34.11 and then switching to 40.04 was entirely worth it just for proper trees. They also look pretty nice in Autumn when you go up a few depth levels in a forest. So many colors....

[Darkgamma]

Six cats? Male and Female?

Three each, and four sows and two boars.