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[eccentric]

As a new player I spent too much time finding the 'perfect embark' more on the embark profiles and not enough playing. My advice is embark, play, and fail have !FUN! figure out the type of player you are.

Myself I use a no tools, low food/drink embark. I like to pretend the dwarves got lost on the way.

-miner/military
-miner/military
-mechanic/architect
-doctor/broker/bookkeeper (post-embark; +bonecrafter)
-grower/carpenter (post-embark; +woodcutter)
-brewer/mason
-weapon/armorsmith (post-embark; +wood burner, +furnace op)

You might think that a no tools embark is an advance technique but making your tools is a good way to play around with the metal industry make (2)picks and (1) ax for this embark.

Make some barrels, bins, beds and nesting boxes with the wood on the wagon. Wood isn't as rare as it was and it's light so use it.

Slaughter the one of the bonus embark wagon animals and cook easy meals and pasture the other embark animal till you run out then start cooking his friend. Bones are carved into bolts by the doctor.

Brew some plump helmets into wine before they drink what was on the wagon. This doesn't take long to brew a years worth of drink giving him/her time to make all the stone chairs/table/doors/blocks you'll need in a starting fort.

Starting underground farms and nest boxes setup should be a priority. Setup half the nest boxes in a forbidden room for chicksplosion.

The mechanic (no hauling) makes mechanisms (occasionally designs bridges) and nothing else. Before the caravan comes make steel. After a year making stone mechanisms your mechanic should be able to make a quality steel mechanism valued enough to buy what you need. Exporting high-quality mechanisms seems more dwarfy then exporting food and crafts. Plus all the mechanisms laying around can be used for making traps and linking to floodgate/bridges/ect...

Once you have that stuff down you can start playing around with other industries and killing stuff.

This profile has a couple hundred extra points for whatever; extra wood, iron, copper, flux, animals,...

Code: [Select]

[PROFILE]
[TITLE:NO TOOLS LOW FOOD EMBARK]
[SKILL:1:MINING:5]
[SKILL:1:MELEE_COMBAT:1]
[SKILL:1:WRESTLING:1]
[SKILL:1:DODGING:3]
[SKILL:2:MINING:5]
[SKILL:2:MELEE_COMBAT:1]
[SKILL:2:WRESTLING:1]
[SKILL:2:DODGING:3]
[SKILL:3:MECHANICS:5]
[SKILL:3:DESIGNBUILDING:5]
[SKILL:4:DRESS_WOUNDS:1]
[SKILL:4:DIAGNOSE:4]
[SKILL:4:SURGERY:1]
[SKILL:4:SET_BONE:1]
[SKILL:4:SUTURE:1]
[SKILL:4:JUDGING_INTENT:1]
[SKILL:4:APPRAISAL:1]
[SKILL:5:CARPENTRY:5]
[SKILL:5:PLANT:5]
[SKILL:6:MASONRY:5]
[SKILL:6:BREWING:5]
[SKILL:7:FORGE_WEAPON:5]
[SKILL:7:FORGE_ARMOR:5]
[ITEM:1:ANVIL:NONE:INORGANIC:IRON]
[ITEM:5:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:GRASS_TAIL_PIG:SEED]
[ITEM:5:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:GRASS_WHEAT_CAVE:SEED]
[ITEM:5:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:POD_SWEET:SEED]
[ITEM:5:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:BUSH_QUARRY:SEED]
[ITEM:5:SEEDS:NONE:PLANT_MAT:MUSHROOM_CUP_DIMPLE:SEED]
[ITEM:50:PLANT:NONE:PLANT_MAT:MUSHROOM_HELMET_PLUMP:STRUCTURAL]
[ITEM:10:DRINK:NONE:PLANT_MAT:GRASS_TAIL_PIG:DRINK]
[ITEM:10:DRINK:NONE:PLANT_MAT:GRASS_WHEAT_CAVE:DRINK]
[ITEM:10:DRINK:NONE:PLANT_MAT:POD_SWEET:DRINK]
[ITEM:20:WOOD:NONE:PLANT_MAT:TOWER_CAP:WOOD]
[ITEM:2:BOULDER:NONE:INORGANIC:LIMONITE]
[ITEM:10:BOULDER:NONE:INORGANIC:GRANITE]
[PET:4:DOG:FEMALE:STANDARD]
[PET:1:DOG:MALE:STANDARD]
[PET:1:CAT:FEMALE:STANDARD]
[PET:1:CAT:MALE:STANDARD]
[PET:4:BIRD_CHICKEN:FEMALE:STANDARD]
[PET:1:BIRD_CHICKEN:MALE:STANDARD]

[Vyro]

My advice here will be really simple.
As I once did, embark with absolutely nothing and figure out what you really need and what you don't by yourself. Tastes differ, and surviving off the land can be challenging a bit, but hey, this game is all about challenge. Planning out carefully your embarks tends to make real difference only in extreme biomes like Terrifying Deserts and whatnot.

[Agent_Irons]

I always bring one miner. I always regret it and wish I'd brought two, but I don't really have the dwarves to spare. Sometimes for dangerous embarks I double up spare miner/hammerdwarf, but that is a bad idea(picks).

The essentials are usually 1 miner, 1 appraiser/diagnostician/carpenter/mechanic, 1 craftsdwarf(usually bonecarving mostly, but he gets all crafts turned on for the first year or so), one general farmer with everything under farming, and one specialist that does planting and maybe brewing and nothing else. That makes five, and having a mason/bowyer/woodcutter is nice. Also having someone with one rank in ambusher, just so they can murder the wildlife.(also sometimes you get a crossbow and some bolts that are metal, which you can melt down and replace with wooden ones if you're quick) If there are surface metals I'll make a weapon/armorsmith sometimes.

I specialize a lot for the embark I'm going to, though. If there's even a trace of a haunted biome(which there should be, because they're really handy/FUN) one guy is getting a silver warhammer, a copper hat, and discipline points. (Also the butchery/tanning/furnace operation/pump operation labors, because those train spatial reasoning and strength). I always forget to make spare pants/shoes/shirt before turning on replace instead of over, so he's always unhappy because he's naked OR he's not wearing his hat.

I always forget to bring a quiver and crossbow, or I can't afford it. Drop a little dough on turkeys though, those are a great investment. They cost one point more than the leather they really represent, but you get fat and meat and bones and a neat little trinket to sell off packaged with the leather. Cats are great, even if you only bring one. The vermin remains are annoying, but the vermin themselves are worse. Dogs are excellent anti-thief protection. Chain one outside your door!

I've tried doing minmax embarks where you bring like five bits of gabbro, some ore, and some lignite and forge your picks and axes, but I nearly always screw it up somehow. I end up with like 30 lignite but no coke to kickstart the process, and no axe to cut down trees, and I haven't brought wood. (in retrospect should have busted up the wagon for logs, made a training axe. Poop.)

[Xanatoss]

Speaking of Embark Profiles: Do I conclude correctly that there is a limited amount of entries an embark profile does save_and_ read? And if so, is there a method to raise that cap?

[Iamblichos]

Yep.  I learned more about DF in the first two embarks I did with 7 unskilled dwarves and a single pick than I did in the previous 38 billion.  It forces you to get a grip and learn whats important with a quickness.

[Lyra]

I would advise against getting hung up on looking for the perfect items before you even start playing, because it won't make a difference when the fun arrives.

I used to bring a lot of items on embark.  I would routinely spend ~500 points on food alone.  Then I started doing the single pick challenge.  I won't pretend that any of those challenge forts were very successful, but I think it definitely made me a better player.  There is only so much you can learn from embarking on a calm forest.

[greycat]

I always bring one miner. I always regret it and wish I'd brought two, but I don't really have the dwarves to spare.

I tried single-miner embarks once or twice, and they were horrible.  I couldn't get my basic rooms dug in time.  Two miners are the minimum I can live with.  I've never attempted a single-pick challenge, but if I did, I'd sure as hell make "forge another pick" one of my top priorities.

[Edmus]

Single pick challenge in tundra is Fun. Everything else can wait for you to breach the caverns. Caverns are a treasure trove of resources.

[blue sam3]

I always bring one miner. I always regret it and wish I'd brought two, but I don't really have the dwarves to spare.

I tried single-miner embarks once or twice, and they were horrible.  I couldn't get my basic rooms dug in time.  Two miners are the minimum I can live with.  I've never attempted a single-pick challenge, but if I did, I'd sure as hell make "forge another pick" one of my top priorities.

There's a difference between having multiple miners, and having skilled miners at the start. I'd quite agree that it can be good to take multiple picks and enable mining on multiple dwarves (after all, several of them will just be standing around doing nothing, waiting for their rooms to be dug out otherwise), but there's no particular reason to waste the embark points on skills for those miners, when it trains so fast anyway, and gives free stat gains to boot.

[NobleNecromancer]

Technically only one pick is required(or nothing at all if you decide to make a surface fort in a place that has trees. Via taking down your wagon, making a carpenter shop with one of the three logs and making a training axe or two with the other logs in order to start chopping wood.).

Everything after that is just things you would like, and each person like doing things differently, some take a single or a pair of pro miners while others prefer to spend the points on multiple picks so they can have many miners at the start.

I am a newbie myself and find myself debating what would help me more, skills that can be put to use now/very early(mining and farming for example) or skills that can help me later but might become pointless if the RNG decides to give me a migrant that is better at that skill(weapon and armor smithing)... Or just ignore skills and grab more equipment.

[Iamblichos]

Technically only one pick is required(or nothing at all if you decide to make a surface fort in a place that has trees. Via taking down your wagon, making a carpenter shop with one of the three logs and making a training axe or two with the other logs in order to start chopping wood.).

This is true IF you have access to a weapon-grade metal.  If you start in an area that's all sphalerite and gold, you are hosed without a pick.

[NobleNecromancer]

Technically only one pick is required(or nothing at all if you decide to make a surface fort in a place that has trees. Via taking down your wagon, making a carpenter shop with one of the three logs and making a training axe or two with the other logs in order to start chopping wood.).

This is true IF you have access to a weapon-grade metal.  If you start in an area that's all sphalerite and gold, you are hosed without a pick.

In my hypothetically no pick embark, all you would have to do is survive until the fist caravan came and hope they(or one of the migrants that came beforehand) have a pick to buy. After that it is just a matter of buying more picks if you aren't able to make any. And if you don't have a pick then you should have plenty of logs to make buildings and such(since I stated that the hypothetically no pick embark be in a place that has trees.).

[Scruiser]

    Another way of abusing the mechanics of the game: Embark with 3 miners and 3 masons and a mechanic and tons of food and drink (possibly a wood cutter and carpenter in the latest version and only two masons to take advantage of the wood).  Bring no other items or pets other than these bare essentials (3 picks for miners, food and drink).  Ignore trade caravan.  Mine out your entire fort and build and place all your doors, chairs, beds, cabinets, tables, and workshops.  Layout everything perfectly.  Build a good surface tower with drawbridges and link everything up nicely.  Make sure to leave yourself (N)notes on the levers.  You should be able to build all of this in a year.  Abandon the fort.  Then Reclaim and embark without worrying about needing to do any mining or setup. 
    I haven't trade this with the latest version, but I did it several times in DF2012.  It was nice having everything setup and no need to worry about mining or building any rooms.  Note that you will need to reclaim (on designation menu) buildings to actually use them.  Breaching the cavern layer will let more stuff in your fort on the reclaim, even if you reseal it before abandoning, so avoid that.  Avoid pets because they will die and leave skeletons that that need removing.
    Haven't tried this yet with latest version, so I don't know how it will interact with the history advancement... should be FUN.

[Xanatoss]

Sorry to post my ot  question again: I noticed that if I build an embark profile with lots (and lots) of entries and saving it, upon loading it for my next game there are only the first entries used (like the first 2 pages).
Am I doing something wrong or is there a cap of saveable entries and if so, is there a way to increase it?