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[blackravenx]

Hello all and wanted to say I love this game but still on the stable version of game because I spent more time installing then playing. It seems that every game I play or start ends in Death of thirst or they go berserk. I do the following pretty much all the time:
I am new at this game  lol

Start game:
1. Cut trees 12x12 are and build a plot for wood to be stored.
2. Build 1 tanner, 1 butcher, 2 carpentry, 1 miner, 2 craftshops
create non stop wood barrels, buckets, beds, Stone; Chairs and tables around 4-6 each , craft shop is repeat wooden bolts, and 6-9 nesting boxes. then switch to Repeat stone pots.
3. Dig or start mining area in mountain or dig stairs down 4-5 levels down.
4. Create Pen for poultry lot putting nesting boxes to start popping out chicks.
5. Create item farm plot in cave or level 5x5 ( all seasons making plump pellots) making workshop of kitchen and stiller . Which I also put in plots for just seeds, plants, fat. Then set the guy making drinks on repeatable. I do check if he is stopped because no plants. Put kitchen on making simple dinners removing the eggs from list of cook items and turn off Plumps from being cooked as well.
6. create liven area for beds, main hall for tables and chairs. Then set the bedroom to be Dorm and main hall to be meeting area. Once that is completed I put in food area for prepared food and drinks.

I could go on and on but seems after this point people tend to get pissed or thirsty. By the time Autumn comes I have people dying or dead or mad house full of serial killers. Guess everyone has this issue in the beginning. Also would be a great help if some would list what they normally do that would help me get through this non stop game starting over Also maybe some screen shots of layouts of great beginner forts to try out. I know everyone is different but I like to see what others do then adapt what I want into them.

Well take care:
Blackravenx

[darkflagrance]

You should see what kind of unhappy thoughts your dwarves are having. That can help pinpoint your specific problem. If they are getting thirsty, you should probably make digging out farmland and setting up a brewing industry your foremost priority, and embark with a lot of drink.

It's also possible that your dwarves are doing too many of the repeat tasks like furniture makng and ignoring life-critical ones like food production.

[therahedwig]

A still, you're missing a still.

Dwarves need alchohol to get through the working day, so you need to brew plenty of booze. I'd even argue that the booze industry is even more important than thr rest of the food industry.

The most basic crops, like plumphelmet, are enough for booze, though it helps to experiment.

Other than that, make sure there's a trench for water dug into the mountain(so it's "inside" according to Loo(k) ), and either build a grate, or preferably, a well over that. The later requires a mechanism, a rope, a bucket and a rock or block, but will always provide clean water.
Dwarves will use this when there's no booze left.

The reason the water should be underground is because water outside tends to freeze during winter.

Good luck!

Efit: sorry, didn't see still in the later steps. But when everything else fails, make sure there's a well.

[martinuzz]

It looks like you're assigning too many jobs that are unnescessary at game start.

- chickens / livestock. Don't bother. You don't need those in the first few years of your fort, unless you feel your dwarves need to eat meat for RP purposes
- craft shops. Those will not help you survive, nor make your dwarves happier. One craftshop before autumn can make some things to sell to the caravan if you so wish, but it's not required
- 2 carpenters. Why? One carpenter will do. You also do not need tons of buckets. Make barrels and beds
- farming. Start this as soon as you can. Do not make craftshops / livestock / whatever before you have at least a 3x2 farm plot growing plump helmets up and running. Plump helmets can be eaten raw, and brewed as well, making them excellent starting food. Starting with a dwarf that is a proficient planter helps.
- only 1 miner. This will make establishing your first underground rooms take (too) long. I used to embark with two miners. Of late, I even embark with 3.

Basically, the first things you want up and running to prevent your dwarves going unhappy, in order of importance:
1) basic food. Plump helmets will do, to prevent your dwarves hunting for vermin to keep themselves fed
2) basic drink. If nothing else, water will do for a short while, but get booze as soon as you can
3) beds with a roof over them (no bad thought for rain / sleeping on floor / sleeping in mud). Communal sleeping rooms are fine for starters, you can always make personal rooms later for more happy thoughts
4) a few tables and chairs, to prevent bad thoughts for eating without those. You don't need many. My 50 dwarf fort still does not have any dining seat shortages with only 8 tables and chairs. While you do not need to designate a table as a dining room to get rid of the bad thoughts (undesignated table+chair will do fine for that), designating a nice large room as a dining room will provide one of the better positive thoughts ingame, "has dined in a legendary dining room"
5) keep your dwarves employed. While socializing does give happy thoughts as well, the happy thought 'has been satisfied at work lately' should not be underestimated
6) prepared meals. Won't give much happiness until your cooks are making exceptionally crafted meals, or meals made from ingredients in dwarves' personal preferences. But once you have a decent cook, nice meal happy thoughts kick in.
7) nice booze. Booze has a hidden quality modifier. Good brewers make drinks give happy thoughts too.

[blackravenx]

Great Advice ... I normally use the preset for DFVIDTUTS2012 when selecting dwarfs and items. Also have adapted the up/downStairs in the middle with a huge room on each corner as Captn Duck uses in his videos. I'll try that format you suggested out to see how that works for me.. and report back.

[Loci]

7) nice booze. Booze has a hidden quality modifier. Good brewers make drinks give happy thoughts too.

As far as I know there is no hidden quality modifier for booze. There have been many discussions on such, scattered all over the place. From what I recall, the variation in happiness gains associated with drinking are tied to the value of the entire *stack* of alcohol. So, for happier drinking dwarves, you need to focus on a skilled grower, not a skilled brewer, and potentially add in farm fertilization to increase stack sizes. You can also "dispose of" (forbid or trade away) near-empty barrels to force your dwarves to tap a new keg. Finally, brewing a crop that cannot be eaten raw will prevent your dwarves from pilfering a snack from the stack before it hits the still.

[Ai Shizuka]

What do you bring on embark? It's pretty important to check if you are doing something wrong.

Anyway, don't over-do it in the first couple seasons. Leave the fancy stuff for later and focus on providing the basics at first.
I don't plant plump helmets until winter, for two reasons:
- I want booze variety from the beginning
- I don't think it's necessary.
And I still don't get food problems.
But plump helmets are awesome for beginners, so stick with these. I just wanted to clarify they aren't mandatory.

Here are the rough guidelines for a newbie-proof embark on a peaceful biome (I assume you aren't embarking in hostile environments).
- proficient miner
- proficient miner
- proficient mason + 1 point on architecture (not necessary, it's there so I don't need to enable architecture)
- proficient grower
- proficient brewer + points in the 3 broker skills
- proficient woodcutter
- proficient carpenter

2 picks
1 axe
1 anvil
20 of each seed except dimple cups
2 dogs
2 cats
2 pigs
4-5 turkeys/whatever bird you prefer (1 male)
1 rope
remaining points on food and drinks

This may seem very bare-bones, but it provides everything you need at the beginning.
The labors are very simple. You have troubles setting up everything in time, so the basic labor selection avoids over-lapping jobs on the same dwarf.
The two miners get every hauling job disabled immediately.
The planter gets every hauling job disabled as soon as he can build the first farm (5x5).
The other dwarves don't have a whole lot to do at the beginning, so they can haul shit around between their jobs.
I put the broker skills on the brewer because that's an easily controllable job (just suspend it if you are brewing/R when he's needed at the depot) wich doesn't need an entirely 100% devoted dwarf. A few migrant waves later you can disable the hauling jobs from him as well. Despite what some people say, a single brewer is more than enough to produce booze for a hundred dwarves, if you have a couple skilled, dedicated planters.


Rough to-do list:
- Miners dig the entrance. If you have elaborate plans in mind, execute them later. At first it needs to be functional and provide the basic framework for your future entrance.
- The woodcutter starts chopping some wood.
- While the miners are digging and the woodcutter is chopping, build 4-5 beds, tables and chairs.
- As soon as you have enough room, create a temporary stockpile and haul your shit inside.
- Also build a temporary dormitory and dining hall. I usually build these in the future depot room. Don't waste time on fancy rooms now. You'll dig them later.
- When the general entrance layout is done and you have enough room for your temporary shelter, dig a room in a soil layer for your farms. I usually dig a 11x11 room, wich will hold four 5x5 farms. These will be enough to easily produce, with two dedicated planters, a huge surplus of drinks, food and clothes for well over a hundred dwarves. For now you just need a single farm and a single planter. Disable all the hauling jobs from him now.
- When the first crop is ready, enable stonecrafting on your mason (or you can give him a couple points at the beginning) and build some stone pots. I don't like wasting wood for barrels.
- Build the still and brew booze when necessary.
- If you somehow are running low on food, butcher the two pack animals.

All the above can be easily done in the first season and the beds/chairs before they sleep/eat for the first time.
You are now self-sufficient and your dwarves can't get any negative thoughts, except the "no proper bedroom".
You don't need to set anything on /repeat at the beginning. Leave that for later when you can afford more dedicated specialists.

When the basics are done, you can expand.
The main things for me are usually in this order:
- food processing area right below the farms, with various pens for the animals
- find the first cavern
- stone processing area
- dining hall
- bedrooms
- magma forges

In the first two migrant waves I always pick some dwarves for the following jobs:
- mechanic
- cook
- stonecrafter (not really needed, but I like it to get rid of ugly stones)
- manager/bookkeeper (not needed either, but I use the manager a lot and want highest precision, so he gets all hauling jobs disabled)

Metalsmith depend on the embark. Sometimes I embark with a proficient armorer/weaponsmith. Sometimes it can wait until the third migrant wave (the big one).
Same for the military.

[i2amroy]

As far as I know there is no hidden quality modifier for booze.

This right here. The only thing brewing skill affects is the speed which with booze is brewed, and it's the value and personal preferences of the dwarf that decide what thought they get.

[Wumpi]

Martinuzz touched on most of the points I would have mentioned. However, if you want more time to work out your basic amenities, you can bring extra booze and food with you at embark. Often times I like to dig out most of the basic layout of my fort in the first year, including rooms that I won't need for a year or two. That leaves 3 miners digging nonstop, a mason or two preparing pots/cabinets/doors/etc nonstop, and a carpenter producing beds nonstop. Cases like this, I often only embark with a proficient brewer, and leave my farmers up to migrants.
Don't worry so much about stockpiles early on. It's nice to get those 600 logs and 1000 boulders cleaned up, but without the 50 idlers of a year two fortress it simply wastes too much time that your dwarves could be using hiding from polar bears.

[martinuzz]

Back when I researched booze 2 or 3 years ago the concensus amongst the veterans still was that it did have a hidden quality modifier. I guess I missed out on the research after that.

[vjek]

There's many paths to success in DF, but looking over what you do, here's what I do a bit differently.

This is the method I use for pretty much any fort, after playing for a few years.

Embark on a location that has some aquifer, but not all aquifer. Typically one embark tile worth of aquifer.
Take a rope, 5 buckets, some magma-safe stone blocks, some logs, axes, picks, 60 food, 60 drink, 20 plump helmet seeds, 1 anvil, some thread, some cloth, and assign at least one skill in each noble assignment required. (appraisal, organizer, record keeping)
Embark.
Adjust refuse settings, forbidding, orders, and workshops.  Assign nobles for broker, bookkeeper, and manager, change bookkeeper precision to highest.
Set all the skills/labors necessary for the starting seven.
Dig central stairway/shaft down about 10 Z levels.
Dig storage room in stone (not soil), create a garbage dump near the storage room.
Build a single 11x11 stockpile in the storage room. Change the settings so it accepts everything I brought in the wagon, max bins/barrels.
Dump all the stone from the stockpile.  Once dumped, reclaim it.
Dig out a meeting area adjacent to the stockpile.
Designate the meeting area.
Deconstruct the wagon.
Build six workshops out of blocks: mason, carpenter, craftsdwarf, butcher, kitchen, mechanic.
Use the manager to build 2 rock doors, 7 rock thrones, 7 rock tables, 1 mechanism, 5 rock pots. (in that order)
Put one door at the entrance, lock/forbid it.
Build two adjacent block walls near and put the second door on the garbage dump.
Dig out a path from the aquifer to below the meeting room, put in a pressure reducing diagonal to prevent flooding.
Build a well above the new completely secure water source (from the aquifer mentioned above)
Slaughter the wagon-drawing animals.
Place all the tables and chairs, assign two chairs, one to the bookkeeper, one to the manager.
Below the meeting room, dig out 27 squares, dump all the stone off them.
Above the 27 squares, assign a pit/pond as a pond-not-full.
The dwarves will attempt to fill this area, creating muddy stone below.
Once muddied (takes less than a minute) disable/remove the pond assignment, and create three 3x3 farms.
Assign all three farms to plant plump helmets in all seasons.
Build and place 9 beds near the meeting area.
Normally I'll save at this point, as it's a good milestone.

Now, you're pretty much set for at least the first year.  If you do it right, it can all be done before the outpost liaison/first caravan arrives.

Typically, I will have scouted out the embark so I know where the ores, caverns and magma is, so I'll have set up magma smelters and at least one magma forge.  At this point, I'll also mine out the iron, and start making a set of iron military gear for the second or third migrant wave, and set them up training.  Beyond that, the sky's the limit.

[greycat]

Embark on a location that has some aquifer, but not all aquifer. Typically one embark tile worth of aquifer.

For a beginner, I'd avoid aquifers altogether.  There are enough other things to worry about, without adding that complexity right off the bat.

Bring 2 miners, and 2 picks.  Get your dwarves underground.  This means digging into a wall (if your embark has hills/cliffs), or down into the ground.  I prefer digging down into relatively flat ground myself, then constructing walls around it later.

Once you've got some basic stuff dug out underground, all your supplies moved underground, etc. you will stop getting bad thoughts for being caught in the rain/snow.  Make a small farm area in the soil layer, and keep crops planted.  Be sure there's enough food stockpile space to store all your food, so it doesn't rot.  Make a still, and brew plants into alcohol.

In the z -> Kitchen menu, disable cooking of plants that also have "Brew" as an option.  Disable cooking booze.  Cooking is optional anyway, except for quarry bushes and some of the new above-ground plants.

[blackravenx]

WOW! Great advice all.. I will start a new game when I get home and try them. love some of your ideas about building .. I tend to look too deeply into the building part so might be one of my early on down falls. I do like the part to stop the main titles from stop hauling crap.. good advice.

[Rum]

I dont think this was mentioned yet.

Cooking meals at a kitchen is a fast way to run out of food/brew if you do not have enough food to actually support it.
Cooked meals use a lot more materials than just munching on plump helmets.  Not to mention the fact that plants cooked into meals will not give you any seeds!  I've lost a few forts by accidentally cooking up all of my plump helmets leaving me boozeless and unable to grow anymore.

[blackravenx]

I agree with "aquifers " maybe once I get a couple of forts under my belt then I'll add them into play. I know its a great source of water but right now that maybe to advanced for me because im still trying to grasp the whole what digging does what under my belt. I tried a channel some water into a underground area and ended up making a lake that killed everyone. I think what I need was a leaver that could control the flow of water but again think this maybe too advanced . i'll keep you updated on my game... going to start as soon as I get home from work. I could play here at work but I wont get my crap done lol