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[Mikethemadman]

What with the newest update to DF and all, I figure I should try and get back into DF since I barely even got started before and there's a lot more resources available to help out with a lot of stuff I might not have understood before (or still don't understand).  I picked up the Newbie pack to start up with, but decided to stick with the previous version until the bugs and other things get kinked out.  I've managed to get some sort of grasp on Dwarf Therapist via the PDF tutorial that came with it, just feel like I could be doing more to control/automate idle dwarves in that regard. (V0.34.11)

After dealing with more trouble in my latest forts and feeling I could be a lot more efficient or get some advice, I finally decided to post in here, especially since I'm still confused at some of the systems.

Generally I tended to start off in any areas that were usually calm or wilderness just for safety, and made sure to have a river of some sort, along with Flux Stones, multiple shallow metals, multiple deep metals, soil, trees, clay or sand, etc.  I never seem to be able to find any sort of Iron based metals though during some of my re-excursions in order to get back into DF.    Generally I like to start with most of the default stuff with slight changes (training axe for chopping wood, picks, iron anvil, various seeds+some plump helmets, a few nest boxes, some coal, some meat, tons of dwarven drinks save for wine since I can brew that, logs, rocks.  Livestock being the default cats, dogs, and some hens/geese.) As for Dwarves, that's kinda semi-default as well with a few changes of sorts based on a few things I read around on.. (ProMiner/BoneCarver, ProMiner/Teacher, ProMason/Mechanic, ProWoodCutter/Carpenter, ProBrewer/CompCook/NovTannerButcher, ProGrower/NovArchitectOrganizerRecordKeeper, ProGrower/NovArchitectIntentJudgeAppraiser/AdeqDiagnostician)    The idea with that one miner is maybe having him a

Now, my main confusion is mainly with the Military and Hospital aspects, since I hadn't really used the Hospital system before (wasn't in yet), and Military being a lot different than what I remember from the little bit I did play (never really did patrols, dwarves seemed to train a lot faster, didn't use the calendar system).  I'm just not sure how to wrap my head around these two things mainly even after scouring some tutorials and the wiki.
I've never really delved into the cavern system yet either, but I remember hearing that once you find and dig into one underground trees and various plants will start growing throughout the fort(thereby eliminating partial needs to go above ground to chop down trees).
I also have a lot of trouble keeping dwarves from being too idle in some regards or just being overwhelmed by migrants or just swarms of dwarven children migrants (despite changing those settings).   
I really want to get my infrastructure in place first but that just ends up taking so long that I get swarmed by them before I can really get started on some things, or a merchant arrives early on before I have anything even worth trading for something I might need early on, combined with the worry that if I do start making valuable things I'll get overwhelmed by goblins or some sort of invaders before I even have a military established.
In case my area does not have Iron, what's the next closest metal that I could be making for my armies in terms of strength?
I can't really recall much else I wanted to ask or talk about off the top of my head, other than I remember reading that flying creatures can really interfere with others entering the zone, so is there something I should be doing to help remove/prevent that?  (Haven't really been good at keeping bolts supplied or having good hunters/archers/marksdwarves of some sort, which really sucks when Keas suddenly decide to descend upon the trading caravan that just arrived.) 

If I remember anything else I wanted to maybe ask, I'll probably post some more stuff later.  Mainly asking all this before I get started on a brand new fort again.

Apologies for this giant wall of text.

[quarague]

To get a basic hospital running just set up a hospital zone and put some beds and some containers (easiest are rock coffers) into it. Enable the various health labor for some doctor dwarfs, diagnosis is the most important, as every illness is diagnosed at the beginning and after every other step that needs to be done. Put some tables or traction benches right next to beds for operations. If you look at the hospital information it will tell you what materials are needed, if you have them available in your fortress, dwarfs will automatically bring them to the hospital.
After you breach the caverns all sand/mud tiles can grow underground fauna, normal stone tiles cannot. So you don't need to fear that trees will grow in your living quarters but this is useful for underground tree farms and underground grazing areas for animals.
Invasions are somewhat broken in 0.40 versions, you might get a goblin invasion of 5-10 goblins very early but once you made it through the first 2 or 3 years there seem to be rarely any invasions at all. I don't think anyone observed the typical 50-100 goblin invasions large fortresses suffered in yearly in 0.34 versions. Also invaders often seem to just leave after successful killing a few grazing animals without ever trying to enter your fortress.
If you don't have iron, then copper is almost always available, bronze is better than copper but it is much more likely to have some iron ore (there are multiple different iron ores) than the ingredients for bronze.

[therahedwig]

Hm? Invasions were fixed...

Military is tricky, can't help much there as I've never managed to get a proper military working, but make sure you start training as early as possible: Discipline takes long to train and without it, dwarves will run from everything remotely scary.

As for the hospital, it is indeed easy to set up, however, do yourself a favour and build a well somewhere close: Injured dwarves only drink water.
That, and soap is actually useful for preventing infections.

[Ornstein]

Missing the first trader, or not buying him out, is not uncommon.

However, a good way to both prevent idling and produce some trade goods, simply enable stone crafting one of your more useless migrants and instruct him to build rock mugs until the end of time. They're relatively low value, but selling them in bulk will let you get some necessities without fear of attracting much attention.

Having some idlers seems inevitable, at least for me. That being said, enabling masonry on habitual slackers is a good way to get construction done faster. If you plan on using them in the military, consider building some pumps and enabling pump operator. I'm not sure if they actually have to pump the liquid or not to gain strength.

The others seem to have covered hospitals fairly well, so the only thing I'll add is that retrieving the wounded and feeding/watering them seems to be a low priority task, leading to frequent deaths In the hospital. If injuries are sustained, pick a dwarf who gets a happy thought from helping others and disable all activities aside from recovering wounded and taking care of them. Even with that, you may need 2 dwarfs to play nurse, because a Really good party is more important than the starving dwarf with broken legs wasting away not 20 tiles away.

[Mikethemadman]

Thanks for the advice and info guys.

When it comes to making a hospital, I noticed that there's a huge amount of thread, etc reserved by default, guessing that's fine as long as you don't shove the hospital full of containers.

Definitely gonna plan on getting an early military started from now on, the biggest issue for me though is not having enough equipment immediately (or is that alright)?  The other issue being not really sure how patrol routes work or how to set the calendar so shifts rotate for dwarves.  I remember reading that they'll get unhappy if they're on a shift too long unless they're a champion or something?

I need to get into the habit of making a well too, or making a water pump somehow.  Too scared to flood my fortress using that or enemies sneaking in through that even with a floodgate.  Or a cistern.

Ah and one last thing I remembered to ask is, what's the best stockpiles I should maybe be enabling Wheelbarrows on?  It feels like it's a lot slower ferrying stones, wood etc using the wheelbarrows.  Minecarts I'm not even touching yet.

[greycat]

When it comes to making a hospital, I noticed that there's a huge amount of thread, etc reserved by default, guessing that's fine as long as you don't shove the hospital full of containers.

The hospital measures thread in suture-lengths, rather than the big-ass spools produced by the farmer's workshop.  Each spool of "thread" that comes out of the workshop has some very large number of suture-lengths, so you're really only requesting about 5 "thread" items.

As suturing is performed, a given "thread" item will shrink, but you can't tell by looking at it.

[clownwolf]

Anything heavy that uses a bin should have wheelbarrow (armor/weapon/gems/bars), this is because they drag the heavy bins to the stuff and then haul it back to the stockpile. If they haul a bin full heavy weapons from level 100 down to level 0 and back up to 100 again, they might just die of dehydration.

One way to avoid this, is to do a dual stockpile. For example, use two weapon stockpiles next to each other instead of just 1.
X - Max Bins, accepts from links ONLY, takes from stockpile Y
Y - No Bins allowed, accepts from anywhere, gives to stockpile X

XXXX      YYYY
XXXX <-  YYYY
XXXX      YYYY
XXXX      YYYY

This way, your dwarves will bring all weapons to stockpile Y without dragging bins around, and stockpile X right next to it will gather these weapons into bins.

Also, always use *wheelbarrow on stone. If a dwarf halls pitchblende w/o a wheelbarrow he might die of thirst as well.

[greycat]

I think they will abandon the partially completed hauling job and go get a drink, leaving the heavy stone in the corridor for the next hauler.  But otherwise I agree with everything clownwolf said about dual-stockpiles.  If you aren't using quantum stockpiles, you should definitely be using dual-stockpiles.