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[leontas2007]

So today I lost my first fortress, well I didn't lost it exactly but everyone has started to die with no reason.

So I tried several things in this fortress.

To brew alcohol

To catch animals

to have farms

to craft jewels and sell them

to make a hospital

and the last to make an army....


I failed to all except from brewing.

Now what I want is some help on how to start my new fortress in a better way this time, I need some tips on how to produce food and how to start crafting weapons, these are the two things I really can't do.

[StagnantSoul]

New order:

To brew alcohol

To make farms

To make a hospital

To make a military

To get a wall and drawbridge around you

To craft stone crafts

To craft jewels and attach those to stone crafts

To sell those stone crafts for weapons and armor

To crack open a light blue pillar

Do those in that order, and this game will finally be !!Fun!! for you.

[leontas2007]

New order:

To brew alcohol

To make farms

To make a hospital

To make a military

To get a wall and drawbridge around you

To craft stone crafts

To craft jewels and attach those to stone crafts

To sell those stone crafts for weapons and armor

To crack open a light blue pillar

Do those in that order, and this game will finally be !!Fun!! for you.

I didn't understood that "To crack open a light blue pillar"

[StagnantSoul]

You'll understand eventually. Once you find a light blue pillar when mining, it'll be a 4X4 pillar. Mine it.

[ragincajun]

It will take a while.  You'll find it eventually. 

[neblime]

nevermind the attractive light blue things you can find later, lets try and get to the bottom of why your dwarves are dying.
are you SURE you actually have food and drink? (easiest way to keep track of that is just use a bookkeeper and check on status screen) brew orders can be cancelled due to lack of barrels or whatever if you aren't very attentive.
Are dwarves tantruming and hitting each other?  you need to keep their spirits high with (preferably) their own bedrooms, a nice dining room and generally high value furniture around the place

[StagnantSoul]

He's right. What you need are a mason's shop, producing stone blacks for about the first two seasons, then transition to stone blacks, thrones, and tables. Press b then "c" and place a row of tables about 7-8 side by side, then place the same amount of tables touching those one square up, then leave one empty row, then chairs, then tables, and so on, until you have about fifty. Then, press q and highlight a table near the middle, then press r, and make it so the dining room is as big, if not bigger, than the tables and chairs. This will basically keep everyone happy.

First, though, as soon as you embark on a spot, press d, go to a corner of the map, press p, enter, then go to the opposite side, then hit enter again. Exit the d menu. Press p-f, then make a seven by fourteen spot near your wagon to deposit food. Set a wood cutter going, make a still and butcher shop, butcher the pack animals, the two who you didn't ask for in the embark screen, by clicking v, then s when they're highlighted. Get the still brewing alcohol, and you should be fine for food and drink. Have a carpenter going, making beds, and put those somewhere near the dining room, in similar numbers to the tables, in a similar set up, one row of beds, a blank row, more beds. Make this a dormitory, in a similar way to how you made the dining room, but pressing d once after. This will keep your dwarves stocked with the necessities of life. Proceed as normal, but keep an eye out for caverns. If you hit one, wall it off. Those aren't good for early fortresses. If you find a light blue pillar, or cluster of light blue, set a miner to it, this provides a nice metal, that'll provide great weapons, especially spears, axes, and maces. Be careful, sometimes fun things visit from the topside other than goblins. Good luck!

[leontas2007]

He's right. What you need are a mason's shop, producing stone blacks for about the first two seasons, then transition to stone blacks, thrones, and tables. Press b then "c" and place a row of tables about 7-8 side by side, then place the same amount of tables touching those one square up, then leave one empty row, then chairs, then tables, and so on, until you have about fifty. Then, press q and highlight a table near the middle, then press r, and make it so the dining room is as big, if not bigger, than the tables and chairs. This will basically keep everyone happy.

First, though, as soon as you embark on a spot, press d, go to a corner of the map, press p, enter, then go to the opposite side, then hit enter again. Exit the d menu. Press p-f, then make a seven by fourteen spot near your wagon to deposit food. Set a wood cutter going, make a still and butcher shop, butcher the pack animals, the two who you didn't ask for in the embark screen, by clicking v, then s when they're highlighted. Get the still brewing alcohol, and you should be fine for food and drink. Have a carpenter going, making beds, and put those somewhere near the dining room, in similar numbers to the tables, in a similar set up, one row of beds, a blank row, more beds. Make this a dormitory, in a similar way to how you made the dining room, but pressing d once after. This will keep your dwarves stocked with the necessities of life. Proceed as normal, but keep an eye out for caverns. If you hit one, wall it off. Those aren't good for early fortresses. If you find a light blue pillar, or cluster of light blue, set a miner to it, this provides a nice metal, that'll provide great weapons, especially spears, axes, and maces. Be careful, sometimes fun things visit from the topside other than goblins. Good luck!

I have bedrooms I have alcohol I have a dining room, but I didn't know that caverns are bad at first. I found the body of my carpender there on a pile of blood and then ( I really don't know what he was doing there I had disable all the hauling work for him) and then I found the body of my mason, but in reports there was no fight, as for the food I have meat and someone to make lavish meals but I didn't know how to capture and kill animals, it was just happening....I don't know how to order them to do it. Then I created someone with animal care skill and everything it had to do with animals to take the animals inside the fortress and let them grow for the butcher, well I didn't know how its working, and the never captured any animal.

At last I wanted to make a burrow to make them come inside because a kid monster came(I don't remember what monster it was) but I seriously don't know how burrow work. I defined the zone I wanted to be in but there wasn't a button to enable or disable the burrow. So after those deaths(my legendery carpenter and mason) and that moster and with no clue what to do I decided to leave the fortress.

As for the bedrooms and dining halls it was all on dirt not stone. I don't know if that has anything to do with the happiness of the dwarfs. I wanted to sent a stone detailer to make make nice smooth walls but with no stone they couldn't do anything. And plants and grass and stuff I don't know was growing on the ground.

So......I just gave up

[Insanegame27]

So......I just gave up

No.
Just, No
NoNoNoNoNoNoNO!
Never give up on dwarf fortress, no matter how !!FUN!! it's giving you. It took me at least fifteen forts to even figure out how to farm with nearly no efficiency.
some tips:
do not embark on an aquifer if you're a beginner. This will stop you from attaining virtually all dwarfy things.
I mean ALL. no ores, no magma and NO CANDY. And -*shudder*- no stone...

Avoid EVIL (pink/purple on embark map). these will give you too much !!FUN!!

get plenty of pets at embark. I prefer turkeys for their eggs and meat. once embarked, dig into some (undwarfy) dirt, and set aside a number of 5X5 rooms for farms. Pasture [(i), enter, set size, enter, n, N, enter all grazers (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Grazer)]a 30X30 grassy area outside
Order your craftsdwarf to make ten or so nestboxes, and put them in ONE 5X5 room. when a egglayer goes over a nestbox, hit (t) and (f)orbid the eggs so that the eggs are not taken by the dwarves but will instead hatch.
after eggs hatch, always have one hen with forbidden eggs in case something happens to the rest of your stock. Don't forget the turkey gobbler. without one (wild ones DO work) the eggs will be infertile and will not hatch.
in the other 5X5 dirt rooms, hit (b)uilding, (p)lot, shift-u and shift-k until plot fills the 5X5 room. Then once that has been built, (q)uery over to the farm, hit (a), +/- until you get plump helmets highlighted, and hit enter. do the same for (b)summer, (c)autumn and (d)winter
There is NO REASON to have crops (z)fallow
PROTIP: bring a proficient farmer at embark, crops planted by him will yield more than if they were planted by a novice.

also, how have you been trying to catch animals, I usually have 1X1 food stockpiles surrounded by cage traps ((b)(T)(c)) which need a mechanism and a cage. (set carpenter for cages, and mechanics for mechanisms. Both are 3X3 workshops and have skills called "carpentry" and "mechanics") and just set them EVERYWHERE. enough is never enough in an earlier fort.
When you breach a cavern, wall ((b)(C)(w)) it off, find the caverns ground level, and designate a dig of a long and windy path filled with cage traps. now you can breach a cavern safely. any cavern animal trying to path into your fortress gets put in a cage. some of these are good training for your animal trainer/butcher, some are good for military training, and some are good for setting loose on invaders. (cave dragon versus a goblin siege)

For your fort, have a main entrance, whatever size you want (but always 1 wide OR 1 long), now (b)uild a (g)bridge, and set it to (w/x if the bridge goes east/west, and a/d if bridge is north/south. then (b)uild a (T)rap (l)ever in your meeting hall. then (q)uery, (a)dd, link to (b)ridge and then select your main entrance bridge. now build another long, windy trap corridor leading from an easy-to-defend area of your fort to the outside. you get the gist

once those farms have produced enough plump helmets, have a still running 24/7

This should get you a lot of animals very quickly. once you learn how to strip caged prisoners, you can get some safe military training and some human/elf/human-ite. to train animals, make sure you have someone with the animal training labor assigned. then go into the (z) screen, scroll to acaptured animal, hit (t)rain, and select a trainer.

PROTIP, only have one or two animal trainers going at once, and have them assigned no other labors, not even hauling. you wouldnt want you hard-caught war-trained elephant forgetting it's training at it's owners birthday party now would you?

these tips should get a basic fort running, and feel free to ask me (PM or post) for any more advice, I'm happy to help and i'm sure others are too

[leontas2007]

So......I just gave up

No.
Just, No
NoNoNoNoNoNoNO!
Never give up on dwarf fortress, no matter how !!FUN!! it's giving you. It took me at least fifteen forts to even figure out how to farm with nearly no efficiency.
some tips:
do not embark on an aquifer if you're a beginner. This will stop you from attaining virtually all dwarfy things.
I mean ALL. no ores, no magma and NO CANDY. And -*shudder*- no stone...

Avoid EVIL (pink/purple on embark map). these will give you too much !!FUN!!

get plenty of pets at embark. I prefer turkeys for their eggs and meat. once embarked, dig into some (undwarfy) dirt, and set aside a number of 5X5 rooms for farms. Pasture [(i), enter, set size, enter, n, N, enter all grazers (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Grazer)]a 30X30 grassy area outside
Order your craftsdwarf to make ten or so nestboxes, and put them in ONE 5X5 room. when a egglayer goes over a nestbox, hit (t) and (f)orbid the eggs so that the eggs are not taken by the dwarves but will instead hatch.
after eggs hatch, always have one hen with forbidden eggs in case something happens to the rest of your stock. Don't forget the turkey gobbler. without one (wild ones DO work) the eggs will be infertile and will not hatch.
in the other 5X5 dirt rooms, hit (b)uilding, (p)lot, shift-u and shift-k until plot fills the 5X5 room. Then once that has been built, (q)uery over to the farm, hit (a), +/- until you get plump helmets highlighted, and hit enter. do the same for (b)summer, (c)autumn and (d)winter
There is NO REASON to have crops (z)fallow
PROTIP: bring a proficient farmer at embark, crops planted by him will yield more than if they were planted by a novice.

also, how have you been trying to catch animals, I usually have 1X1 food stockpiles surrounded by cage traps ((b)(T)(c)) which need a mechanism and a cage. (set carpenter for cages, and mechanics for mechanisms. Both are 3X3 workshops and have skills called "carpentry" and "mechanics") and just set them EVERYWHERE. enough is never enough in an earlier fort.
When you breach a cavern, wall ((b)(C)(w)) it off, find the caverns ground level, and designate a dig of a long and windy path filled with cage traps. now you can breach a cavern safely. any cavern animal trying to path into your fortress gets put in a cage. some of these are good training for your animal trainer/butcher, some are good for military training, and some are good for setting loose on invaders. (cave dragon versus a goblin siege)

For your fort, have a main entrance, whatever size you want (but always 1 wide OR 1 long), now (b)uild a (g)bridge, and set it to (w/x if the bridge goes east/west, and a/d if bridge is north/south. then (b)uild a (T)rap (l)ever in your meeting hall. then (q)uery, (a)dd, link to (b)ridge and then select your main entrance bridge. now build another long, windy trap corridor leading from an easy-to-defend area of your fort to the outside. you get the gist

once those farms have produced enough plump helmets, have a still running 24/7

This should get you a lot of animals very quickly. once you learn how to strip caged prisoners, you can get some safe military training and some human/elf/human-ite. to train animals, make sure you have someone with the animal training labor assigned. then go into the (z) screen, scroll to acaptured animal, hit (t)rain, and select a trainer.

PROTIP, only have one or two animal trainers going at once, and have them assigned no other labors, not even hauling. you wouldnt want you hard-caught war-trained elephant forgetting it's training at it's owners birthday party now would you?

these tips should get a basic fort running, and feel free to ask me (PM or post) for any more advice, I'm happy to help and i'm sure others are too

Thanks for replying and for the helpful advices. Dwarf fortess has the best community!

[StagnantSoul]

Never give up. No matter what is happening, you have to FIGHT! Giving up is a human thing. Dwarves never give up! Good luck. He told you basically everything you need to kick off and get started.

[Insanegame27]

just re-read your "giving up" post again, and read that your meeting hall was on dirt.

dig out a 10X8 room out of stone and set up a meeting hall there with chairs and tables, nothing fancy. now make matchstick bedrooms and (d)esignate a (s)moothing job on the bedrooms. have a single highly skilled stone smoother/engraver and by the time they smooth and (e)ngrave all the bedrooms for 120+ dwarves they should be a highly skilled smoother/engraver. now you smooth the meeting hall. then when that is done, (d)(e)ngrave the meeting hall. This alone usually gives the thought of "dined in a legendary dining room recently" and "slept in own great/legendary bedroom recently" etc which are GOOD things to have and prevent those not gneiss tantrum spirals.

[Insanegame27]

another PROTIP: use dwarf therapist. some consider it cheaty, but if you use it for assigning labors and checking stats only, then its not cheaty. its cheaty if you use it to assign skills to babys/children

[StagnantSoul]

oh, yes, I forgot about Dwarf Therapist. Definitaley use it. It's the difference between controlling a horde of dwarves where you don't know who's who and who's the best at what, and a well refined workforce working in harmony, while still havng a few other problems, but not as many.

[Insanegame27]

I made a new thread KINDA based on this one


it basically is a list of pro/noobtips that people have found
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=144008.0