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[TheKaspa]

Posting to watch

It could be useful to translate the instructions into a ready-to-copy code

[thegoatgod_pan]

My list goes as follows:

Miner 1/carpenter 1/brewer 1/cook 1/farmer 1/potter 1/ mechanic 1/weaponsmith 1
Woodcutter 1/mason 1/brewer 1/butcher 1/herbalist 1/ potter 1/mechanic 1/armor smith 1
Miner 1/carpenter 1/brewer 1/cook 1/herbalist 1/potter 1/Mechanic 1/armor smith 1
Woodcutter 1/mason 1/brewer 1/butcher 1/farmer 1/ potter 1/mechanic 1/weaponsmith 1
Dwarf with all military skills (especially dodge, armor and shield)+1 in discipline and axe
Dwarf with all military skills+1 in discipline and spear
Doctor with 3 diagnosis, 2 surgeon, 2 bone-setter, 1 stiching, 1 wounds

I also typically go the route of bringing a ton of wood and some copper and making my own training axes for lumber and copper picks for mining and thus saving loads of points for raw materials like bronze. I also make my own crutches, wheelbarrows etc.

The careers i pick are the vital ones for me, mostly because I don't want to manually tell every last one of them to do their work, and I make miners also carpenters and woodcutters also masons so that when one dwarf is chopping wood the other is using it and same with rock.

The weapon smith/armor smith are there in the hope that an early mood grabs them.

[Immortal-D]

Depending on your biome, a Plant Gatherer can be more valuable than a Grower.  A decent Herbalist can collect enough fruits & veggies in a single trip to supply your Fortress for a year.

[blue emu]

As Wheeljack points out, each DF player will advise something different.

On embark, I rarely buy skill-levels that can be quickly trained anyway. I use my points for important skills that will be hard to train or that will make an immediate impact in the early years.

Diagnoser, Judge of Intent, Consoler... all important and hard to train... Cook, Grower, Carpenter, Mason... the quality levels can be useful.

[Corona688]

Grower, particularly, is "trained" by wasting food, so...

[Skullsploder]

Well since his is where the thread is going... here is my typical start:

Miner 5
Carpenter 5; woodcrafter 5
Grower 5; chef 5
Armoursmith 5; weaponsmith 5
Mason 5; stonecrafter 5
Mechanic 5; architect 5
Hunter/military commander

Along with me I bring a single piece of gabbro, an anvil, and buttloads of cassiterite and malachite. Nothing else. It's a fairly difficult first couple of months, but before the first migrant wave I generally have a good stock of bronze equipment. This is only really possible for me because of how easy it is to just say: "right, the four of you, go get enough food to last us a few years," thanks to the herbalism upgrade.

Startup steps are as follows:
designate a gather zone, set mechanic, grower, and militia to gather.
break wagon, build carpentry shop, build wooden training axe, chop down immediate vicinity.
Build masonry shop, make blocks out of gabbro,  build smelter, two wood furnaces, and forge.
build craft shop, make wooden pots, build still, set to brew on repeat (assign someone as brewer).
Set furnaces to produce charcoal on repeat, set smelter to make bronze on repeat (Use militadwarf).
Make a pick at the forge with bronze, start mining out shelter, make beds.

Then just micro your dwarves to keep the forge running and the food coming in. Generally, I wanna have only one dwarf gathering after the initial rush to not starve, with the miner only mining, the smith only smithing, and the rest making charcoal and bronze, occasionally taking breaks to brew drink as ingredients are available. As migrants come your starting seven stop doing the grunt work and move exclusively to their selected professions.

If you brought a hunter rather than a militia dwarf, bring along a quiver and remember to build a butcher and tanner right after you get your training axe. Build a bowyer as well and make him a wooden crossbow. The craftsdwarf shop has to produce wooden bolts at a steady rate.

[Corona688]

What do you do for barrels?

[Skullsploder]

Pots are barrels, just bigger and lighter (Somehow). Wooden pots are without a doubt the best food storage items in the game. That's why I bring a proficient woodcrafter.

[Corona688]

Somehow I missed 'make wooden pots'.  Pardon me.

I just make stone ones, if only for something to do do with all that stone.

[TheKaspa]

Somehow I missed 'make wooden pots'.  Pardon me.

I just make stone ones, if only for something to do do with all that stone.

Besides, you can trade with elves.
If you try to sell wooden pots to Elves, they will run away disgusted. With stone, you should be able to sell them Elve's stew and make them buy it premium priced.
Not that you have to trade with Tree Lovers, but at the start they usually bring useful pets

[Ravendarksky]

Somehow I missed 'make wooden pots'.  Pardon me.

I just make stone ones, if only for something to do do with all that stone.

Besides, you can trade with elves.
If you try to sell wooden pots to Elves, they will run away disgusted. With stone, you should be able to sell them Elve's stew and make them buy it premium priced.
Not that you have to trade with Tree Lovers, but at the start they usually bring useful pets

I find the elfs rarely bring anything of interest which is expensive so this is a non issue. I usually just trade them crap that's lying around my fort.

I'm not going to tell you what skills to take, but I'll offer up my viewpoint on embarking in the latest version:

- If your embark has trees then everything is easy mode. Often now I will have 6 dwarfs (0 woodcutting, 0 carpentry) fell a large area and craft many many wooden things before we do anything else. This provides almost everything you need for a fortress of 50+ dwarfs in the first season. One wooden training axe is all that is needed. Honestly just fell all the trees and make like 10 or 60 of everything on the carpentry menu depending on usefulness.

- There is no point in embarking with skills which train fast unless you NEED them fast. Mining is the only exception to this rule for me because you want to get your initial rooms dug quickly so you can get on with other tasks.

- Military skills can be hugely important, so consider prioritising them if you think there will be early threats. At the end of the day once you have shelter, beds, tables, chairs, food and drink you don't really NEED anything else. However prioritise the skills which allow for faster training, discipline and teaching

- Choose skills which are difficult to train/hard to get migrants with/provide early benefits.

- Only embark with the raw materials you need, or things which are hard to obtain. For this reason I usually take loads of animals, an anvil, booze, food, a wooden training axe and two pickaxes. You can trade for all the cloth/leather you need in your first year.

[StubbornAlcoholic]

Personally I have great success with making 6 of my starting 7 military dwarves. I usually give them hammer skill, shield skill, and some points in discipline. I bring along enough bars to get hammers and shields made as soon as possible, then set them sparring in squads of 2 as soon as I've dug a room big enough for the supplies.

The last dwarf is my brewer/grower/trader.

Migrants can do the rest, and it doesn't take long for the 3 squads to become legendary .

Yeah, I think this is a great tip. I might try having more military dwarves in my next embark.

Basically every other skill (even crafting) gets a lot of training in day-to-day fort operation. Plus migrants almost always have useful domestic skills, or can be shaped into brewers, etc.

On the other hand getting decent soldiers training is a real pain early on, requires dedicated areas of the fort and a metal industry for good armour: starting with a few key skills is a godsend.

[Ravendarksky]

Yeah, I think this is a great tip. I might try having more military dwarves in my next embark.

.... and a metal industry for good armour: starting with a few key skills is a godsend.

Actually you want wooden shields/weapons and leather armour to start with as this is super quick to setup. Just make sure to replace the weapons with real ones later before your dwarfs get attached to them or get in a fight! Metal armour is heavy and isn't ideal for new recruits... we need to figure out a good way of training armour skill faster to get round this.

[Max™]

Replace all clothes with leather armor/leggings/boots in a civilian uniform so even your military keep it on off-duty until they can handle heavier stuff.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Er...

Just to let you know, Armor User isn't trained by walking around in armor, in a sort of contradiction.  I know this because I had my squads walk around and around and around...  For five bloody years!  Then I looked at their armor skill: still Dabbling!

So, have them spar.  Getting hit by a weapon and your clothing/armor blocking it is what trains Armor User.