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[DwarfOfTheLand]

I was wondering if you all could give me some tips on how to go about starting, how you all typically begin a fortress.

I have read the wiki and it seems dull, as I have had experience, I would like some different opinions on how I should start.

[Rogue Yun]

Are you looking for a challenge or just some basic ideas on what would be a good start?

[DwarfOfTheLand]

Just some basic ideas, challenges too. The whole shabang.

[Drokles]

For 40.24 you will probably encounter a dearth of invaders, unless you specifically embark nearby the baddies you wish to see. Like literally at their doorstep. I've heard that embarking near towers is a good way to get necro sieges.

Just how long were you gone? A year or ten?

I mean, it's Dwarf Fortress so you just kinda do what you want. My current fort involves purchasing beautifully carved large gems from the traders and stockpiling them (the founder was a jeweler). I also embarked nearby a Good region and have a mountain gnome infestation. I'm currently breeding separate populations of giant wolverine to experiment with genetics a bit, and designing an impressively useless above-ground fortress.

[PatrikLundell]

To get the whole shebang you'll have to browse the wiki for a year before realizing you need several years to actually do it. DF is far too large to summarize in a post.
Thus, you need to ask more specific questions to get useful answers.
What are you looking for?
- Sieges/Combat?
- Just building without too many distractions?
- Building beautiful/complex/crazy stuff (look for mega projects on the wiki)?
- Surviving despite a horrendously difficult start?
- Tormenting dorfs/creatures?

I'd start by either selecting a "suitable" starting location to embark and then start (re)learning the ropes, or starting at a more or less random location doing the same. After having gotten some idea of what you can do and realized how you screwed up (minor and major mistakes: I don't think anyone has avoided all of them, especially since some of them requires understanding the intricacies of the DF rules). After the first (few) attempt you should have an idea of what you want to do, and thus be in a position to ask questions about how to achieve that.

[Niddhoger]

Well to be more specific- I'll discuss some of the big changes in the new DF2014 release. 

Garden vegetables and trees:
One of the first htings you'll notice is that trees are multi-tile now and rather tall.  They have leaves and flowers and berries! The first two are worthless, but the fruit can actually be picked in the summer! This is a new mechanic where certain plants/trees are only harvestable during a certain time of the year (a few weeks into summer, typically).  You can build a ladder at a carpenters workshop first and set up a "plant gathering zone" from the activity zone menu (i-draw rectangle-g?) Draw these -under- the trees you want picked.  Herbalists will then grab the ladder and begin picking fruit from the 2 z-levels above him off the tree.  Combined with multi-hauling, dorfs can pick staggering amounts of food in this season.  I've had 3-4 untrained dorf from my starting 7 pick several hundred during the first summer this way.  The fruits are edible and usually brewable, but you cannot plant their seeds.  Some seeds (like the tropical rambutan) can also be eaten, but most are just junk that eats into your global seed cap.  Sadly, nuts are not edible.  So while you can have pecan and almond trees, your dorfs won't pick them.  The most interesting trees are probably olives though.  You can most definitely press the olives into oil+olive pumice.  The oil can be made into soap or further cooked into meals.  Garden vegetables only fruit at the same time as trees, mainly, but usually have edible growths year round as a stop-gap method.  Berries are the easiest example of this- even the old strawberries will only yield (brewable) fruit during hte harvest season.  More plant-fiber and flour crops were added as well.  Of particular note is hemp, which counts as a flour, textile, and oil-seed for pressing.  Hilariously, you can store hemp flour in hemp bags.  Then make hemp-soap.  These are still buggy though, as anything described as having a -pod growth (beans and nuts mostly) are still worthless and un-gatherable. 

Multi-hauling.  I mentioned this briefly above, but dorfs will no longer hall just one small item at a time.  This mostly revamps herbalism, as I've easily seen a single herbalist carry over 100 plants at a time.  In an area of thick vegetation, I've seen proficient (skill 5) herbalists bring in 130+ plants in about 2 weeks of game time.  I've started forts and gone crazy on herbalsim.  Between multi-hauling and trees I believe I was pushing 10k plants collected in the first year? It was at least 6k.  You'll still never see a dorf pick up multiple barrels or stones, though. 

Thoughts and stress revamp.  Dorfs have more nuanced personalties now, or at least the nuances mean more.  A dorf that loves fighting and violence will actually get pleasant thoughts sparing and killing.  Dorfs that love commerce get warm fuzzies if they get to trade as the broker.  Conversely, dorfs that hate commerce hate being brokers... Dorfs that place a high value on crafmanship get more pleasant thoughts from viewing masterwork statues.  Dorfs can handle stress differently too.  So some dorfs are neurotic messes and break before others, however "breaking" happens much slower.  Breaking doesn't mean a tantrum though, but actual death-by-insanity.  Dorfs can go beserk (irreversible tantrum), catatonic, or full blown crazy (strip naked and run around gibbering).  In all cases they stop eating and wait for death.  However, stress builds up more gradually and can be buffered by positive stress.  A dorf won't just immediately snap into a tantrum when their kid dies.  They'll just do that next season unless you seriously intervene.  You'd really need to read more (on the wiki) and see this one for yourself.  Just try to keep an eye on your mayor/expedition leader more.  Dorfs that visit the mayor are doing so to vent steam.  If they have more than one meeting with the mayor they are likely about to blow a gasket.  You'll need to stop and examine their thoughts screen to not only find a problem, but look over their preferences for the best solution to cheering them up.  Typically bigger, blinged out room can't go wrong- just try and match their item preferences.

[DwarfOfTheLand]

To get the whole shebang you'll have to browse the wiki for a year before realizing you need several years to actually do it. DF is far too large to summarize in a post.
Thus, you need to ask more specific questions to get useful answers.
What are you looking for?
- Sieges/Combat?
- Just building without too many distractions?
- Building beautiful/complex/crazy stuff (look for mega projects on the wiki)?
- Surviving despite a horrendously difficult start?
- Tormenting dorfs/creatures?

I'd start by either selecting a "suitable" starting location to embark and then start (re)learning the ropes, or starting at a more or less random location doing the same. After having gotten some idea of what you can do and realized how you screwed up (minor and major mistakes: I don't think anyone has avoided all of them, especially since some of them requires understanding the intricacies of the DF rules). After the first (few) attempt you should have an idea of what you want to do, and thus be in a position to ask questions about how to achieve that.

I'd mainly like to start slow just to get the hang of it again.
But after like a week, that idea will go down the drain and then I want a hard embark.

Well to be more specific- I'll discuss some of the big changes in the new DF2014 release. 

Garden vegetables and trees:
One of the first htings you'll notice is that trees are multi-tile now and rather tall.  They have leaves and flowers and berries! The first two are worthless, but the fruit can actually be picked in the summer! This is a new mechanic where certain plants/trees are only harvestable during a certain time of the year (a few weeks into summer, typically).  You can build a ladder at a carpenters workshop first and set up a "plant gathering zone" from the activity zone menu (i-draw rectangle-g?) Draw these -under- the trees you want picked.  Herbalists will then grab the ladder and begin picking fruit from the 2 z-levels above him off the tree.  Combined with multi-hauling, dorfs can pick staggering amounts of food in this season.  I've had 3-4 untrained dorf from my starting 7 pick several hundred during the first summer this way.  The fruits are edible and usually brewable, but you cannot plant their seeds.  Some seeds (like the tropical rambutan) can also be eaten, but most are just junk that eats into your global seed cap.  Sadly, nuts are not edible.  So while you can have pecan and almond trees, your dorfs won't pick them.  The most interesting trees are probably olives though.  You can most definitely press the olives into oil+olive pumice.  The oil can be made into soap or further cooked into meals.  Garden vegetables only fruit at the same time as trees, mainly, but usually have edible growths year round as a stop-gap method.  Berries are the easiest example of this- even the old strawberries will only yield (brewable) fruit during hte harvest season.  More plant-fiber and flour crops were added as well.  Of particular note is hemp, which counts as a flour, textile, and oil-seed for pressing.  Hilariously, you can store hemp flour in hemp bags.  Then make hemp-soap.  These are still buggy though, as anything described as having a -pod growth (beans and nuts mostly) are still worthless and un-gatherable. 

Multi-hauling.  I mentioned this briefly above, but dorfs will no longer hall just one small item at a time.  This mostly revamps herbalism, as I've easily seen a single herbalist carry over 100 plants at a time.  In an area of thick vegetation, I've seen proficient (skill 5) herbalists bring in 130+ plants in about 2 weeks of game time.  I've started forts and gone crazy on herbalsim.  Between multi-hauling and trees I believe I was pushing 10k plants collected in the first year? It was at least 6k.  You'll still never see a dorf pick up multiple barrels or stones, though. 

Thoughts and stress revamp.  Dorfs have more nuanced personalties now, or at least the nuances mean more.  A dorf that loves fighting and violence will actually get pleasant thoughts sparing and killing.  Dorfs that love commerce get warm fuzzies if they get to trade as the broker.  Conversely, dorfs that hate commerce hate being brokers... Dorfs that place a high value on crafmanship get more pleasant thoughts from viewing masterwork statues.  Dorfs can handle stress differently too.  So some dorfs are neurotic messes and break before others, however "breaking" happens much slower.  Breaking doesn't mean a tantrum though, but actual death-by-insanity.  Dorfs can go beserk (irreversible tantrum), catatonic, or full blown crazy (strip naked and run around gibbering).  In all cases they stop eating and wait for death.  However, stress builds up more gradually and can be buffered by positive stress.  A dorf won't just immediately snap into a tantrum when their kid dies.  They'll just do that next season unless you seriously intervene.  You'd really need to read more (on the wiki) and see this one for yourself.  Just try to keep an eye on your mayor/expedition leader more.  Dorfs that visit the mayor are doing so to vent steam.  If they have more than one meeting with the mayor they are likely about to blow a gasket.  You'll need to stop and examine their thoughts screen to not only find a problem, but look over their preferences for the best solution to cheering them up.  Typically bigger, blinged out room can't go wrong- just try and match their item preferences.

That's pretty damn cool. I haven't gotten to play alot of the newer version, just some little stuff.

[PatrikLundell]

A number of things:
- FPS will usually get you! Trying to keep the FPS up tends to be important. Thus, avoid overly large embarks (standard 3*3 is good), smaller worlds are better from that perspective (I go for pocket universes).
- You should probably try an embark within range of all the races (elves, humans, goblins, possibly kobolds), but out of range of black towers (undead). Also, select a civ that isn't at war with anyone (goblins will attack anyway, if close enough).
- You probably want to avoid savage biomes, and other extremes.
- Aquifers are useful, but can be a pain as well.

Trying an embark (or a few) to get a feel for things, then toss it away to do something specific when you get an idea is a perfectly valid way of using DF.

[Niddhoger]

Nah, savage biomes are cake.  The "big scary animals" mostly do their own thing and ignore your dorfs.  Giant keas are just the same PITA as their smaller cousins.  Both steal relentlessly, but will generally avoid attacking your dorfs.  Keep crap inside and/or guarded with cage traps.  The bonus is that you get whip vines (highwind trees produce tons of wood too) and have a chance of catching/training the giant animals.  Can you say giant war tigers? I sure can XD

[DwarfOfTheLand]

First fort.

Started in a location, (3x3 as per request) had no stone anywhere.

Made a nice little lodging, already crafted 4 masterpieces thanks to my trusty craftsdwarf.

By this time I have 20 dwarves.

Fast forward to just a moment ago -



Jesus Christ a were-beast. Time to spring to action!

Now, I restarted twice (didn't save), this is the inside of my fort.


You can see, near the stairway at the bottom there, there are two walls encasing my fort. To keep us safe from that were-dick. Only one dwarf was unlucky enough to remain outside, and his name was Miner Dwarf. He died after getting into a tussle with the were-dick, but he died instantaneously. The trade caravan tried fighting him, but they were slaughtered as well. So all in all, this time, I lost 1 dwarf.

I wanted to do better

So, I restart.

IMMEDIATELY, I spring to action, I wall off my fort's downward staircase. Good thing I already had two walls set up!

The were-dick jumps the walls and gets inside, killing all but 9. Shit.

This is pretty fun!

[PatrikLundell]

Glad you like it!

"No stone anywhere" - This just means you have to dig through the soil to get at it. The upside of that is that it's a lot faster to dig through soil, so you can cut out the basic layout quickly. There's some fun to be had if you have an aquifer in the soil with no way around it, though (you'd have to use the double-slit screw pump assisted digging/building method to get through).

It seems you've placed your fortress just below the surface. That's generally not recommended, because when you cut down trees above those rooms you'll get a hole in the roof where the tree stood (can be patched up with floor tile, but it's still a breach while doing that). It's thought (but I don't think verified) no trees grow above your top level fortress, though, because there is no room for the roots.

Walls: Yes, the current version allows critters to climb walls, and they do it quite frequently. Fortress entrances are typically protected by raising drawbridges (although some use a hatch exploit). I start out building a decked over courtyard for an initial trade depot, some above ground farm plots, and pasture, and have a draw bridge controlling access to the courtyard (there are usually two additional drawbridges in the entrance tunnel between the fortress and the courtyard).
The alternative to a roof is a wall that's at least two tiles high with an overhang on top of that. An overhang of a floor is supposed to be sufficient, while an overhang of a wall isn't. Since a wall overhang looks silly, I go for a two tile overhang when using that method (first a floor and then a wall outside of that). Note that a wall does absolutely nothing against fliers, though. Most fliers won't slaughter your dorfs outright, but Keas are thieving critters that drive your dorfs (and probably you as well) nuts.

[Inevitability]

Note that a wall does absolutely nothing against fliers, though. Most fliers won't slaughter your dorfs outright, but Keas are thieving critters that drive your dorfs (and probably you as well) nuts.

Yeah, keas are nearly everywhere.
On the other hand they make for good marksdwarf training.

[PatrikLundell]

Well, using Keas for dwarfmarkship training would be useful if marksdwarves were actually useful themselves. As it stands they're suicidal and work shy, either charging enemies with their xbow as a club, tickling the enemies with training bolts until the enemy reaches them and cuts them down, or conclude they cannot reach the enemy with their bolts without moving a tile first and thus sneak off. Running out of bolts while being blocked from a suicide charge tends to cause them to break the engagement because they're out of bolts, then decide it's time to train, and thus they pick up new bolts to train, still disregarding the engagement order given.
I tend to have at most one marksdwarf, namely the hammerer, who's the weakest dorf I can find and who's given the lightest xbow possible (i.e. feather-wood if available).

[Inevitability]

Well, a force purely composed of marksdwarves is quite ineffective, I agree.
They are mostly a support force in my forts, but they are pretty useful gainst some FBs who you don't really want to engage in melee (for example those made of fire.
I don't bother with wooden bolts, I just have a bunch of magma smelters and forges dedicated to making some copper or silver or whatever bolts which are used for both training and combat. Works perfectly fine, by the time I run out of metal ores, my forts usually are abandoned, because I lost interest.
But you can't just place marksdwarves somewhere and expect them to kill the enemy, they'll always need a melee squad between them and the enemy.
Have you tried using station orders on them? It usually works for me.

[PatrikLundell]

I've used station orders to get them close to where the enemy is, and then they abandon their posts when I order them to attack. At one stage (probably 0.40.13) I'd made a large courtyard 3 tiles high completely roofed over and got it infested with ravens. I tried to get the marksdwarves to shoot them down, but it was a pain because the dorfs absolutely had to be hauled in range of the moving ravens with station orders for them to shoot, and those that hadn't gotten into range yet deserted. The last raven could be gotten rid of because it had decided to sit stationary, so I could station a dwarf directly below it.

I fight most everything with traps. Siegers are caught in cage traps, while FBs are skewered by repeating menacing spike trap arrays. So far I've got two cases where I had to keep the FBs contained with my spike arrays by the raising drawbridges on each side until I could build a cave-in trap to dispose of them (because they were too tough to be harmed by the green glass spikes).