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[leontas2007]

ok I have no dwarves civilizations and I have elves I can't mine I can't gather woods. So are the elves playable or they are just for show?

[Loam]

I wouldn't say they are "just for show" - at the very least they trade and siege - but no, they aren't playable in vanilla. I'm sure there are mods that make them so.

[NJW2000]

Out of intereest, can you clarify? Are you:

Pretending to be elves as dwarves?
Forcing the CPU to let you play as elves in that sneaky way you can do?
Playing an elves mod?
Something else?

[leontas2007]

Out of intereest, can you clarify? Are you:

Pretending to be elves as dwarves?
Forcing the CPU to let you play as elves in that sneaky way you can do?
Playing an elves mod?
Something else?

Well I didn't do anything, I didn't change anything and I am not playing any mods. I just choosed to embark and I couldn't see any miner or grower labor, and after that I saw that I have elves.

[NJW2000]

Wow. Looks like your dwarves went extinct, or some weird raw duping magic or something is going on.

I myself haven't seen this before, and reckon you should give it a shot, as its a pretty interesting idea. Do you:
Have picks or axes?
Have seeds/animals or another source of raw nutrition?
Have ANY usable stone or wood?
Have any weapons? THis may be very important if the above 3 are limited, as you may have to raid a caravan. I reckon that if you stumbled on this you should play it through, and tell us, it could be awesome.

[leontas2007]

Wow. Looks like your dwarves went extinct, or some weird raw duping magic or something is going on.

I myself haven't seen this before, and reckon you should give it a shot, as its a pretty interesting idea. Do you:
Have picks or axes?
Have seeds/animals or another source of raw nutrition?
Have ANY usable stone or wood?
Have any weapons? THis may be very important if the above 3 are limited, as you may have to raid a caravan. I reckon that if you stumbled on this you should play it through, and tell us, it could be awesome.

well, the way I embarked was wrong from the start. I have nothing to start. No pickaxes no axes no seeds and so on. The problem is that when I choosed to embark I couldn't find pickaxe. So I guess elves are unplayable

[NJW2000]

To start with: gather plants! Every player's first resort. Brew them to get seeds, or at least some, if you can make a brewery. Otherwise, stockpile them and let your dwarves eat them, for less seeds.

No, try getting a pickaxe. You could raid a dwarven or human caravan, if you can't make a depot. Also, try and get an axe off them. Or you could make a wooden axe (possibly?) if you could fell a tree somehow and could make a carpenter's workshop, and that means more trees, so a depot, which means you could get picks!

I reckon you can do this, but would be happy to try if you don't and can post the save.

[PatrikLundell]

Well it sounds really tough, but I would still try. You can use Herbalism to gather food, and fishing ought to work as well (but I don't know if you can eat raw uncleaned fish). With no tools you'd basically have to sit on your hands until a caravan shows up, at which time you'd exchange some food for an axe and a pick (training axe is preferred here, due to its lower cost). If I had to chose from an axe or a pick I'd probably take the axe, because you need wood for buckets, barrels and beds. It also depends on your embark: If you've got a lot of trees, or just a few of them, if you've got an aquifer, etc.
Also, if using LNP, I'd ensure skills are enabled on immigrants, because turning it off not only disabled the skills, but also removes the tools the skilled immigrants would have brought. In that vein, I'd ensure wood cutter and miner are NOT enabled on any of your original team, since I've heard there is some slight bias in immigrant skills towards those you haven't got. If the summer immigration wave (provided there is one) gives you either a miner or a wood cutter (with the associated tool) I think you're going to get a reasonable start anyway.
By the way, what does the Civ screen say about your parent civ?

Hm, just saw NJW2000's post: True, no tools means no depot, and no depot means no caravan, so your only hope would probably be skilled immigrants with either a pick or an axe. No tools means no still as well. However, did you get a wagon? If so, you can dismantle it and make a carpenter's workshop plus two training axes out of it. Then it's off to cut trees! (If you're short of trees as well, make only one axe). If you've got clay you can use one log to make a kiln, collect clay, and build workshops out of clay (If you're really short of wood you can dismantle the carpenter's workshop after building the axe and then rebuild it using clay).
And yes, please upload a save. It would be interesting to try out.

[leontas2007]

To start with: gather plants! Every player's first resort. Brew them to get seeds, or at least some, if you can make a brewery. Otherwise, stockpile them and let your dwarves eat them, for less seeds.

No, try getting a pickaxe. You could raid a dwarven or human caravan, if you can't make a depot. Also, try and get an axe off them. Or you could make a wooden axe (possibly?) if you could fell a tree somehow and could make a carpenter's workshop, and that means more trees, so a depot, which means you could get picks!

I reckon you can do this, but would be happy to try if you don't and can post the save.

I have given up from the first minute. But retired so you can take back the fortress.

here is the save file:http://www40.zippyshare.com/v/wtkEl5ky/file.html

[PatrikLundell]

Managed to find the embark and revive it, but failed to get it going, because the option to make training weapons (including the crucial axe) was gone. I also tried to make a chair and a roof to give a manager order to make an axe, but no axe was available there either. I haven't tried waiting for immigrants yet. The wood from the wagon should be sufficient to make a trade depot for the autumn caravan, so I'll try those alternatives next.

[leontas2007]

I think they are unplayable without mods. The thing is... how do you survive outside? you can't craft beds and you can't  protect yourself from anything wild. So how?

[PatrikLundell]

I think I've just gotten things going, but there are quirks.

Survival outside is no problem unless there are actually hostile creatures, and I haven't been subject to any. It's possible to sleep on the ground, although that won't make them happy.

What I've done:
- Found I start in month 12 rather than 1. Immediately dismantled the wagon and built a kitchen, a farmer's workshop, and a fishery and got the buggers to gather plants like crazy and prepare lavish meals out of strawberry plants, chicory, and celery. I also made a bunch of single tile farm plots, and managed to get some rope reed going (after threshing the ones collected).
- Around the 25:th I dismantled all the workshops and made a trade depot in the hope of receiving an elven caravan.
- A caravan shows up with a trade liaison. Interesting to see what you can request from the "mountainhome", especially in terms of animals. I bought all the logs (all 4 of them), plus the buckets and the single barrel. No axes, though, but forgot to hog the clay. I build workshops so I didn't have to dismantle the trade depot. An odd thing is that no prices where shown on the trade, so I guessed on reasonable exchanges.
- At some stage I received 3 immigrants (missed their arrival).
- Made still, kitchen, farmer's workshop, and loom. Never managed to make any drinks, though. I suspect that's because the barrels have all disappeared into the stockpiles.
- Human caravan arrives. I've built up quite some stocks of meals, so I gave them some 6-7000 dwarfbucks, and nabbed a training axe and two picks, all the blocks, clay, barrels and some select garden vegetables/fruit I could lay my hands on.
- Just started to dig and cut wood.
- Also discovered that elves cannot make mine carts, so all quantum stockpiles, as well as mine cart repeaters, will have to be based on bought carts, which probably hinges on the existence of dwarven caravans. There is a dwarven civ in the civ screen (together with elven and human after their respective caravans), so there is some hope.
- Noted the human trader mentioned craftMANship rather than the normal craftDWARFship.
- Haven't yet built an underground farm plot, so I don't know if underground crops work (will have to buy from dwarven caravan or use herbalism harvests after cavern breach to actually grow something).

Edit:
- Doesn't seem like any dwarven caravan will arrive (first month of autumn passed).
- Suspect the elves are unable to make any booze, since the only action available for the still is "extract from plants".
- The elves are unable to make pots out of either wood or stone, meaning all food will have to be stored in barrels.
- The craft workshop doesn't allow creation of nest boxes either.
- The kiln only provides the action to collect clay. I have yet to try to create coal in a wood furnace, though.
- Didn't receive any immigrants during summer, so the total workforce remains at 10.

[leontas2007]

I didn't even know that you can use carts in this game  . A for the prices with the merchants, I am playing with dwarves again, and for some reason items haven't prices like you. Maybe is something wrong with the save

[Graknorke]

Prices don't show up unless your broker has some appraisal skill.

[PatrikLundell]

We'll see about elven pricing as spring arrives.

Further notes:
- I could make a wood furnace and create both ash and coal, and I could convert ash into lye. However, the Soapery is not available to build, nor will the elves process the fat from butchered animals, so no washing.... They won't tan the hides either, even though they could build a tannery.
- The process to produce coke is not available in the smelter, so the only way to melt metal there is to use wood coal (or go to magma, of course).
- None of the starting animals show up in Dwarf Therapist, but both imported animals and young produced by the embark animals do.
- It's possible to butcher an embark animal (using the z-animal screen, since DT won't show them).
- I received 8 new immigrants in the autumn, but no caravan.
- Cannot produce hives either.
- It definitely seems the elves are unable to use a still for anything other than the extract task. They do consume the booze imported, though, as well as drink water.
- The DO fish and clean the fish, as I had some clam shells in the refuse pile.

Edit:
- Prices are indeed shown when the elves come around the second time.
- Neither elves nor humans bring leather, nest boxes, or hives. Thus, backpacks have to be purchased from the humans. Let's hope no leather requiring moods arrive.
- Message about no immigrants during the second spring. Still at a pop of 18.
- The furnace could be used to smelt ore using coal. As expected, neither pig iron, nor steel are available in the production list.
- Bought two anvils from the humans, so I'll be able to see what smithing can be done.
- Close to have magma facilities going. I don't expect those to have different production options than regular ones, though.
- Looks like it will be possible to eventually get some wool production going by getting what the humans happen to bring to eventually get a breeding pair of something. So far I've got one of each (except trolls, of course).
- Butchering of dead animals (dingoes killed by human caravan guards) works (had some doubts after the last time, when rotten bodies didn't seem to be butchered for bones).
- Bone carving seems to work as normal, so some bone armor has been produced. Of course, all bolt crafting is replaced by arrows.

Edit 2:
- And underground farming seems to work. The plot show crops as normal, but I haven't herbalized any seeds yet.

Edit 3:
- The magma forge cannot produce any siege equipment (the list under the metals are empty). While I haven't tried to build a siege workshop, I assume it cannot be used to produce anything either. Nor can the elves produce menacing spikes, corkscrews, etc (either out of metal, wood, or glass), so the only magma moving method is to use a magma piston. Normal armor can be produced, however, while the selection of weapons is limited, but probably useable. An interesting point is that pipe sections can be produced, and I think corkscrews could be bought from the humans.
- I did receive an additional immigration wave (total sum 27), so it seems new waves keep arriving.
- A human weresheep arrived and killed one elf and bruised another. Apparently, sheep teeth are particularly useless, because despite the combat report claiming the sheep bit the elf in the leg, bruised it, and kept the bite, the only bruise the elf had was on an arm from a punch. He deflected attacks well with the training axe, but was nevertheless horrified by sustaining a grievous wound from the ordeal.

I retire my experiment here, as no mine carts, screw pumps, or menacing spikes largely derails my play style. Cave-ins could substitute for spikes to some extent, but it would still be awkward.