Sure.
Be warned - I generally use Phoebus and not ASCII, so my updates will take longer than yours since I'll have to sort out the tile meanings.
Yeah ascii is a bitch at first, but dfhack helps a lot. Clicking on things to know what they are is very very helpful. The default tileset seem intimidating, but it's by no mean the most off-putting aspect of dwarf fortress. If you already know how the game works, the interface will come easily to you. It really looks more complicated than it actually is, and convincing yourself to give it a shot was the hardest part of your learning experience. That's not an understatement. I never touched ascii before jumping into it blind and absolutely shit-faced for DRUNK fortress, and I somehow understood what I was dealing with. It's just like a pool. The water stops feeling so cold once you actually dive right into it with a deep breath. That being said...
A very basic ascii guide to what Murderflood contains:% is a barrel, many a food stockpile
- That's a wooden log, ours are copperish/beige because we have highwood. They look like a fatter version of a stockpile tile.
--
-- Stockpiles. Highlights to green when selected
[ That's a piece of clothing. You'll find many around. Morphing into bears and dying does that to a place.
/ are weapons, or picks. Color match the material, in our case mostly
copperO are coffins. We have like 12 right now.
The round
n next to them are of course slabs
╤ Tables look just like a table should look. If tables needed a single leg.
╥ Chairs are like tables, but obviously they need two legs.
♫ and √ are armor and weapon racks. Don't even ask.
ó That's a lever. We have three, and
Notes will help you locate them. I'm not sure the zombie crusher was completely linked.
Θ That's a bed. Four in the barracks, 6 in the lower dorm.
A filled rectangle is an unused block, of the corresponding stone color.
Microcline and
Rhyolite is what we have.
A filled flat oval is a boulder, and uses the same color scheme. You'll find them mostly in the lower level.
☼ are gems.
♦ are cut gems. Color coded for convenience, like rocks.
Moving letters are creatures. Those same, unmoving redder letters are their corpses.
Workshops vary, but they are hard to miss (3x3). To know how many (or if we have any) of a workshop already, the building menu for workshops will state how many currently exist.
The fortress is young, and apart from that, there shouldn't be many things lying around. If you have trouble, just click on stuff and dfhack should tell you what the hell they are. It's a bit confusing at first, but once you understand the basics your df reflex will kick in and you'll get the hang of it. Cycling between
a lerts,
r eports and
u nits will help you find the problems that really matter by zooming on them. The stock menu is also a good way to know what we have (instead of browsing around) and can also be used to zoom to the things you want. Use the manager if you don't care about locating every workshop all the time. that's what I do in succession game, not because of the tileset, just because it's simpler than understanding where things are, and a flow of cancellation spam will tell you anything you need to know about poorly designed industries.
Good luck and have fun! Remember, it's easier than it looks!