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[bostltch]

So now that woodcutters can't actually use wooden axes are zero item embarks still a thing? I guess you could just build the trading depot and set your herbalists going and just waiting it out on the surface and hope that, when the traders come, they have an axe with them... Is there any other way?

[Shonai_Dweller]

So now that woodcutters can't actually use wooden axes are zero item embarks still a thing? I guess you could just build the trading depot and set your herbalists going and just waiting it out on the surface and hope that, when the traders come, they have an axe with them... Is there any other way?

Forgive my ignorance, but how were people with no items making training axes previously?

[Salmeuk]

So now that woodcutters can't actually use wooden axes are zero item embarks still a thing? I guess you could just build the trading depot and set your herbalists going and just waiting it out on the surface and hope that, when the traders come, they have an axe with them... Is there any other way?

Forgive my ignorance, but how were people with no items making training axes previously?

If you deconstruct the wagon you are given three logs. Use one to build the workshop, then have your dwarf carve it uh with his hands, I guess. This no longer works. I sort of think Toady should at least add stone axes, since those were very real technology from, you guessed it, THE STONE AGE.

I don't believe that no-item embarks were ever feasible, unless you wanted to wait for the caravan to get started with your digging. Since you need at least a copper nugget to construct a pick-axe, an anvil and something to build the forge / furnace.

So now you are forced into either bringing at least an axe + the copper, or you can instead bring fuel for the furnace to smelt both the pick-axe and the battleaxe. Oh, I guess that requires an anvil to.

So the new minimum embark for spring-digging would be . . . ?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

brb cooking dinner

[Tacomagic]

Well, you might also be able to end up with either a pick or axe in a migration wave, but otherwise, yeah, you're looking at waiting until the first caravan.

With some luck, though, you could end up with quite a load of bone and shell items and equipment.  And if your embark has clay, you could build some rough clay buildings to hold you.  But that's about it.

[Urist McVoyager]

I've done zero point embarks. They were not and still are not impossible. Just Fun. Even if you go "no points" you still have three pieces of wood and two animals to go with. So you make a food stockpile, and use the three pieces of wood from the wagon to process the two draft animals. There's your meat, leather for a quiver or two, bones for crossbows, bolts, and armor, and possibly a hair or two for thread. If you roll with herbalism and pay attention to your surroundings, you might be able to gather a solid supply of textile plants too. And you can make surface farms if you find soil for them.

It's very doable, even without much wood. You just have to pick the best industry to focus on at each time, get the current job done, and go on to the next one as quickly as possible.

[Shonai_Dweller]

So now that woodcutters can't actually use wooden axes are zero item embarks still a thing? I guess you could just build the trading depot and set your herbalists going and just waiting it out on the surface and hope that, when the traders come, they have an axe with them... Is there any other way?

Forgive my ignorance, but how were people with no items making training axes previously?

If you deconstruct the wagon you are given three logs. Use one to build the workshop, then have your dwarf carve it uh with his hands, I guess. This no longer works. I sort of think Toady should at least add stone axes, since those were very real technology from, you guessed it, THE STONE AGE.

I don't believe that no-item embarks were ever feasible, unless you wanted to wait for the caravan to get started with your digging. Since you need at least a copper nugget to construct a pick-axe, an anvil and something to build the forge / furnace.

So now you are forced into either bringing at least an axe + the copper, or you can instead bring fuel for the furnace to smelt both the pick-axe and the battleaxe. Oh, I guess that requires an anvil to.

So the new minimum embark for spring-digging would be . . . ?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

brb cooking dinner

Ah, wagon wood. Right.
As stone axes now exist, it should be a fairly simple thing to let fortress dorfs make them too. Gonna have to fix the bug that makes them not able to cut trees in fortress mode first. Should probably also add the grabbing branches from trees stuff too (Save the Wagons).

[Urist McVoyager]

There's also the lack of grabbing pebbles from the ground. Once all that's fixed you're pretty much good to go.

[Kogan Onulsodel]

I think the minimum for digging is an anvil, a copper ore, and a stone (to be a fire-safe building material, since that's required for wood furnace, smelter, and forge). Build wood furnace, make charcoal from the wagon wood. Deconstruct wood furnace, build smelter, smelt copper ore. Deconstruct wood furnace, build forge, make a copper pick and copper battle axe. Those three jobs will use up your three units of charcoal, but you'll have what you need to dig and chop trees. Anything less than this and I don't think you can make a pick. I guess there are a few variants on this which you could argue are actually even more minimal: You could argue that a single copper bar instead of a copper ore will end up giving you only a pick (without the axe), so that's really less, though it lets you skip the smelter so it's kind of easier in a different sense. But I think that's the general idea: something fire-safe to let you build all the necessary furnaces/workshops, some material from which you can make a pick, and an anvil. Wagon=fuel.

[Findulidas]

To be fair you could probably collect herbs, farm and cook masterwork roasts. This would increase value so that after the two first waves more dwarves would come, this would increase the chance of a miner by each wave. Downside being complete vulnerability to tantrums and increased risk when a dwarf dies due to all idlers being close friends. Not to mention some dwarves getting high stress from arguing with each other, which will happen if you have 20 idle dwarves.

[Shonai_Dweller]

You could have an adventurer scout out the site before you. Chop down a bunch of trees. Build a dormitory, a barracks, a couple of workshops and a barricade. Nice easy 'zero item' start. Or is that cheating...?

[Drecon]

The biggest problem with this kind of 0-item embark is actually no booze. You need barrels for that and for that you need wood. I suppose with some stockpile managing you could have 2 barrels? (need 1 for the still).
But the sleeping on the ground, coupled with those problems really makes the 0-item embark completely unfeasible.

[Spriggans]

I've tried zero points embarks on freezing glaciers before.

These were hard as hell, because there was no way to drink anything.
The only thing that could be drank was the vomit of my beloved dwarves. And getting them to vomit was insanely hard (and luck based) since they had to fight local wildlife (generally yetis) and get hit in the stomach.


And if you want, you can always cheese your way out of the zero points embark :
-> Just embark on the month of August, like one month before the dwarven caravan comes. But I consider that cheating. The real challenge is to embark at the start of the year.

[freeze]

Yup.. basically every zero-point embark is treeless for now - but you can still harvest from them. Still doable in many biomes, additional steps and care required. Basically either edible wildlife and standing water or gatherable plants and farmable terrain.

[bostltch]

The biggest problem with this kind of 0-item embark is actually no booze. You need barrels for that and for that you need wood. I suppose with some stockpile managing you could have 2 barrels? (need 1 for the still).
But the sleeping on the ground, coupled with those problems really makes the 0-item embark completely unfeasible.

I've done many zero embarks before and you don't actually need booze, just some source of water. And sleeping on the ground isn't that awful, dwarfs take a lot to get stressed in the beginning so it's definitely feasible.

[Urist McVoyager]

Embark on warm or hot zones to prevent water from freezing when you're first there.

If you don't mind controlled modding, you could get around the lack of building material by introducing a realistic leather system. The Plains Indians didn't need to cut down too many trees. They made their walls out of leather. Just get a mod that gives you realistic amounts of leather from the animals you butcher, and make a reaction at the leatherworker's shop that takes a number of tanned hides to create a block. Then you can useone or two hides for quivers, and the rest for building material. Set a hunter or two for gathering more, and just go from there.