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[muldrake]

I don't understand all those peoples here channeling into the ground I don't channel anything (but I'm a noob).
I dig 3x3 up/down stairwells 12 layers down. Can someone explain why they channel?

Because wagons cannot roll down stairs! Most players dig stairs downward but eventually they want a trade depot and those are safer underground. Channelling has others uses as well, like those deep pits that you dump things into and safely digging a path for magma and water.

I generally prefer to embark somewhere with at least one z-layer of stuff above ground, so I can dig directly into the side of it.

I also usually have an alternate dig site where I try to reach the caverns, so that it can easily be plugged at the top if things turn ugly, or connected to the rest of the fort if not.

One time it definitely makes sense to just channel directly down from the general area of the wagon is when the biome is so utterly terrifying that you'll die within minutes otherwise.  (Another plus is you can literally just get all your stuff underground with this method.)

[Thorfinn]

I don't understand all those peoples here channeling into the ground I don't channel anything (but I'm a noob).
I dig 3x3 up/down stairwells 12 layers down. Can someone explain why they channel?

other moves:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Then I usually designate circular rooms dfhack /digcircle around that stairwell.
Remove wagon but let most goods liey there only small stockpiles in the beginning for selective goods so not too much hauling
Go through food options and brewing options and other fort options
first simple workshops all on the surface 2 carpenters for doing lots of wood tools I need
train dogs and put turkey in nestboxes
build wood walls around surface part later getting fortification and roof
build stone hatches for stairs
build sleep areas 11 layers down for chop noise

I tend to play with aquifers so 12 straight down is right out.

The deal is when you deconstruct the wagon, it becomes up to a 5x5 with all your embark crap piled up on the tiles within this space. Channeling down that 5x5, then building a floor over it accomplishes a couple things simultaneously. You get all your goods buttoned up in 2-3 days or so, and you get a protected soil area that's been exposed to sunlight, so it immediately gives you at least 5 and up to 7 1x3 farm plots and change for surface plants, once you get rid of all the crap you brought with you.

Putting underground plants 1 tile under the surface is risky, because quite often, felling trees will leave a hole through the floor into that level. So its generally better to put the underground plants 2 levels below the surface, assuming your aquifer doesn't reach that high.

The embark I started last night, I channeled a 6x5 under the wagon, with the intent of making it into 10 1x3 surface farms. Actually looking pretty good so far. Carpenter's on the surface for now. Buttoned everything up by day 3, I think, and got my underground fields going, and the mason and kitchen going, and started poking the aquifer by day 4.

[Libash_Thunderhead]

Basically, have some beds, barrels and farmplots first.
Then butcher all cows and dogs just in case I forget.
Dig and add a door to the entrance, and move things inside.
Start training some soldiers after the first migrant wave.

After that I just improvise.

[muldrake]

This isn't a super opening move since it doesn't immediately pay off, but if you have iron ore, just immediately start smelting it.

Then the moment you have flux stone, get pig iron going.

And the moment you have pig iron, turn it into steel.

Forge battle axes.

Turn every dwarf into a woodcutter at some point.  So they pick up one of the battle axes. 

From then on, watch every single encounter with a nasty turn into a report with various body parts flying off, severed, and look at all the new kinds of meat your cooks have to cook.

[Lav]

1. Switch to designations marking mode.
2. Examine territory, pick location for the future fortress.
3. Pick locations for tavern and trading outpost.
4. Make preliminary plan for secure merchant entrance.
5. Plan future industries, make estimates for required space.
6. Mark locations for future industries on the map.
7. Estimate logistical network, plan corridors, stairs, ramps and railway network.
8. Make modifications to industry allocations according to results of previous step.
9. Allocate place for housing.
10. Allocate place for general services, offices, jail, graveyard, hospital and water cistern.
11. Plan allocation of magmaducts (may result in fixes to logistical and industrial network).
12. It's too late already, go to sleep.
13. Wake up, load fort, remember all yesterday's plans.
14. Abandon fort, start over again.

[EldritchVoid]

1. Smiths, glassmakers, militia commander, etc. recieve mining or woodcutting duty.
2. Designate all trees for harvesting and begin planning fort, prioritizing 3x3 farms for cave wheat, plump helmets, quarry bushes, and sweetpods with 5x9 farms for dimple cups and pig tails, an 11x11 meeting hall area which will contain a well, the base of a tower for housing nobles, legendary artisans, scholars, and other notable dwarves.
3. Most of my attention goes to getting my dwarves to excavate a cistern without crushing a miner in the process, though at this time I do have my spare dwarves begin constructing their workshops as well as a temporary dorm which will double as a barracks with archery targets, a dining hall with related workshops, nestboxes, and hives outside. Ignoring the first caravan except to request some cats for vermin control.
4. Begin making meals to trade for materials and more food when the next caravan comes, start training marksdwarves, begin burning wood and producing coke, and start making cage traps.
5. Hope that no dwarves decide to produce an artifact that will instantly make me a target for anything !!fun!! before I am done with my preparations.

[mross]

embark with: 3 axes, 3 picks, 1 anvil, no skills, 30 war dogs

deconstruct wagon, pasture wagon animals, set meeting area somewhere, chop trees, gather plants
stockpiles for refuse / corpses
make still, carpenter, farmer workshop
get barrels, booze, thread
dig straight down wherever wagon was
channel a rectangle nearby for above-ground farms
channel out an additional area for smooth building foundations
dig down to stone, quarry
make thousands of blocks
make workshop and stockpile area
make apartments
I don't build trade depot, I never trade

[Altaree]

• Check all the options in the 'z' menu - cooking rules and stone rules
• Check all the 'o' menu options
• Plan location for stockade and set trees to be chopped.
• create a stockpile under the wagon to preserve the food.
• Designate channel pits for where the stockade drawbridges will be located.
• Pick my fort entrance location and dig down a 3 wide ramp 5 zlevels with a 2x3 flat area on each level.
• On one side of the ramp at z-2 dig a 2x5 path.  Create 6 11x11 rooms off this path for temporary living and storage.
• After trees are chopped designate the stockade wall.
• After rooms are dug create workshops in first room. 1 room for living/eating.  1 room for farm.  Rest for stockpiles.
• Create tables/chairs/bed/ doors/ and #bridges X 3 + 2 gears.
• Move everything inside.

[mross]

I don't understand all those peoples here channeling into the ground I don't channel anything (but I'm a noob).
I dig 3x3 up/down stairwells 12 layers down. Can someone explain why they channel?

Because wagons cannot roll down stairs! Most players dig stairs downward but eventually they want a trade depot and those are safer underground. Channelling has others uses as well, like those deep pits that you dump things into and safely digging a path for magma and water.

There's nothing in this game worth trading for that you can't make yourself

[Thisfox]

I don't understand all those peoples here channeling into the ground I don't channel anything (but I'm a noob).
I dig 3x3 up/down stairwells 12 layers down. Can someone explain why they channel?

Because wagons cannot roll down stairs! Most players dig stairs downward but eventually they want a trade depot and those are safer underground. Channelling has others uses as well, like those deep pits that you dump things into and safely digging a path for magma and water.

There's nothing in this game worth trading for that you can't make yourself

Foreign musical instruments, and books. Also, exotic animals.

That, and not everyone lands on ground that has flux and iron ore straight up. I like being able to at least trade for some of the types of metals I don't get on the map I'm on at the time.

[mross]

Foreign musical instruments, and books. Also, exotic animals.

None of which you need

That, and not everyone lands on ground that has flux and iron ore straight up.

Try embarking on flux and prospecting

[Thisfox]

Foreign musical instruments, and books. Also, exotic animals.

None of which you need

Well, you might not need it. I happen to have different goals during different forts, and not all of those goals are to crush my enemies to paste.

That, and not everyone lands on ground that has flux and iron ore straight up.

Try embarking on flux and prospecting.
[/quote]

Again, my goals in the game aren't necessarily to crush my enemies. Surviving and trading for metals in different hostile environments is fun. You should try it. Also, I'm often more interested in aquifer busting than getting a steel industry going. So when I've got it busted, well, if there's iron there's iron. If there isn't, there are often other things taking my attention. Like 20+ z-levels of gold ore... So at the moment my goal is to make a perfect masterwork goblet covered in gemstones for every dorf in the place. But with all this gold ore comes responsibilities... such as getting some steel for gold protection purposes only. And the easiest way to get that steel is to sell some of the not-quite-masterwork goblets at the trade depot, and buy spears. Solved.

So yeah, need, I guess not. But to play the game and have fun, then I do feel the need to trade. It makes the game fun for me.

[muldrake]

So yeah, need, I guess not. But to play the game and have fun, then I do feel the need to trade. It makes the game fun for me.

There are also things it's more important to make that you can't get by trade, so I'd rather devote resources to those, like the initial mildly tricky setup to have soap so your dorfs aren't dying of infections.

Then like metals, there are sometimes things like sand and ores I don't have.  I almost always snap all those up because they're ridiculously cheap.  Similarly, you don't always have sand or clay.

Then there's foods.  I want lots of different kinds of food so there's variety, and also, it's easy and lucrative to turn super cheap food items into super expensive prepared meals.  Sure I could have dozens of farm plots, but who wants to do that?

I also don't like messing around with musical instruments.  I just see what people are simulating and then buy some of those if high quality items come around.  These are about the only really expensive items I buy.

Similarly, there are strange mood-related items.  Generally dorfs don't demand anything you can't or haven't produced (I forget which), but I really don't want to have some dorf go demand stuff that, for instance, only exists in the walled-off cavern layer with 3 forgotten beasts in it.  So I buy any mood-related items to make sure I have at least some of everything.

Finally, there are items some dorfs worth pleasing like, so I buy things made of those substances, especially if I don't have any of whatever it is.

In any event, there's always something, like clothes, that I just don't feel like messing with and I'd rather just buy.

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

There's nothing in this game worth trading for that you can't make yourself

With the right embark, this can technically be true.  However

1: We don't all always pick an optimal embark for the purposes of getting a specific industry going.  Often an embark site is chosen with other goals in mind.

2: There are things you *can* make for yourself that just aren't worth bothering with because you can get the resource far more efficiently with trading.  Leather would be a good example.  Not only is a single caravan capable of bringing you more leather of more varied types than even the most developed leather industry can produce in years, but that caravan will also save you the untold amounts of lag that would go with such an industry.

3: If nothing else, merchants are good for hauling off masterwork and/or magma proof junk that you don't want anymore.

[mek42]

I really love making large plans for my fortress with designations as my first move. By the time I start digging I know almost exactly where everything will go.

I might not even unpause the game during my first session on a new site.

I first read "session" as "season" and thought ypu were pretty hard core.