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[Fikilili]

I wouldn't dare - you are an easily tired professional.

Oh you two didn't get what I said, I don't call myself defeated, I won't let an ASCII game own me like that, or else my name isn't Fikilili!

[Cathar]

oof, no offense taken then ! Wish you luck on your next fort. Really advise you to do a peaceful, goblin free embark to familiarize yourself with the game. Make a peaceful fort and hold it for five years, develop a military and overcome the non military threats (werebeasts, vampires, criminality, megabeasts). Once you can do that reliably, then you can get ready to face sieges

[Shonai_Dweller]

And don't forget, even if you're "goblin free", you can provoke far away goblins (and elves, humans, other dwarf civs) to attack you by raiding them when you feel you're ready (and have tested your bridge).

[towerator]

I wouldn't dare - you are an easily tired professional.

Oh you two didn't get what I said, I don't call myself defeated like that, I won't let an ASCII game own me like that, or else my name isn't Fikilili

Now that's the spirit!

[thegoatgod_pan]

Lock up. There is no reason to be open to the world unless you want migrants, while locked up you should be safe (just don't open the caverns--see "lock up")

[DrCyano]

Losing is fun. Alright, I know. Git Gud, I know.

It is in an exhausted mood that I share to you the grim tale of my incompetence. And sometimes, I feel like I'm looking for all of this. All these fails, all these mistakes.

So I just lost another fortress. ...

Don't blame yourself and ignore the haters.

Here's my tip: the biggest challenge/frustration is that (by design) the rate of immigration exceeds your ability to accommodate the migrants. But here's the thing, you don't have to accept the migrants. When they arrive, just expel them (v -> e, I think, it's in the unit view sidebar near the top).

Also, building a competent military is hard. Avoid starting a fortress near your civilization's enemies unless you have a defense plan (blocking the entrances to an underground fort with drawbridges is effective while you build a trap hall and train your militia).

Another option is to reclaim a procedurally generated fort instead of embarking to found a new one. You'll usually start with a bunch of rooms (and not much else).

Edit: I forgot to mention that locking doors (q -> l) works wonders in a pinch. It's seriously OP (except against furniture-destroying monsters, but even those will be slowed down).

[Thisfox]

Here's my tip: the biggest challenge/frustration is that (by design) the rate of immigration exceeds your ability to accommodate the migrants. But here's the thing, you don't have to accept the migrants. When they arrive, just expel them (v -> e, I think, it's in the unit view sidebar near the top).

You can also set the number of dwarfs in your fortress in the init files, so that migrants only come if you need them (for example, if ten of your dorfs disappeared in a "mining accident") instead of letting them arrive if you want them or not.

In fact, set your fort to 50 for a while, and you won't get attacked as much or have a population explosion, while you work out the basics.

[Murr2]

My personal solution, the GAUNTLET OF DEADLY FEAR AND TERROR

with enough weapon traps and ☼wooden spiked balls☼, *almost* anything is possible.

oh yeah, having big scary drawbridges helps too.

and sealed corpse pits to store dead invaders so your dwarves don't go mad anytime they go outside. or near the gauntlet

[orius]

Here's my tip: the biggest challenge/frustration is that (by design) the rate of immigration exceeds your ability to accommodate the migrants. But here's the thing, you don't have to accept the migrants. When they arrive, just expel them (v -> e, I think, it's in the unit view sidebar near the top).

You can also set the number of dwarfs in your fortress in the init files, so that migrants only come if you need them (for example, if ten of your dorfs disappeared in a "mining accident") instead of letting them arrive if you want them or not.

Setting the population caps in the init files is a better way of controlling your population than exiling or arranging unfortunate accidents.  It gives you much more control over how many dwarves you have.

Also, building a competent military is hard. Avoid starting a fortress near your civilization's enemies unless you have a defense plan (blocking the entrances to an underground fort with drawbridges is effective while you build a trap hall and train your militia).

Building a military isn't really that difficult, it's just that the military screen interface can be a pain to work with.  And mostly it's a lot of little details that have to be set up, you need to set up squads, assign them equipment, produce the equipment and so on. 

[DrCyano]

Setting the population caps in the init files is a better way of controlling your population than exiling or arranging unfortunate accidents.  It gives you much more control over how many dwarves you have.

If you're philosophically opposed to modding (ie trying to play the game "as Tarn intended"), then expelling is probably the best option.

Building a military isn't really that difficult, it's just that the military screen interface can be a pain to work with.  And mostly it's a lot of little details that have to be set up, you need to set up squads, assign them equipment, produce the equipment and so on.

I said building a competent military is hard. A few dozen wrestlers clad in pigtail is not going to stop a large goblin siege on an open battlefield. You need rooms for training, a training schedule, and lots of iron and flux stone and forges and smelters and generally be doing well on your economy to outfit 20+ dwarves in full armor (and remember that assign boots twice in their uniform or they'll only wear one boot). And for really epic dwarf soldiers, you either need a lot of time or a danger room to accelerate their "training".

[NW_Kohaku]

If you're philosophically opposed to modding (ie trying to play the game "as Tarn intended"), then expelling is probably the best option.

The init files aren't modding, they're the options menu in a game that doesn't have an options menu integrated into the game itself.  Tarn explicitly intended for the init files to have the effects they do, especially since options like setting population limits are a good way to adjust how much of an FPS hit you're taking. 

[Thisfox]

....I play vanilla, no mods, no tilesets, no nothing, and mess about with my init and d_init file all the time. It comes with the game, and is intended to be used. Personally I like the water levels being shown, which you have to set, and the FPS itself isn't even listed on the screen unless you change one of those files.

....Giving female dorfs beards is also in the files that came with the vanilla game. Have your female dorfs been travelling around with naked faces all this time? The poor lasses!

[PatrikLundell]

The amount of raw adjustments you can do before you call it "modding" is depending on the player, I guess. The two init files are definitely not modding as they're there for adjustments.

I don't consider adjusting siege or monster attack triggers to be modding either, while protecting female dorfs from chin frostbite would fall under the header of light modding in my book (as would giving male and female cats and dogs distinct names, or making gremlins large enough to wear clothing that can actually be made in the fortress so they don't go insane from shame over nudity while waiting to petition for citizenship, but they're essentially unplayable without hacking once they're citizens anyway).

[Salmeuk]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I honestly miss the early days of indie games, where it seemed like quite a few devs decided to use simple txt files to store basic variables. Cortex Command was like this - just pop open the raw files and edit a few values, and your shotgun would suddenly shoot 200x more pixels, and therefore 200x more death. Some games are still like this (I think Caves of Qud is fairly simple to add to), but many are now based off of proprietary systems that lack this feature? Unsure actually why this isn't more common.

Regardless, please learn to edit your init file! It's honestly the first thing a new player should take a look at, since the variables within will greatly enhance your enjoyment of the game. Seasonal saving as backup for crashes (still frequent enough to warrant concern), editing FPS to align with your preferred rate of play, and as previously mentioned - ability to manage total fortress population via Popcap and childcap variables. Also, tileset customization is worth taking a look at, before the Steam update potentially outdates the current system.

[NW_Kohaku]

You guys are overlooking probably THE biggest indication it's an options menu: The init file is where you control the sound volume and/or turn it off! (Because Tarn's great for adding an original soundtrack of his own music and all, but seriously, this is a game you play for thousands of hours, and there's just one song on a loop...)