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[Lav]

After starting a couple of games, think I should better ask here first.

Now, the conditions for the games are simple: I start with nothing. Absolutely nothing, neither in the way of skills nor in the way of items. Even a single precious seed is an absolute no-no. The only things my dwarves get in the beginning are two animals and a single cart.

The minor goal is to survive until the dwarven caravan arrives, to keep all seven dwarves alive and to have some trade goods to buy at least one pick (and possibly an axe as well but that can wait). Actually it's not that difficult once you learn the game a bit.

Now the power goal is to be able to buy not just a mere pick axe, but an anvil as well. And I'm running into some difficulties here. On my second attempts I did manage to buy an iron pick and a -steel battle axe- (stupid traders didn't have anything of lesser value, what did they think I have here - a grand fortress with tons of goodies?), but despite my best attempts the precious iron anvil is still out of reach.

I could possibly start on the map with a chasm to get some spider silk, but first, it will be difficult to keep all seven dwarves alive on such a map and what's worse, it is far from guaranteed that the chasm will have a surface exit.

So the question is: has anyone tried this? Is it possible?

[Lord Dullard]

I suppose it would be if you farmed a large enough area.
Just gather enough seeds with the herbalism skill to make a huge above-ground farming plot. If you gather enough, and make the plot big enough, you might be able to get enough produce together to buy an anvil.

[Lalandrathon]

And don't forget that your wagon goes straight to trade depot-age, or otherwise you are in serious trouble. Well, at least the next elven caravan is in serious trouble if they don't bring enough guards to overpower your dwarves.

I made that mistake once, heh. Turned out to be one of my better forts actually.

[Blakmane]

Once you get the pick it should be simple. Anvils aren't all that expensive, just produce an inane amount of crafts and you'll be set. Also, alcohol roasts are a great trade item.

Otherwise, all the dwarves need is food right? With herbalism that shouldn't be too tough, surely...

[ZergSpartan]

Well your starting seven could be drafted, then have your trainee wrestlers maul some poor animal to death, use the bones to make a crossbow and some bolts. Then either decorate the bone bolts with shells fished up from a nearby water source or hunt the animals for more bones/skulls for crafts.

I suppose it would be if you farmed a large enough area.
Just gather enough seeds with the herbalism skill to make a huge above-ground farming plot. If you gather enough, and make the plot big enough, you might be able to get enough produce together to buy an anvil.

Combined with this and making lavish roasts with the plants/meat/fish I bet you could do it easy.
Basically make (high quality) roasts and decorate stacks of bolts.
Now not starting on a map with a water source or animals on the other hand...
(Your using the wood from the wagon to build the depot?)

[Dakk]

This is totally possible on most biomes, just not in ones that are completely devoid of water and flora, or full of bloodthirsty skeletal elephants and the like.

[Lav]

I suppose it would be if you farmed a large enough area.
Just gather enough seeds with the herbalism skill to make a huge above-ground farming plot. If you gather enough, and make the plot big enough, you might be able to get enough produce together to buy an anvil.

It. Is. Not. So. Easy.

You do not get the seeds by Herbalism. You get plant food, and then you must wait for your dwarves to eat those plants to get the seeds. And Farming does not provide you with seeds either and nor does Cooking and you cannot Brew because you haven't got a barrel. So you effectively get an average of 7 seeds per 2 months no matter how many plants you have. Forget about large-scale farming, you won't make it.

The only exception is starting in a swamp and going for rope reeds. You can Process them in Farmer's Workshop and you get the seeds by doing that and with the thread you can start a small clothing industry (rope reed farm, farmer's workshop, loom, clothier). This is exactly the route I tried on my second attempt - but I still failed to buy the anvil.

Cooking extra plants may indeed provide an additional source of income though. It was a mistake to keep them for my dwarves to eat - I hoped to start a parallel food farming project.

Anvils aren't all that expensive, just produce an inane amount of crafts and you'll be set. Also, alcohol roasts are a great trade item.

And the raw materials for the insane amount of crafts come from where? Also forget the alcohol roasts because you won't have any alcohol.

Well your starting seven could be drafted, then have your trainee wrestlers maul some poor animal to death, use the bones to make a crossbow and some bolts.

That is an option but wild animals are a very limited and unpredictable source. At least I didn't get any wild animals on both attempts (actually on the first attempt I did get a horde of carps in the river, but I didn't dare to go wrestle them unarmed and unarmored).

(Your using the wood from the wagon to build the depot?)

Not immediately. Caravan comes in Autumn, so until that time you can build virtually anything. You just have to keep track of time and deconstruct everything in August to build the Depot before the caravan arrives.

This is totally possible on most biomes, just not in ones that are completely devoid of water and flora, or full of bloodthirsty skeletal elephants and the like.

Seems you totally misunderstood the challenge. The problem is not to survive until the first caravan comes - this is the easiest thing. The problem is to earn enough to buy an anvil and a pick from the very first caravan - which is not as easy as it looks.

[forsaken1111]

I've done this by accident, but its actually fairly easy if you're in a biome with plants and animals, and form of flowing water.

Set 3 dwarves to hunt, 3 to fish. Set the final dwarf to butcher, tan, and fish cleaning. Make a refuse pile, a food pile and a wood pile. Dismantle your wagon and build, with that wood, a fishery, a butchery and a tannery. They will keep the 7th dwarf busy for a good while. When you have a nice stockpile of food, bones, skulls and leather tear down the buildings and rebuild them as craftsdwarf workshops. Make all of the stuff into crafts with all 7 dwarves helping. Once this is done you should be close to fall, so tear down the 3 buildings and build a trade depot. Have your dwarves resume fishing/hunting for now.

When the trade caravan comes haul everything to the depot and trade for essentials, like an axe and a pick. From there its easy.

[Lav]

I've done this by accident, but its actually fairly easy if you're in a biome with plants and animals, and form of flowing water.

So you had 7 totally unskilled peasants and no items and bought an anvil in Autumn? Or you just bought a pick and an axe like I did?

[Hectonkhyres]

If he hadn't brought an axe, he wouldn't need a wood pile. So... yeah. Forsaken is an axe-toting cheater. His point on oodles of bone crafts and leathercrap works in conjunction with lots of hunted and herbalized cooked food though. Again, you might actually make it as long as you rip down all three workshops right at the end there.

[Hyndis]

Gather a ton of plants, build farms. Grow rope reed. Deconstruct wagon to make a farmer's workshop, a loom, and a crafts workshop.

Make rope reed crafts. Profit!

[Dakk]

This is totally possible on most biomes, just not in ones that are completely devoid of water and flora, or full of bloodthirsty skeletal elephants and the like.

Seems you totally misunderstood the challenge. The problem is not to survive until the first caravan comes - this is the easiest thing. The problem is to earn enough to buy an anvil and a pick from the very first caravan - which is not as easy as it looks.

It is indeed easy, it just takes longer. Basically all you have to do is sell enough cheap meals to get a pick and a cheap axe, then use those to get materials yo buy an anvil from the next dwarven\human caravan.

If you want to buy everything from the first caravan, you can aways strip your dwarfs from their GCS clothing and use those as trade goods    , iron anvils aren't that expensive, as long they aren't finely crafted or superior quality.

[Shakma]

I would think fishing and rope reed would be the way to go.  Produces seeds for farming right away and food for crafts from fish.  Not sure if it would be enough from the first caravan, but if you get an axe and pick you should easily get it by the second caravan.

[K4el]

Fishing seems like a good option but... come on. Who doesn't want to see a pack of hungry destitute Dwarves try to take down some food with their bare hands.

[Qwernt]

There was a challenge based on this startup - check out http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=30940.5 .  2 years and Teta made 20,352,976 dwarfbucks of value (excluding artifacts)