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[zarmazarma]

Well I normally start with just about the same thing for every biome (excusing the extreme, like no trees/herbs whatever), but I have a feeling it's flawed in a way. I was told to do this by a friend, he was drunk that night, but it rarely fails me in a good environment-

1. Mining = 6 - 10, Appraiser, Judge of Intent, Organizer, Record Keeper, W\e else.
2. Wood Cutting = 10, Carpentry = 10
3. Masonry = 10, Stone Crafting = 10
4. Herbalist = 10
5. Brewing = 10
6. Cooking = 10, Butchering = 10
7. Ambush = 7, Marksdwarf, Wrestler, ect. (A hunter, basically).

Than the items I end up taking-

150-200 meat
150-200 booze
2 picks
4 war dogs/4 cats
Steel Battle Axe

And I believe that's it. I've never really farmed, and this is normally very sufficient. I can make lavish roast in the beginning that will last a while and keep my dwarfs happy. I've got an extra pick, and can chop down trees. My dwarfs can become very economical very quickly, and I can get a flow of meat coming from the hunter.

Here's the downsides-

1. With my wood cutter also being my carpenter, it means that he has to choose between making precious barrels for booze or chopping down trees to make barrels.
2. With my mason also being my stone crafter, and sense I normally always have my stone crafter pumping out mugs, it requires annoying management to make sure I'm getting plenty of doors, flood gates, tables, and other masonry products.
3. Without barrels my booze maker is pretty useless. He can't make booze without barrels, so I normally don't brew many drinks until the first wave of immigrants come.
4. My hunter will commonly die before the first immigrants come, this is annoying. I some times choose a fisherdwarf instead, both are good, and I don't really have much to complain about this one.

What can of dwarfs and supplies would you take if you were embarking on this sort of terrain-

Trees: 2 of 16 tiles have trees on them, pretty heavily forested, probably as much as you'll really need.
Plants: Same as trees. Good, not a lot, but plentiful all the same.
Water: Various lakes containing turtles and other things. A river.
Wild life: Lots of rabbits, skeletal giants eagles, other sinister mountain wild life. 
Evil: High
Savagery: High
Magma pipe: No =\
Aquafier: No
Rock: Plenty of it, various kinds, some flux.
Mods: Dig deeper mods. This means I also have to deal with the big bad orcs. I assume some rigged trapps will take care of this, but all my previous endeavors with the horde ended with fail.

There's lots of rain and little usable soil- unless there's more under those two tiles. Suggestions?

[Jeff Carr]

I start different than most, but if I have soil/sand, I never start with mining or more than one pick.

You can dig out soil and sand quickly enough, and usually a large enough area to create a temporary bunker without any mining skill, and with only one dwarf mining, he'll be legendary ridiculously quickly.  Usually I give that dwarf either no skills at all, or max his wrestler, in which case he'll be my early defense force as well.

Also, you can easily farm farm a ridiculous amount of food far faster than you can ever gather with herbalist.  I'd make your herbalist a farmer/cook.  Now that you're farming, and have a good cook if you make sweet pods > dwarven syrup > dwarven syrup roasts, you'll have more money in a single large syrup roast than your stone crafter will make all year, I'd give your mason only masonry, he'll be busy enough.

Now, I'd make your brewer into your butcher as well, and you'll have a free dwarf to be a woodcutter.

Then since you only have the one miner, I'd make either your woodcutter or your carpenter into your appraiser/record keeper.  Woodcutter would be best in my opinion if you think you can keep him alive, training up a new one is easy enough, and when he's trading, you can trade for wood which won't slow down the wood production.

This build will also increase the amount of food and booze you'll have substantially, so you can easily drop the quantities you're bringing if you'd like.  Soon your biggest problem will be how to store it, not getting enough.

[Brodiggan]

Here's my usual start.

I tend to assign skills to my dwarves based on the materials/workshops they need, to cut down on travel time. Mason and Mechanic for instance both rely on stone, for instance.

Mason/Mechanic 5/5 (Gemcutting, Gemsetting, Stonecrafter turned on at arrival)
Armorsmith/Weaponsmith 5/5 (Blacksmith, Metalsmith, Glassmaker turned on at arrival)
Herbalist/Axedwarf 5/5 (Woodcutter, Animal Care, Animal Trainer, Carpenter, turned on at arrival)
Grower/Clothier 5/5 (Asher turned on at arrival, this one has fewer jobs because he's going to be BUSY running the farms)
Brewer/Weaver 5/5 (Miller, Thresher, Dyer, turned on at arrival)
Cook/Leatherworker 5/5 (Butcher, Tanner, Bonecrafter on arrival)

And last an Expedition Leader/Broker with 10 social skills at 1, always including Appraiser, Judge of Intent, Organizer, Pacifier, and Consoler, and never including Record Keeper. The others I just choose to fit the Dwarfs personality traits. I leave out Record Keeper because it's so easy to skill up later. This dwarf also does all the scut work as my fortress' hauler/miner, until I get more immigrants.

I bring a pair of war dogs and a pair of cats, the war dogs have saved my ass several times on bad starts, and the cats are just too useful for killing off vermin.

For supplies I bring at least 18 of every slow growing underground seed, 36 of the two fast growing plants, and a total of 112 units of booze (arranged according to dwarven preferences). I bring 1 of every 2 cost meat for the free barrels (of course), and 14+ or so turtles (for the shells and bones). Whatever points I have left go into cheap leather, more seeds, or more turtles.

I bring an anvil, 1 hematite or magnetite, 6 malachite, 6 Bituminous Coal, and 10+ Bauxite. As soon as I hit the ground, everyone except my herbalist temporarily gets Woodburning/Furnace Operating/Architect/Mason turned on, and while he gathers the local plant life they build 2 wood furnaces, 2 smelters, deconstruct the wagon, and build a metalsmith's forge, then burn two of the wagon logs into charcoal. Then two dwarves deconstruct the wood furnaces, two process coal into coke, and the other two build two more smelters. Once all four smelters are up, they each process one of the remaining coal into coke, then start smelting the hematite and malachite into iron and copper. After the first round of smelting, the Weaponsmith starts cranking out an axe and 6 copper picks.

I haven't played using the Dig Deeper mod, but considering everything I've heard about Orcs I might revise bits of this to focus more on defense. On the other hand, I'm not sure how much good one extra Marksdwarf would be against Orcs, so it might not change my starting build much at all.

[Quatch]

Don't forget to bring turtles and bauxite.

Never bothered with herbalism. Starting seeds are so cheap compared to skill points. A good farmer or two is far better.

I tend to send 7 picks, even if only one guy is skilled. If you ever loose a pick without a spare, you're in a world of hurt. I generally get everyone digging until I have the bunker dug out, then switch everyone but one off. I also bring at least 7 wood, usually 60+. Its just so much faster than chopping trees.

[Beanchubbs]

My starting units:
1. Miner 10, maybe appraiser 1 so he can be the broker
2. Miner 10
3. Miner10
4. Woodcutter 10, Carpenter 10
5. Mason 10, Stoneworker 10
6. Grower 10, Brewer 10
7. Fisher (if there is water) 10, Fish Cleaning 10

Inventory:
3 picks
1 axe
100 booze total
40 Plump Helmet seeds
5 Rope reed seeds (why waste the time pressing - 5 times?
30-40 Turtles
15 Plump Helmets
2-4 Ropes
5 Bags
10 Barrels
20+ wood
4+ War Dogs
4 Cats
And some random stuff that 400-500 extra points can buy.
I've never had a problem with this starting setup. I can become self-sufficient pretty fast. Although my entire operation depends on the miners, it's usually not bad.

[Brent Not Broken]

Personally, I don't like woodcutters who also do workshop jobs, because they spend too much time running around between indoors and outdoors. Woodcutters train ridiculously fast, also (Legendary in under a year, if I recall correctly), so I don't bother buying woodcutting skill from the embark screen. (Same is true of plant gathering and herbalism; I usually have the same dwarf (and eventually, dwarves) do both jobs.)

My starting woodcutter/plant gatherer gets zero points in woodcutting/herbalism. Instead, I buy up points in armor use, shield use, and axedwarfship. Since he carries an axe all the time anyway, he can be quickly drafted to deal with little threats or to protect himself against ambushes, while he's out and about in the woods. When I get enough migrants, I typically replace him with more expendable dwarves (since woodcutting/herbalism train so rapidly), and the original woodcutter gets to by the star dwarf of my newly-forming military.

I also tend to give Mechanics and Building Designing to the dwarves who I want to be miners/engravers/masons. Mining seems to train faster than anything else, after all. These dwarves don't do workshop-type masonry and mechanics jobs (other than, during downtime, pumping out a lot of stone blocks to train their skill and to remove stone clutter); they just go build all my fortifications and traps and whatnot.

I never particularly care whether butchery, fish cleaning, threshing, etc. are done by skilled dwarves or not. Since skill with these jobs only affects how fast they are done, it's not a big concern for me. I never bother with hunting or fishing, much. I bring enough food to last me through the first year, trade for more with caravans, and that keeps me going until I have enough immigrants to get farming going. In the meantime, if I'm desperate, herbalism and butchery keep me going.

I never start with any dwarf with carpentry skill, because its name offends and enrages the carp. (No, really, it's because I'm typically only making four things out of wood: beds, barrels, bins, and buckets. For beds, I want a bunch of low-quality ones for non-nobles, so their rooms stay cheap. For everything else, quality doesn't matter much. By the time I'm getting nobles, my dwarf-who-happens-to-have-carpentry-turned-on has made enough barrels and bins to have the skill to make decent beds for them.) Typically, my carpentry jobs are done by an odd-jobs dwarf who does a lot of workshop crafting tasks: Masonry, mechanics, crossbow-making, siege engineering... all that nice and good stuff. He starts with maxed crossbow-making and siege engineering skills, since wood to train with is harder to come by than stone, and I do care very much about the quality of my crossbows and ballistas.

[Granite26]

I avoid spending skills on anything (mining mechanics woodcutting) where quality doesn't matter.

I also avoid spending skills on anything (stonecrafting, carpentry, farming) where skill is easy and cheap to come by.

That means I tend to start by dwarves with metalcrafting skills (that don't get used till later).

Also: Starting with turtles is a must.

[Brodiggan]

I avoid spending skills on anything (mining mechanics woodcutting) where quality doesn't matter.

I'll give you Mining and Woodcutting, but Mechanics does matter, for weapon traps at least.

According to the code, mechanism quality determines the skill with which the weapon is "swung" or "fired" by the weapon trap, and affects all the rolls.

I also avoid spending skills on anything (stonecrafting, carpentry, farming) where skill is easy and cheap to come by.

Stonecrafting and Carpentry I definitely agree with you on, for Farming (and Herbalism) though, it's worth it to me to take some skill, to make brewing more efficient.

Also: Starting with turtles is a must.

On this, we are 100% agreed.

[Granite26]

I avoid spending skills on anything (mining mechanics woodcutting) where quality doesn't matter.

I'll give you Mining and Woodcutting, but Mechanics does matter, for weapon traps at least.

Good to know... anyway, I don't use weapon traps until I've got a pile of lashes, daggers, bows, and mauls... By that time I've gained sufficient mechanics skill

[Kallemort]

I usually go with:

10 miner / 10 mason
10 miner / 10 mason
10 woodcutter / 10 mechanic
7 carpenter / 6 bone carver/6 stonecrafter/6 woodcrafter
5 brewer / 5 planter
5 cook / 5 planter
social skills (5) / [whatever is needed for the area]

2 picks,
1 axe,
100 turtles + 1 of every 2 point meat,
150 drinks + 1 dwarven wine
2 dogs 2 cats
seeds
assorted stuff


This has made me victorious so many times.

[Phantom]

There was a thread called starting builds. Why start a new one?

[riffraffselbow]

I can't imagine how you can stand to embark without an anvil. I *never* worry about the whatif of trade. Makes everything much simpler.

[dresdor]

I start with peasants and occasionally the anvil.  Only special things I bring are 5 of every available seed; some turtle and cave lobster for shells, and two dogs (one of which invariably gets killed at the start, or they are both the same sex).

[QuakeIV]

proficient miner/ prof mason
prof miner/ prof mason
prof miner/ prof mason
prof grower/ prof brewer
metalsmith/weaponsmith/armorsmith/mechanic
prof woodcutter/prof carpenter
appraiser/architect/novice bookkeeper/organiser/coversationalist

around 100 meat
around 100 booze
anvil
six ore
six charcoal
2/3 stone blocks
2 donkeys

[Phantom]

I SAID THERE IS ALREADY A THREAD ON THIS!! GO REVIVE IT