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[Truean]

I'm just curious. Is this possible.

No growers/hunters/butchers. Perhaps no cooks or brewers.

Crafters will make things to trade with the caravan. We have enough stone lying around....

The question is if you should include metalsmiths.

Not doing so saves you an anvil at embark, which completely helps with the initial foodstuffs/booze...stuffs....boozestuffs...? Whatever.

However, that also nets you fewer high value trade goods early on. Even lower value metalcrafts sell for more than stone, but require fewer materal inputs (stone, skill and time).

I suppose it's a question of return on investment meeting tradeoffs.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to best do this?

[Albedo]

"Should" is a matter of player preference.

You appear to be moving on from "understanding the game" to "personal challenges" - respect for that.  But whether or not to bash metalcrafts is a judgement call. (I'd say "yes", because it seems so much a core part of DF - but if you want to ignore smelting, and just work with ores as stone, that works too.)


As for no cooks/etc, I don't think it's possible to get 100% of your provisions from a caravan - but maybe.  The tough part would be lasting until the second caravan shows up - when your requests from the laison kick in - because the first caravan will not bring you enough food/drink to last.  So you'd have to stock up heavily on food and drink at embark, enough for... oh, maybe 6 seasons, to be safe?  (You'll get "some" stuff from elves and humans - ~if~ they're on the map and arrive safely!)  And if you expect migrants... well...

da math:

2 meals + 4 drinks/season/dwarf, on average. 
7 dwarfs x 6 seasons x (above) = 80+ meals & 180 drinks
If ~10 migrants at Winter, that's another 60 meals & 120 drinks
If ~10 more at Spring, that's another 40 meals & 80 drinks.
- less whatever you hope to get from caravans.

Helluva challenge.  Maybe not even possible - it'd be tough, at best.

Also, if even one caravan gets ambuscaded by gobbos, it's game over - which means military escorts, which gets us back to metal bashing.  (Altho' you could slide on the anvil at first, and hope to pick up that slack before the first ambush.)

[Truean]

Thanks

Build experiment: (Note I increase the wagon's capacity by a factor of 10 and think this should be standard)

5 Mason/ 5 Mech
5 Stonecraft/ 2 Appraise/ 3 J.o.I.
5 Stonecrafter / 3 cook / 2 Appraise (I know I know. but one cook...)
5 Stonecrafter/ 5 Carpenter
5 Stonecrafter/ 5 Bonecarver
5 Stonecrafter/ 5 Bowyer
5 Stonecrafter/ 5 Miner

Items:

141 Wine
141 Beer
141 Ale
141 Rum
11 donkey meat
16 plump helmets
6 copper picks
41 Tower cap logs
1 of every meat with a price of "2" for more barrels. This includes 21 turtle
5 plump helmet spawns

2 dogs
2 kittens

Mountains area with river

Let's have some "Fun."

[Qwernt]

I would suspect your miner will have little time for stonecrafting.  I would have made hime the Boss (miner/cook/appraiser/persuader -the last to make sure he is the boss) and then either saved points for food or moved the mason to be a stonecrafter mason and dwarf 7 to be a stonecrafter mech.

[Truean]

Good points so far.

I'm doing fine at the moment though. Stone management is off to a good start.

I've decided to add a luxury challenge to this as well. Most dwarves will receive at least a 7x7 room. Many will have an office. Nobles will have large homes. I have the designs and think it's a very good integrated one but can't/don't know how to post them just yet.

Should be fun.

[dragon0421]

I always start without an anvil and buy one from the first caravan with stonecrafts. I highly recommend this technique.

[Mephansteras]

Personally, I usually start with an Anvil and a platinum ore. Platinum goblets from a skilled smith will usually net 800-1600 apiece, and you get three of them. Well worth the price of the anvil normally.

However, in this case I'm not sure an anvil would be wise. Best idea here is to hope for a high value ore to use in your stonecrafts. Gold or silver work well, although even iron ores can fetch a high price. Personally, I don't think that raw ores should be worth as much as refined metals, but that is the case for a lot of ores in the game right now.

[detinith]

'wagon capacity'? you mean the points you start with, minus what 14 max-start skills cost?
that's a real ton of stuff. with that much stuff, you'd pretty much have to try to lose.

[Truean]

By wagon capacity, I mean the amount of things a wagon in a caravan can hold is increased by 10. This is done by editing the raws. The trade caravans can now bring 10 times more in goods weight limit. It allows trading for flux stone and wood (rather than just smelting it in). I stayed within standard embark buy points and listed everything I bought. This is the only mod I'm using.

I've never tried platinum goods. Concentration of wealth seems like a good idea. I actually could not carry all the stonecrafts I made to the depot in time because I forgot to make bins/didn't have the wood to spare/was trying to survive.

I decided to see if you could do it with stone because a.) it's abundant. b.) it's got no cost to make comparatively.

UPDATE. I have survived and traded enough food off the first such caravan to justify a success result for now.

Will post again later
Truean

[Truean]

This is the wagon Raw I use. It seems it is an indestructible creature, that can transform into three logs....

creature_equipment

[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:EQUIPMENT_WAGON]
   [NAME:wagon:wagons:wagon]
   [TILE:'W'][COLOR:6:0:0]
   [EQUIPMENT_WAGON][COMMON_DOMESTIC]
   [NOT_BUTCHERABLE]
   [HAS_RACEGLOSS:WOOD]
   [ITEMCORPSE:WOOD:NO_SUBTYPE:WOOD:USE_RACEGLOSS]
   [NOSMELLYROT]
   [BODY:WAGON]
   [SIZE:12]
   [ALL_ACTIVE]
   [NO_GENDER]
   [MATERIAL:WOOD:USE_RACEGLOSS]
   [trADE_CAPACITY:19000]
   [MUNDANE]

That trade capacity is the only thing modded, cause I want more stuff....

[Albedo]

5 Mason/ 5 Mech
5 Stonecraft/ 2 Appraise/ 3 J.o.I.
5 Stonecrafter / 3 cook / 2 Appraise (I know I know. but one cook...)
5 Stonecrafter/ 5 Carpenter
5 Stonecrafter/ 5 Bonecarver
5 Stonecrafter/ 5 Bowyer
5 Stonecrafter/ 5 Miner

Your carpenter will hardly be full time - I'd double them up with Cook/appraiser.  That gives you room for a 2nd miner, which is key if you're going all stonecrafts (and gives your cook a moodable skill.)

I'd also suggest gemcutter/setter - or spreading that out between bonecarver/bowyer.

With moods, you'll probably have a legendary stonecarver soon enough - don't see the need for "everyone" to be duplicating that.  Take one or two, give the rest Axedwarf or Wrestler or Armor user or something more immediately useful. 

[Truean]

Albedo makes good points per usual. The idea I had at first was two fold.

1.) Getting rid of all that stone

2.) If you can afford to do this with stone, you must be able to do it with more expensive things to trade with.

Truean.

P.S. What's the best way to get a JPEG file posted here?

[Truean]

Well, now that I've seen that a crafting build will work in basics, let's get more advanced.

Tell me your starting builds and purchases.

Someone mentioned metalbashing with platinum for three goblets. That probably has a great return on investment, but it does have drawbacks (the investment cost). You would have to sac 1000 points for an anvil at start. That's a lot of food given that we aren't growing any.

So let's see:

1000 Anvil
120X Platinum Nuggets
  10(2X) + Coal Units [One to smelt and one to forge]
(unless you woodburn for 3(2X) logs plus skill investment)

Produces let's say an average of three platinum goblets at a price of 1200,
which times three is 3600.

This yields you a return on investment of 3600 - 1140 = 2460

This is where X = 1 (One platinum nugget bought).

The issue is that 1140 less starting points is a slight concern.
In short, it's a very nice R.o.I. but it trades off against initial food purchase at start. I'd give it a try.

On the plus side, it has a dwarf with pretrained metalcrafting skills, which is a major pain to train. Further to be fair, the anvil is a capital investment not a raw material input. Translation, it is not consumed with the goblet crafting and will be used later.


Any other thoughts on starting crafting builds?

[Scarpa]

I routinely drop all the weapons except one pick and bring an anvil and some coal. You can play it safe and bring some iron or copper ore, or wing it and hope you have some on the map.

That frees up a bit more room for food, although not as much as the cost of the anvil. But it lets you bring up a metalworking industry very quickly. It's probably not well suited for non-magma maps though, but I always go for magma.

[Derakon]

If you're going to do a crafting build, you may as well try to get as many industries as possible. Here's one way to break it down:

Miner / Mason
Stonecrafter / Bonecrafter
Glassmaker / Gemsetter
Leader / Cook
Weaver / Dyer
Clothier / Leatherworker
Grower / Metalcrafter

The Grower is there just to grow pigtails and dimple cups to supply the clothing industry; no food. No carpenter either; whichever dwarf isn't currently busy can double up there.

Don't bring an anvil; you won't need it for the initial trading session, at which point you'll easily be able to buy it.