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[ThePup]

So I've just discovered DF, having originally looked at it some time ago, and being thoroughly confused, I've come back to it after reading a lot of posts on the work forums about it.  Now, armed with a printed tutorial, I've figured the basics of starting a fortress.  Before I get too far - as a beginner, am I better off sticking to 'classic' DF, or are there mods that I should be applying to make my life easier / get a better experience out of the game? 

TIA,

'Pup'   

[Phyroks]

http://afteractionreporter.com/2009/02/09/the-complete-and-utter-newby-tutorial-for-dwarf-fortress-part-1-wtf/
it does contain a client with save game to go with the tutorial, it did help alot. when your done/dead you can try random world generation(remember to find spot with flux and forest!). im trying legendary lands atm and hoping to dig deeper later \o/

I dont think you need an easy mod. Game itself is not that hard if you know few basics and do the tutorial.
You might get genocide because you forgot to have good dining room and bedrooms are near workshops the whole game. http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Noise
Remember to make few dwarves that are very tough+ into recruits.
Building a pump and making some useless dwarf only job to operate it manually will make him good recruit in a year ^_^ (you dont need to have it near water) http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Pump
when siege/hostiles are too near -> o i is your friend
When your fort grows and you need high amount of something done -> j m q

bit off topic now i gues >.>

[Haspen]

I'm utterly confused where this topic should be

IMHO, stick with vanilla df (the original). When you will begin to think like "It's boring/I done that/I need more", then feel free to apply some mod and have more fun.
Especially if 'Losing is fun'

[Deon]

While I like modding myself and I enjoy adding new things, I'd suggest to run a few "vanilla" fortresses, just to merge with the ideas and "vanilla" problems and jokes (deadly fish, elves selling cloth etc.) to understand this community better.

[TomiTapio]

Yeah, twenty hours with vanilla for starters. Please try Deon's DF Complete (which I am expanding for my pleasure) and see how you like the hostile lizardmen and north, west, south, east and desert humans.

Eventually you might be adding your own creatures in, along the lines of "a raging elephant that an adventurer can meet" (vanilla elephants are friendly so adv never encounters them). Or a Giant Gorilla -- hey, got lots of giant felines in vanilla. Today I'm making a parrot (magpie variant) that steals items from you. Fast (2x peasant speed) because of flying.

[Nidokoenig]

There's enough to get your head around without keeping track of mods, to be honest. Your first few forts will either be lost or you'll have a new idea to make them even better that make you want to start over, anyway. There are no "essential" mods that fix unspeakable problems, so wait until you've played a bit and decided what you want added.
 The most I've done is add a few creatures and a farmable plant that can be processed into wood in a two-step process, which is to get around the problem of tower caps only growing from damp and humid conditions caused by underground rivers, and not from an above-ground river or brook emptied into a specially built cave. Well, at least it makes a great nobles' quarters.

[ThePup]

Thanks for the help folks, will keep toying with the vanilla version first   

Haspen, I didn't really know where to put it either, this seemed most appropriate   

[Kiberkiller]

While I like modding myself and I enjoy adding new things, I'd suggest to run a few "vanilla" fortresses, just to merge with the ideas and "vanilla" problems and jokes (deadly fish, elves selling cloth etc.) to understand this community better.

Elves "selling" cloth for free ^^

[Greiger]

Well there is the cat mouth fix mod.  But if yer using one of those D# versions it should already have it.

Even if you don't it's not game breaking at all really.  All it does is make cats output a "too injured" message once in awhile when they plop some dead animal at their masters feet in loving affection. 

They're not actually injured, and they still do it, apparently thanks to some redundant code, but they just don't have a part that the game usually requires for carrying stuff around and it confuses them.

[Chromie]

You might like... oh I forget the name of the mod, but it gives stones more realistic melting points (with the side effect that other stones besides Bauxite are magma-safe, and some of those new magma-safe stones are abundant) That's the only 'easier' mod I can think of. If you like the military/siege aspect of the game best of all you might like a mod that makes Goblins more fearsome, or adds orcs. If you like the trading/production aspect you might like a farming/plants mod or a mod that adds more civilizations.

Basically I'd play with vanilla for a long time, and see what you like/what you hate, and maybe look at the wiki entries about the raw files and do some exploratory editing yourself (I like to remove some clothing types from goblins, so they show up with more useful meltable iron instead of thongs and socks.)

[madrain]

Not exactly modding, but I suggest hitting up the wiki and downloading whichever graphical set you like (if you want graphics at all!) and learning how to edit the init.txt yourself.  Using other people's packs from DFFD often includes other mods that may make learning things using guides and the wiki more difficult.  Plus it's really helpful learning how to tinker in init before having to ask a billion questions here, since even if you do need help with something, you won't be a complete newbie and will be able to understand people's directions easier.

Otherwise I second vanilla DF if only to discover for yourself what you like and don't like.  The Orc Mod seems very popular with many people, to have a harder challenge in the military aspect of the game, but you might turn out like me and the goblins/elves/wildlife is enough.  You might find later that you would like to play as a kobold, or a goblin, or an elf or human, just for a change in flavor.  You might find you want more creatures or more diverse/realistic stones.  Or it might not matter to you.  Spin your wheels a bit in plain old DF and you'll soon figure out things you might want to change.

[Albedo]

 The game is not hard - 99% of mods make it tougher, and the rest of the players just cheat.  That's easy to do without modding if you want to/need to go there.

 I do suggest that you add the so-called "cat mod" to vanilla.  It's actually a piece of code that got accidentally dropped in this last version, but the addition works on the same basic principles and is a good example of simple modding. Good place to begin, regardless.

http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Cat_cancels_Store_Item_in_Stockpile:_Too_injured

 And it'll keep you from going crazy with the "Cat too injured" spam messages. 

[Lyrax]

I suggest you play vanilla for a while to see what you want to add.

It's very hard to mod a game or download the right mod when you don't know what you want.