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[Derakon]

This is an idea I had for a way to play Dwarf Fortress. In a nutshell, it is this: the only items you may use are ones that you buy from caravans, or ones that you made from things you bought from caravans.

So for example, you may not use mined rock for anything. You may buy rock, and turn it into mechanisms, furniture, crafts, and so on. But you may not use mined rock.

You may not farm, nor gather plants. You may buy food from the caravans, and brew it, and you may cook the seeds generated when you do, but you may not farm.

You may smith your own goods, but your only source of metal is the caravans, either directly from metal bars, or by melting metal goods they sell you. You may not melt down invaders' goods, nor use them yourself, but you may sell them to the caravans. No fair selling goods to the caravans, then buying them back and using them as normal, either.

I'm not certain how animals should work; my inclination, though, is that any animals you buy must be slaughtered before they breed.

No encrusting ammo. That's just lame. Cooking is fair game since food is so limited anyway.

Items you bring with you when you embark are fair game, obviously; you need a basis for your economy. But past that point, the only goods you can work with are from the caravans.

I haven't actually tried this playstyle, but here's my thoughts on how you might want to play things out:

 * You'll need a basis for trade to start out. Probably your best option is mechanisms; a cost-3 rock can be turned into a cost-120 mechanism if you get lucky with a skilled mechanic. Cooking would ordinarily be good, but since you can't farm, the food you bring with you will need to last you to the first caravan (and likely beyond). Still, bring a skilled cook, if for no other reason than to keep your dwarves happy.
 * Obviously you need to bring lots of food with you. Booze would be nice to bring, but water is cheaper, and at least for the first few seasons, your dwarves' working speeds won't be a huge issue.
 * Trade agreements should emphasize bringing more food first, and then the best weight-to-value you can manage. Small gems are great for decorations, if you can afford them, since you can stack multiple decorations onto a single base item.
 * Your population capacity is going to be strictly limited by your food supply. Remember, if you run out of food, then everyone starves, unless a caravan shows up. Feel free to kill migrants and then sell their clothing (and anything you make from their pets).
 * Rewalling is going to be expensive, since every wall you make costs a minimum of 300 weight from the caravans (that being the weight of a wood log; stone always weighs more). You might well want to dedicate your entire starting loadout to food and stone, so that you have the materials you need to build any walls you'll ever want.
 * Be careful with forbidding/dumping generated stone. Wouldn't want to break the challenge, now would we?

[h3lblad3]

One word: Cats.

[Magua]

Seems that you would be awfully screwed simply by having dead trade liaisons.  I started a map recently where the dwarf trade liaison arrived in the first autumn...on fire.

So, to ensure I have this right, you'd be able to mine as much as you want, as long as you dumped/forbid all of the stone thereof?

[UndergroundTree]

Seems that you would be awfully screwed simply by having dead trade liaisons.  I started a map recently where the dwarf trade liaison arrived in the first autumn...on fire.

So, to ensure I have this right, you'd be able to mine as much as you want, as long as you dumped/forbid all of the stone thereof?

The liaison on fire you say? Sounds like good news.

[Innominate]

Seems that you would be awfully screwed simply by having dead trade liaisons.  I started a map recently where the dwarf trade liaison arrived in the first autumn...on fire.

My human liaison arrived as expected... except with only one leg. He promptly fainted from phantom limb pain and died a while later (seemed to last a long time actually). The humans sieged as soon as I passed 80 population and the season changed. This alone could well and truly screw this fort over. Hence it will be massive fun!

[shadowclasper]

This could work, but only once toady gets around to having replacements crop up for liasons, kings, and similar positions.

[Magua]

The liaison on fire you say? Sounds like good news.

Not when you require bauxite from your civ, it isn't...

[Derakon]

Magua: yes, you can mine, you just can't use the stone/ore/gems you uncover. I suppose you could combine this play mode with the surface-fortress play mode, but that would severely limit your ability to make buildings since all your building supplies have to come from the caravans...

Good point on the liaisons dying. That would be rather annoying. Unfortunately there's not a lot we can do about that aside from just trying to pick safe places to live and hoping that the liaisons don't bite it during worldgen.

[shadowclasper]

Which is why this mode of play should wait for the "higher ups get replaced when they die" patch. Otherwise it becomes impossible by way of the fact elves, your primary lumber supplier and guys with liaisons most likely to bite it, will bring worthless cloth rather than useful lumber.

[Lord Dullard]

This would be nearly impossible to survive anyway. It'd be absolutely miraculous if you survived you first and second season. First off, you'd need to buy a LOT of food/drink to survive - but aside from what you embark with, you won't be able to specify what you want from the liaison your first autumn, so good luck on that. Second, even if you had the food available for trade, you'd need a LOT of stuff to trade for it - and once again, you'd have to embark with it in order to have anything to turn into tradeable goods.

If a migration shows up, then... well, you're well and truly buggered.

[Strant]

Otherwise it becomes impossible by way of the fact elves, your primary lumber supplier and guys with liaisons most likely to bite it, will bring worthless cloth rather than useful lumber.

Elves always bring lumber when you have very little (or none), as does everyone else.  Also, what do you mean by elf liaisons?  Have you ever actually gotten them?

[Magua]

I don't think it'd be difficult to survive.  I think it'd just be annoying.  I wouldn't do this on a frozen tundra map, and I wouldn't do it with orcs, but it should be eminently survivable.  I had an empty wagon/unskilled peasant challenge in Legendary Lands, and they managed to survive nearly two years before acquiring an axe or pick.  Granted, they had fishing, but...

What to bring:
1) Thread
2) Dye
3) Brewable plants, at least some plump helmets until cooking is started
4) Logs/stone for furniture, buildings.  Don't need much.  50?
5) Pick(s)
6) Barrels
7) Bucket, barrel, block for the dyer's workshop.

Dwarves would be:
1. Proficient dyer
2. Proficient weaver
3. Proficient clothier
4. Proficient brewer
5. Proficient cook
6. Appraiser/judge of intent
7. Whatever

1.  Embark somewhere with water.  Soil would be nice.
2.  Dig out rooms (preferably in soil), move stuff inside.
3.  Build a carpenter's workshop, still, kitchen, dyer's workshop, loom, clothier's workshop, optionally, mason's workshop if you brought stone
4.  Carpenter/mason builds beds, tables, chairs, etc.
5.  Dyer/weaver/clothier make your trade goods.
6.  Brewer brews all of your plants.  Cook then cooks, I dunno, 75% of your drinks.


Even a no-modifier thread, no-modifier cloth, non-finely dyed pig tail shirt is going to sell for 100 dwarfbucks or so; in comparison, a masterpiece stone craft sells for 50.  Get a masterpiece pig tail shirt out of masterpiece thread and finely dyed, and it'll sell for hundreds of dwarfbucks -- you can always sew on images to jack it up some more.

You can get reams of cloth and dye from the elves, and more cloth from the humans, whereas stone and wood are pretty limited.  So if you can get to Spring, you should be good. 

[Derakon]

Well, let's see -- you have, what, 2000 points to spend at the start? First, let's decide on a primary industry; we'll invest heavily in that industry at the start to get the most value possible.

A Proficient-skill dwarf has an average value multiplier on his work of 3.1676 (from summing the percentages times their multipliers on the wiki). So a Proficient mechanic will turn 300 dwarfbucks' worth of stone (base value: 3) into 3167 dwarfbucks' worth of mechanisms (base value: 10). Of course, he'll get more skilled as he works, pushing that number up a bit.

Out of 150 cost-2 meat, a Proficient cook making biscuits can make 75 meals, each having an average per-meal value of (value*multiplier)*number of inputs*multiplier for meal), or (2*3.1676)*2*3.1676, or about 40 dwarfbucks, if I understand meal value multipliers correctly. The total value from all those meals then would be about 6000 dwarfbucks. So, screw mechanisms for moneymaking.

40: 2x copper pick, for shelter
800: 50x dogs, for food (5 meat and 1 fat per 16 dwarfbucks, costing a bit more than the cheapest meats, but yields bones, skulls, and skins). 300 meat/fat is enough to feed 7 dwarves for a bit under 3 years, or 33 dwarves for 1 year.
35: One Proficient Cook, for rendering fat and making meals out of dogs
35: One Proficient Bone Carver, for making crafts out of the bones
20: 1x Rope Reed Rope, for a well.
70: One Proficient Negotiator / Appraiser, for getting good value from trading.
300: 100x Tower Cap Logs, for beds, barrels, and a cage to hold all your dogs so they don't breed.
300: 100x miscellaneous stone, for rewalling, workshops, the depot, mechanisms, etc.

That's 1700 points, which seems like a safe number, and more than enough to survive for quite some time. Any extra can be dedicated to getting more food for the cook to make into meals. Remember, your dwarves can drink water; they'll just work more slowly. But you have plenty of time to slaughter and cook all those dogs before the caravan arrives.

Hell, if you're willing to do the booze-cooking exploit, bring plump helmets instead of dogs, and brew them: instant 5x stack size multiplier on your meals.

[darkflagrance]

You probably don't want to bring exactly 50 dogs, because there is a semi-glitch where animals that hit the population cap of 50 animals of their species per site may cease to breed even after their population falls. Maybe 25 dogs and 25 of some other cheap animal? Since stuff can be decorated with the bones of more than one species, this might also work better for economics.

[Derakon]

Per the rules I described in the first post, animal husbandry is out, so any baby animals would have to be atom-smashed or otherwise rendered useless. The only other cheap animal available is cats, but their auto-adoption makes it much harder to hold to the rules.