Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tally]

I would agree on the bags. They're quite useful when you start making quarry bushes. And sweet pods are likewise very nice. It may take 2 steps of production (process, cook) after harvesting them, but they produce an awful lot of cooking goods. Paired with quarry bushes, you can make noble-loads of cooking goods. Perhaps my favorite pair.

Funny thing happened on one of my forts, though. I had a hunter whose best skill was (by one level above marksdwarf) ambusher. Somehow, apparently he didn't get bolts on embark, but he got everything else to go with his gear. By the time I realized this, he had already killed enough groundhogs to get up to no-label wrestling.

[ungulateman]

Instead of axes, I bring some copper bars, charcoal, and craft my own for cheap. I also bring at least three types of seed, and rope for a well.

[FluffyToast J]

Bah! All you people and your 'Embark Profiles'! I only use Play Now!, cause thats how REAL MEN do it!

Note: Not actually being a douche-bag. (Or am I? HMMMMM???)

[JmzLost]

I tried 'Play Now'.  Once.  *shudder*

2-4 picks
 1 axe      - unless there are no trees
No anvil    - buy in Autumn
20 turtles  - bones and shells, better than cave lobster IMHO
 1 each of the cheap meats - cook for empty barrels
40 Dwarven Beer                - dorfs need booze
 1 each of the other booze   - cook for empty barrels
20 Plump Helmets               - brew, not eat
20 Sweet Pod Seeds           - need for trade goods
10 each Pig Tail/Dimple Cup/Cave Wheat Seeds
2 silk - moods
2 small gems - moods
20 leather - bags, bags, bags... more if there's magma
4 dogs - bones, meat, leather ... also good for eating kobolds
10 Bauxite (if there's magma)
10 - 20 wood - more if no trees, less if heavily forested

1 Farmer/Cook ... ALWAYS.  good meals = happy dorfs, and syrup roasts for trade
1 carpenter, maybe with metalsmith, for beds/bins/barrels
1 mason, tables/chairs/doors
1 dyer
1 weaver
1 clothier
1 boss (appraiser/consoler/pacifier, maybe negotiator & JoI)

I may add miller or thresher to one of the above, armor and weaponsmith depend on what the dorfs like.

I cook the meat, brew the plumps, plant sweet pods, and trade +Dwarven Syrup Roasts+ for the first 2 years.  By then, I should be turning out dyed Pig Tail crafts, with images sewn on them.  The roasts are good enough to clean out the caravans with large profit margins, and the cloth lets me cut back on farming later.  If there are cave spiders, I can practically shut down farming except for dye and a little booze after 3 years.  High volume smithing doesn't usually start until 2-4 years in, although tagging dorf with dabbling skills in case they get a mood can start in the first Autumn.

Mining and woodcutting level fast, and if I strike ore or gems early I can always mine around it.  Cloth provides bags, ropes, clothes, and you can grow it right away.  Bags can also raise room values quickly for emergency noble rooms.

JMZ

[Urist Imiknorris]

1 proficient stonecrafter/mechanic.
1 prof. mason/architect.
1 prof. carpenter/axedwarf
1 prof. grower/thresher
1 prof. furnace operator/armorsmith
1 prof. glassmaker (if sand)


10 units of galena, two tower-cap logs, one copper nugget, no axe or pick, one anvil, TURTLES, 5 seeds of each crop, 25 booze of various types.

I activate weaponsmithing on my armorsmith, smelt two galena, forge a (no quality) axe with the silver, deforest, smelt the copper, forge a pick, get digging, forge several (no quality) silver weapons (for training my eventual military).

I usually embark in an area with obsidian layer, which means my stonecrafter churns out triple-value crafts until he hits legendary +5, at which point he starts making obsidian short swords. Most of my military is swordsdwarves, simply because the swords are so easy to make.

[darthbob88]

One pick and some stone. Ever since I got myself stuck in an embark situation without pick, stone, or axe, I've edited my embark profile to prevent that. No raw materials, no way of getting raw materials, not even a way of producing raw materials from nothing.
A significantly reduced quantity of dwarven wine, 6 or so rather than the 21 I used to take. I take lots of plump helmets, which they can eat or brew as their little hearts desire.

[Vincent]

I usually take:

Copious amounts of alcohol. My dwarves ran out of booze once. NEVER AGAIN.

Lots and lots of turtle, since it's cheap and the shells are useful.

And ususally, gems. Setting up a crafting shop early on and making loads of Gem-encrusted, Marble-Detailed stone Crafts nets you an anvil easily.

[pushy]

-3 copper bars

Why bars instead of nuggets + casiterite?

I can't speak for him since he's also bringing coal/lignite...but I choose to bring 3 copper bars as well and I do that instead of taking the ores because when I dismantle the wagon I'm left with 3 bits of wood which are used as fuel for forging an axe and two picks. I could go with the ores, but that would mean either bringing more wood with me (which I tend not to do) or making the axe first then waiting for the woodcutter to cut enough logs to smelt the remaining ores into bars AND forge two picks...and sometimes you just damn well need to get digging in a hurry (e.g. dig in and build a barricade to get away from hostile creatures) and don't have the time for that.


One thing I've started doing more recently was to bring some bits of cheap leather which can be used to create bags. I bring a LOT of plump helmets with me at the start and turning them into booze has the obvious side-effect of leaving a hell of a lot of seeds in the still. Any extra bags can be used to collect sand to prepare for when I inevitably set up a glassmaking industry (I deliberately always embark on a magma pipe for this very reason )

[Zades]

Turtles.

I WILL NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE AGAIN.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I can't believe noone else takes camels. 

[Jack_Bread]

I actually never take turtles. xP

But I modded copper to be anvils.
Now I take that.

[Lord Dakoth]

4 muskoxen/camels
A bunch of turtles and cave lobsters
One or two picks, and maybe an axe
Plump Helmet spawn
Plenty of bags

...and NO CATS. I also instantly kill the cats and their owners slaves if they immigrate.

[Echo7]

Turtles.

I WILL NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE AGAIN.

Nor will I make the mistake of not turning the cooking of turtles off in the kitchen menu.  I had a Legendary Miner (who was also a mason, one of the starting founders) who flipped out because he couldn't make a turtle shell artifact and became an unstoppable killing machine.

Sadly, that fortress is unreclaimed because the dwarfs are convinced his vengeful ghost still haunts the place.

[Funk]

a pair of donkeys(buy more later)
20+ leather
no anvil
rope + dogs(replace with bears or somthing later)

[kawaiidesunekochan]

2 dogs
2 cats (I just put their babies in cages and butcher them later. Vermin are annoying at the beginning of the game)


1 proficient axedwarf/woodcutter
1 proficient grower
1 proficient mason
1 proficient metalworker,because metalworkers are hard to train
1 proficient carpenter
1 proficient miner
1 guy with only social skills (entertainer,appraiser,etc)

-all the different kinds of cheap meat and fish I can afford. Turtles are necessary.
-a few of every kind of seed
-enough booze to survive for about a month. By the time we need more booze,I'll have built a still and I'll have plants.
-1 axe,a pick,and an anvil because I'm too lazy to get an anvil later
-pretty colored stones and gold to make rose gold <3<3 if I have enough points,of course.