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[pushy]

I keep one pick then I mass cats, and have my dwarves collect surface plants, my first 7 live very basic dangerous lives, but tend to eat a lot of kittens and make a lot of leather crafts to trade for essentials, like an anvil.

Why cats rather than dogs, unless you've modded them? If you're wanting to use them as a foodstuff and for raw materials (bones and leather for crafty stuff), it just seems a totally bizarre choice. Cats adopt their own owners and become unbutcherable after that, and instead of staying in a designated meeting area like dogs they've got a nasty habit of wandering all over the map and a butcher wastes FAR too much time chasing after the cat and dragging it off to be slaughtered (and it also has the risk of a cat and your butcher wandering a bit too close to a chasm or exposed magma pipe or something). Dogs of course can also be trained into war dogs at any time if you'd like to keep some of them, which you can't do with cats. Cats might eat vermin that'd cause bad thoughts for your dwarves but even just one or two cats are more than enough for that. While cats are a little bit cheaper than dogs, dogs are the better choice in most respects.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

I keep one pick then I mass cats, and have my dwarves collect surface plants, my first 7 live very basic dangerous lives, but tend to eat a lot of kittens and make a lot of leather crafts to trade for essentials, like an anvil.

Why cats rather than dogs, unless you've modded them? If you're wanting to use them as a foodstuff and for raw materials (bones and leather for crafty stuff), it just seems a totally bizarre choice. Cats adopt their own owners and become unbutcherable after that, and instead of staying in a designated meeting area like dogs they've got a nasty habit of wandering all over the map and a butcher wastes FAR too much time chasing after the cat and dragging it off to be slaughtered (and it also has the risk of a cat and your butcher wandering a bit too close to a chasm or exposed magma pipe or something). Dogs of course can also be trained into war dogs at any time if you'd like to keep some of them, which you can't do with cats. Cats might eat vermin that'd cause bad thoughts for your dwarves but even just one or two cats are more than enough for that. While cats are a little bit cheaper than dogs, dogs are the better choice in most respects.

Well SOMEONE doesnt understand the concept of "fun"

[Asmodeous]

I'll sometimes bring three kimberlite blocks for the trade depot.

Yar. 3 Kimberlite for a nice, blue depot. Unless I have access to pitchblende. Then I bring about a hojillion pitchblende blocks and make everything in the fort out of Uranium.

Then I explain to people that my dwarves are so fucked up because they're all radioactive. . .

I so wish that radioactivity was somehow modelled so I can have radioactive dwarf-ghouls.

[Morgus]

I keep one pick then I mass cats, and have my dwarves collect surface plants, my first 7 live very basic dangerous lives, but tend to eat a lot of kittens and make a lot of leather crafts to trade for essentials, like an anvil.

Why cats rather than dogs, unless you've modded them? If you're wanting to use them as a foodstuff and for raw materials (bones and leather for crafty stuff), it just seems a totally bizarre choice. Cats adopt their own owners and become unbutcherable after that, and instead of staying in a designated meeting area like dogs they've got a nasty habit of wandering all over the map and a butcher wastes FAR too much time chasing after the cat and dragging it off to be slaughtered (and it also has the risk of a cat and your butcher wandering a bit too close to a chasm or exposed magma pipe or something). Dogs of course can also be trained into war dogs at any time if you'd like to keep some of them, which you can't do with cats. Cats might eat vermin that'd cause bad thoughts for your dwarves but even just one or two cats are more than enough for that. While cats are a little bit cheaper than dogs, dogs are the better choice in most respects.

Cats are cheaper, and if you cage them, they can't adopt anyone. Then just seal the room they are in, deconstruct the cage remotely, and drop the kitties down several levels to kill them all, then go pick up the remains. Done deal.

[Earth Striker Lurin]

Cats are cheaper, and if you cage them, they can't adopt anyone. Then just seal the room they are in, deconstruct the cage remotely, and drop the kitties down several levels to kill them all, then go pick up the remains. Done deal.

Meeeeeeeyoooowwwww................   *SPLORK*

[darkflagrance]

I keep one pick then I mass cats, and have my dwarves collect surface plants, my first 7 live very basic dangerous lives, but tend to eat a lot of kittens and make a lot of leather crafts to trade for essentials, like an anvil.

Why cats rather than dogs, unless you've modded them? If you're wanting to use them as a foodstuff and for raw materials (bones and leather for crafty stuff), it just seems a totally bizarre choice. Cats adopt their own owners and become unbutcherable after that, and instead of staying in a designated meeting area like dogs they've got a nasty habit of wandering all over the map and a butcher wastes FAR too much time chasing after the cat and dragging it off to be slaughtered (and it also has the risk of a cat and your butcher wandering a bit too close to a chasm or exposed magma pipe or something). Dogs of course can also be trained into war dogs at any time if you'd like to keep some of them, which you can't do with cats. Cats might eat vermin that'd cause bad thoughts for your dwarves but even just one or two cats are more than enough for that. While cats are a little bit cheaper than dogs, dogs are the better choice in most respects.

Cats are cheaper, and if you cage them, they can't adopt anyone. Then just seal the room they are in, deconstruct the cage remotely, and drop the kitties down several levels to kill them all, then go pick up the remains. Done deal.

If you kill tame cats by dropping them, they can't be butchered. Dwarves don't eat roadkill (or other sentient beings) due to hardcoded stuff   

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

its actually very simple, you build a door, dig a single channel, and drop cats inside, having the door only letting dwarves out. 1-2 cats out of 50 this way have a chance to adopt.

[Earth Striker Lurin]

or better yet make an air lock, put the butchery in the airlock.  an extra kitty or two escape?  Butcher that one too..

[Hortun]

Couldn't you add [VERMINHUNTER] to cows or camels or something so that they'd perform the same function as a cat without the adoption disadvantage? You could add it to a dog, but then they might roam the map when they should be performing war animal duties. I'm not sure, worth finding out.

[Lord Shonus]

Doesn't the [verminhunter] tag cause adoption?

[Hortun]

Doesn't the [verminhunter] tag cause adoption?

Ooh, I thought maybe that the adoption was exclusive to cats or something. That would make more sense though, okay.

[sunshaker]

Couldn't you add [VERMINHUNTER] to cows or camels or something so that they'd perform the same function as a cat without the adoption disadvantage? You could add it to a dog, but then they might roam the map when they should be performing war animal duties. I'm not sure, worth finding out.

What other people have said about the [VERMINHUNTER] is correct, however, if you give it to mules you will not have a mule explosion. Why? Because Mules don't breed, thus you only get the ones that you purchase or the ones that arrive as pets of immigrants. You can also neuter cats in the raws or drop their max age to 6, both of which will limit the potentials for cat explosions.

[RandomNumberGenerator]

-Replace all food with turtles and lobster. No need to spend 4☼ on Plump Helmets when I can get 50% more food(and more variety) with Turtles and Cave Lobster. Or I can go pure turtles.
-Two dogs and two leashes. It allows me to make sure my entrance is 100% secure at all times(a single dog can wander off to one side and let a thief sneak past).
-Bags to store seeds. I get my farming industry up pretty quick, and I don't like seeds overflowing my stockpiles. If there is sand, I bring some for that as well.
-Sweet Pod seeds. They are the lifeblood of my fortress. Rum for drink and syrup for food.

[Grafsburg]

I usually bring about a hundred logs, a hundred meat (usually fish, because it's cheap), an axe, two picks, seeds, two dogs, two horses, and about a hundred booze. I can pretty much manage any situation with that loadout, and I use it all the time. Occasionally I'll bring an anvil along by trading out something for it, but they cost so much that it's better to just wait until a caravan comes.

[Drecon]

Apart from the standard stuff (minus the axe of course): seeds of every type and turtles. Nothing fancy. Maybe I need to bring silk too, for artifacts, but trading for it is never really a problem.

I am thinking about going for just a pick and an axe for my next embark though. Keep everyone completely unskilled and see how far I get.