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[smjjames]

I always ditch the anvil on the embark screen since they take up so many points.

I find it pretty easy to snag an anvil and one is all you need.

[nenjin]

My take...

If you have a pipe or pool, and are cheating to know where it is, then an anvil on embark is useful.

If you don't though (have magma or know where it is), then as people have said, it's a lot of effort to get forging really producing by the end of the first year.

Sort of off-topic but...

The reason I don't worry about forging is because I don't need expensive metal stuff for trading. As far as 8 years into a fortress, and I'm _still_ selling leathers and silks from dead enemies. That alone is all the trading grist I need. Forging then is more about producing weapons, armor and high quality furniture....and nearly all of that stuff isn't necessary until much later in your fortresses' life. You can easily buy all the weapons and armor you need from the trader initially...and picks...and battle axes...

So no, I don't think no anvil is "over-rated." I think it's the most sensible tactic for newer players embarking to Happy or Wild areas. For experienced players that are embarking to suicidal/challenging locations...taking an anvil might pay dividends sooner.

 

[pushy]

I bring: A carpenter dorf who's busy making beds, a masondorf who's making tables chairs and  doors, 2 miners, a leader/woodcutter, a grower/brewer, and a mechanic. That's 7 dorfs. So I don't have the labor required to devote to useless crafts and such. On occasion, I have been known to make one of the miners also a mechanic, but then a miner drops out halfway into the game. Unless I have the flux required to make mechanisms viable trade goods, then I have very real trouble getting the points needed for an anvil.

Just as a minor point, you can do without the carpenter and mason early on (hell, even late on ). The happy thought from sleeping on a quality bed or seeing a quality door isn't overly significant. If you want to keep nobles happy, you'll want skilled dwarves to make high-quality items to boost the value of the nobles' rooms, but it's quite a while before you have to worry about that and there's every chance of you having a legendary or two because of moods who can sort that stuff out for you

[GL12]

Just as a minor point, you can do without the carpenter and mason early on (hell, even late on ). The happy thought from sleeping on a quality bed or seeing a quality door isn't overly significant. If you want to keep nobles happy, you'll want skilled dwarves to make high-quality items to boost the value of the nobles' rooms, but it's quite a while before you have to worry about that and there's every chance of you having a legendary or two because of moods who can sort that stuff out for you

I'd disagree with that, simply because I've always been prone to overproducing food. Suddenly i'm out of booze and the barrels are full of food, so I need a good carpenter to make barrels fast enough.  As for the mason, I neeeed doors. Desperately.

[100killer9]

How do you overproduce food?
Are you using SOIL farms?

[Haspen]

How do you overproduce food?
Are you using SOIL farms?

Two 5x5 plots, 3-4 dedicated planters and you get buried under Plump Helmets and other stuff.

[assimilateur]

How do you overproduce food?
Are you using SOIL farms?

What does soil have to do with it? Regardless of whether you're using soil, or muddied stone, the amount of crops you're getting should be the same. Perhaps aboveground farming is a bit more straightforward (due to allowing all crops to be planted every season), but even if just using underground crops, making a surplus of food is laughably easy. What's harder is balancing your food production so you don't make much more than you're going to use and export.

3-4 dedicated planters and you get buried under Plump Helmets and other stuff.

One dedicated planter has always been enough for me, as long as I've started with one guy already proficient, but that should be the same regardless of starting skill. What you need is a high-skilled planter, and the way to get one quickly is to just have one guy doing that work (that also means keeping non-farmers from harvesting). I have my planter reach legendary in a little under two years, I think, which is way better than having four mid-skilled ones.

[Haspen]

3-4 dedicated planters and you get buried under Plump Helmets and other stuff.

One dedicated planter has always been enough for me, as long as I've started with one guy already proficient, but that should be the same regardless of starting skill. What you need is a high-skilled planter, and the way to get one quickly is to just have one guy doing that work (that also means keeping non-farmers from harvesting). I have my planter reach legendary in a little under two years, I think, which is way better than having four mid-skilled ones.
[/quote]

Oh, so there's no Parties and Breaks at your fort?

[assimilateur]

Breaks yes, parties no. And even if, parties can be interrupted. Plus, if one party is able to seriously disrupt your farming like that, then you probably have bigger problems that might not be solved by throwing more dwarfpower at a task.

[tombthedwarf]

It depends on the embark; if you start with easily accessible magma, for Armok's sake bring an anvil (and usually some ore), because nothing says impressive like +steel battle axe+ and +steel chain mail+ for your fighters within the first season

[Gamerofthegame]

 Usually I forgo the anvil for various other things - I often don't know if there will be metal, and ontop of that I greatly (IE: Haven't tried otherwise) magma-____s over wood ones.

I prefer having the points for other, for-sure things.

[Skid]

I generally bring an anvil and a stack of wood on any embark to dangerous areas because I can then bring raw metals for weapon and armour creation, and fight off that first wave of skeletal dire wolves with +steel axes+.

[Kaelem Gaen]

Eh, I just go with what I feel like,  I've taken an anvil on all of my embarks, and I never really ran into trouble, the one time I got royally screwed was one of my first fortresses were I settled in a "Scorching" spot, with no river... and rain didn't fill muddy ponds yet.

As for over-rated and/or bad idea, I agree with a good portion of the people who say it's personal preference, then again I was never one for grinding and massive micromanaging, I kinda like seeing my fortress grow and form naturally.  Looks like lots of folks here prefer getting the best of the best, for .. I dunno why really, I mean you can't "win" the game... why the rush for high quality unless you're going for a mega project.  Then again I also only use a very lightly modded DF, wolves should have been trainable from the beginning though.

On a side note, I have trouble with Magma in general, I can't get stuff to work cause I don't get bauxite and I never think "Oh maybe I should get some." But I don't think all dwarf civs in worlds have access to bauxite for Embark, cause you'd think if they had it when you were leaving, then they should have it when they start trading, and the rarely do.

[DaReaper]

i swaped out my anvil for some extra wardogs, traps and equipment because im starting off in a more dangerous zone.

first human caravan ran into a big goblin raid, they god obliterated, i lost one of my miners (havnt even gottern my first migrant wave yet >.<)

but on the plus side i got theiir anvil

[SenorOcho]

I always bring the anvil; more interesting stories have come out of it than whatever excessive stack of food and logs that you could bring in its place.
People who swear by the no-anvil start seem to rely heavily on the totally undwarfy culinary economy. Also not interesting.