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[The Architect]

Common wastes of money on embark, in terms of pure efficiency:

Cave Lobster instead of turtle. Steel equipment instead of a little ore. Coal instead of logs. Piles of tools instead of ore or a single tool (6 picks? really? A single trained miner is a better use of your time and funds). Certain skills (Ambusher comes to mind, along with anything other than growing/cooking to use for trade the first year). Piles of starting food and booze if you are in an area with soil.

The fact is that you have more points than you can possibly spend on the necessities in DF, and that means plenty for an anvil if you want one. I started bringing an anvil and ore after two embarks brought caravans with no anvils, which (compared with most people's tool-intensive embark) is a tradeoff of a few hundred points at most. I buy full skills and plenty of livestock, and usually a huge pile of bauxite or logs. I still have points left over.

Caravans ALWAYS bring an anvil!

x20
You've just been lucky. Depending on the wealth of your trading civilizations and the roll of the dice, you may very well not see an anvil for years. Two years is a long time to go without putting that wonderfully proficient weaponsmith to work crafting some crossbows to stop those orcs. Believe me, I know after magma-dunking them for two and a half straight before the humans finally brought one by. Thank God for starting with Bauxite.

Edit: fixed typo causing code to display incorrectly

[zwei]

Basically, bringing raw material and producing whatever you want after embark is cheaper than buying finished stuff and allows you to bring "more" stuff.

I'd rather go for ready-to-use build and wait with specific industries untill fortress can afford to do them 'properly'.

[The Architect]

It's very much about the personal preference of the player.

I do think that if we are going to "teach" people how to play, however (as in the tutorials), then we should teach them the most effective way. Which does not happen to be excluding an anvil and spending money on luxuries like cave lobster. The tutorials (as far as I remember, and I was using them two months ago) don't even bother to tell you to bring a little silk on embark in case you get  a mood.

[assimilateur]

we should teach them the most effective way. Which does not happen to be excluding an anvil

I beg your pardon? You need 1 pick, and perhaps 1 axe (though I go without the axe, seeing how it costs the same as 100 logs). Yes, bringing an anvil is more effective if you need to forge tools and weapons early on, but let me spell it out for you: you decidedly do not need to forge anything early on. At least not if you're a new player, trying your first or second fortress. The case might be different if you're expecting orc sieges in the summer of your first year, but you shouldn't be using those kinda mods if you're just starting out.

Your point about not taking lobster is, of course, valid (assuming we're right about moody dwarves never needing cave lobster shell, and settling for turtle shell instead).

[Lav]

I beg your pardon? You need 1 pick, and perhaps 1 axe (though I go without the axe, seeing how it costs the same as 100 logs). Yes, bringing an anvil is more effective if you need to forge tools and weapons early on, but let me spell it out for you: you decidedly do not need to forge anything early on. At least not if you're a new player, trying your first or second fortress. The case might be different if you're expecting orc sieges in the summer of your first year.

I too wonder how taking picks at the embark is "ineffective".

6 picks are worth 120 points and you can use them immediately. If you want wood, just take enough, why waste points on an axe? But even with an axe the total goes to 420 points.

Anvil and 6 copper are 1060. That's 940 points wasted, or 630 if we add a seventh copper bar for the axe.

6 picks are more than enough for the entire lifetime of the fortress.

I have yet to see a dwarven caravan without an anvil. But on a few occasions I did embark on maps where I couldn't find a single goddamn piece of weapon-capable ore even after extensive prospecting mining, what good would an anvil and a smith do me on such a map?

So Architect, if you like considering small chances, consider this. When I take an anvil, I'm betting on the chance that I find some useful ore. When I take a pick, I know it will be useful come hell or high water.

And if orcs are expected in the summer, taking enough picks becomes even more important. With 6 picks and 6 miners/masons you can dig a trade tunnel to the map edge, provide it with security measures and turtle up. So you will get both security and trade. With an anvil what you get is either seven dead dwarves, or no trade.

[Grendus]

So far most people are arguing that starting without an anvil is a viable strategy when in order for it not to be over-rated they would need to prove that the money you spend with an anvil is absolutely vital and should be used somewhere else.

Well, actually, you could just do a number-crunch to determine where the cutoff point is for an anvil being a numerically superior proposition, for a specific goal.  Like if you need as many early-game steel weapons as possible.

Prebuilt, steel weapons are 300 bucks each.  Forged after embarking, 150 to 160 bucks each.  Assuming time is of the essence and you buy charcoal, then the break-even point is right around 7 weapons, enough to arm your starting party.  Of course, you don't actually get enough points get 7 steel weapons either way (2100 bought, 2120 manufactured).

It does work out nicely if you want 7 copper axes to clearcut an elven forest, though.  1 anvil + 7 bars + 4 wood + 2 stone (making charcoal on site) = 1088, compared to 2100 for 7 steel axes.

Personally, my biggest priority is skills which are hard/annoying to level up.  Ironically, that means giving up the anvil in order to boost metalworking skills on the starting 7.  Makes perfect sense!

Actually, if you buy just the hematite, bituminous coal, flux, and a log to make charcoal from, each steel bar is only 33 embark points (with the addendum that you have to make them two at a time). Combined with the anvil, a full set of steel axes costs roughly 1264 embark points and gives you an extra bar of steel, much less than the 2100 you'd spend on the raw steel.

I always embark with an anvil, but I usually embark on areas of sedimentary flux so I have lots of metal to work with early. With orcs, a good set of iron/steel armor early on can let you drive them off as early as the first migrant wave (even earlier if you sacrifice embark skills).

[Mephansteras]

Here is my standard Embark Profile (without skills assigned to dwarves, which I do based on preferences and personality)

Note that it is with my Civilization Forge mod

Code: [Select]

[PROFILE]
[TITLE:BASIC SUPPLIES]
[ITEM:2:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_MATTOCK:METAL:COPPER]
[ITEM:1:ANVIL:NONE:METAL:IRON]
[ITEM:20:DRINK:NONE:PLANT_ALCOHOL:MUSHROOM_HELMET_PLUMP]
[ITEM:20:DRINK:NONE:PLANT_ALCOHOL:GRASS_WHEAT_CAVE]
[ITEM:20:DRINK:NONE:PLANT_ALCOHOL:GRASS_TAIL_PIG]
[ITEM:3:SEEDS:NONE:SLIME_MOLD:NONE]
[ITEM:3:SEEDS:NONE:GRASS_TAIL_PIG:NONE]
[ITEM:30:FISH:NONE:TURTLE:NONE]
[ITEM:1:SEEDS:NONE:GRASS_CRYSTAL_GREEN:NONE]
[ITEM:1:SEEDS:NONE:MUSHROOM_CUP_DIMPLE:NONE]
[ITEM:3:SEEDS:NONE:BULB_CAVE:NONE]
[ITEM:1:SEEDS:NONE:GRASS_CRYSTAL_GOLD:NONE]
[ITEM:3:SEEDS:NONE:POD_SWEET:NONE]
[ITEM:3:SEEDS:NONE:MUSHROOM_GLOW_CAP:NONE]
[ITEM:3:SEEDS:NONE:BUSH_QUARRY:NONE]
[ITEM:1:SEEDS:NONE:GRASS_CRYSTAL_RED:NONE]
[ITEM:1:SEEDS:NONE:GRASS_CRYSTAL_DARK:NONE]
[ITEM:3:SEEDS:NONE:GRASS_WHEAT_CAVE:NONE]
[ITEM:3:SEEDS:NONE:MUSHROOM_HELMET_PLUMP:NONE]
[ITEM:33:WOOD:NONE:WOOD:GIANT_SHROOM]
[ITEM:3:STONE:NONE:STONE:CASSITERITE]
[ITEM:1:STONE:NONE:STONE:PLATINUM]
[ITEM:24:STONE:NONE:STONE:MALACHITE]
[ITEM:3:STONE:NONE:STONE:SPHALERITE]
[ITEM:30:STONE:NONE:STONE:COAL_BITUMINOUS]
[ITEM:2:THREAD:NONE:SILK:SPIDER_CAVE]
[PET:1:CRAB_CAVE:STANDARD]
[PET:1:DOG:STANDARD]
[PET:1:CAT:STANDARD]
[PET:2:CHICKEN:STANDARD]

I've started dozens of forts with this set-up, and the only times I've ever had issues were cases where 2 or more dwarves got killed off early on due to nasties at the embark site.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

I find embarking with an anvil sort of silly, mostly because those points could be used on making your dwarves much stronger from the get go, and not need to worry about much.

But then again my loadout consists of copper weapons for everything because I've modded all the weapons to be made from stone or bone or wood.. Aside from picks/shovels which I cant do.

But really, the anvil isnt useful for you unless you are playing vanilla and wanted to have 4 or more axes off the bat, as you'd save a fair chunk from that buying copper bars instead of axes.

[The Architect]

It's very much about the personal preference of the player.

The fact is that you have more points than you can possibly spend on the necessities in DF, and that means plenty for an anvil if you want one.

Caravans ALWAYS bring an anvil!

x20
You've just been lucky. Depending on the wealth of your trading civilizations and the roll of the dice, you may very well not see an anvil for years.

The anvil is not absolutely necessary in your embark set. However, it's a good way to spend points that are often otherwise wasted. We leave people to do several stupid things like bringing a pick for every dwarf, buying steel tools, etc. We should do better in teaching players.

Don't talk down to people who have a different strategy than you do. If that continues, I'm running to tattle (aka, report button). I've had it pulled on me multiple times for much less, in fact for asking people to STOP arguing and fighting. So I'm going to start pressing it when people act the way some of you are toward each other.

[assimilateur]

Nobody's talking down to anyone here, at least not based on strategy. What we're trying to do is establish something about the economy of taking an anvil with them (namely that it's wasteful), and not insult anybody for doing so anyway.

[NecroRebel]

Don't talk down to people who have a different strategy than you do. If that continues, I'm running to tattle (aka, report button). I've had it pulled on me multiple times for much less, in fact for asking people to STOP arguing and fighting. So I'm going to start pressing it when people act the way some of you are toward each other.

Um... No offense, but you're kinda talking down to people with a different strategy than you. As in, claiming things people do, and in most/all cases have reasons for doing, are "stupid." Especially when you earlier claimed,

It's very much about the personal preference of the player.

it is contradictory of you to claim that any valid choice is not about personal preferences and instead "ineffective," even moreso when one of the people who you made a claim about taking "ineffective" things already gave a personal-preference-and-partially-utility-based explanation for why they do those things.

I speak, of course, of myself; you claim that taking piles of tools, citing specifically the 6 picks that I choose to bring, is wasteful and that taking an anvil, some logs, and a little ore is more point-efficient, despite me saying, in the same post as I laid out my embark profile, that I liked getting underground immediately and didn't like waiting for my dwarves to forge weapons!

So, please... Practice what you preach, or at least be consistent in your words.

[The Architect]

I'm quite consistent, thank you. I didn't say that your methods were ineffective nor stupid. Don't put words in my mouth.

I said, that in terms of pure efficiency, some common mistakes were: x, y, z.

Included is bringing enough tools for all of your dwarves to mine at once. As I carefully explained, a single skilled miner is more effective. Rather than taking a single half-sentence out of context and putting several words into my mouth which I never typed in the first place, why don't you read the post again?

Practice what you preach? You're practically trolling with this behavior. If you would like to know why that particular technique is inefficient, I'll tell you in a more appropriate setting.

[assimilateur]

So, please... Practice what you preach, or at least be consistent in your words.

Just let him report us, for all we care. All that's going to accomplish is bring attention to his unwarranted hostility, and is liable to end up worse for him.

a single skilled miner is more effective.

That's all well and good but it doesn't say anything the efficiency of taking an anvil with you. Unless you have to make a lot of tools right after embark, and the average novice player (who's the only demographic we should be trying to teach anything) doesn't, taking one pick and one axe, hell, even taking six picks and one axe, is still more efficient than taking an anvil and ore.

You know what taking an anvil is? Convenient. It has nothing to do with efficiency.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

I'm quite consistent, thank you. I didn't say that your methods were ineffective nor stupid. Don't put words in my mouth.

I said, that in terms of pure efficiency, some common mistakes were: x, y, z.

Included is bringing enough tools for all of your dwarves to mine at once. As I carefully explained, a single skilled miner is more effective. Rather than taking a single half-sentence out of context and putting several words into my mouth which I never typed in the first place, why don't you read the post again?

Practice what you preach? You're practically trolling with this behavior. If you would like to know why that particular technique is inefficient, I'll tell you in a more appropriate setting.

It's really sounding more like you're trolling really.
Going around calling people trolls.
shame on you.

[Mephansteras]

Why don't we just agree that there are several good, solid starting builds that will work well in many situations?

For the vast majority of forts a little inefficiency (point-wise) is completely irrelevant. With certain mods or settings you may have reason to strongly prefer one set-up over another. In general, though, it has more to do with player preference then anything else.

Sheesh, it's not like this is a PvP game where your ranking is going to be jeopardized by using a less-then-optimal set-up. It's a sandbox game with no way to win. As long as you have fun, it really doesn't matter what you do. No reason for anyone to start getting upset or insulting about it.