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[Asmodeous]

Yeah, there's a serious fps burp when even just a stream thaws. But it only happens for a second twice a year and then everything is fine again.

[Cerion]

Here's how I set up now, I aim to dig deep underground immediately (initially walling off some cavern area to start farming) and the build is tailored for setting up a fortress say 100 z-levels or so down.


Site selection:

This is less of a chore now; just find a sedimentary layer (for iron and coal) with no annoying aquifer. I also tend to pick wild areas (but avoid undead for now due to bugged skeletons)

Items:

Keep the anvil

Sell back cloth, thread, splints, crutches (Cloth and thread are expensive and easily traded for from caravans, the wooden items can be made at the carpenter's workshop as and when necessary)

Get 1 male and 2 female dogs (Normal dogs, training them doesn't take long)
Top up to 25 on plump helmet spawn and pig tail seeds

Ditch the copper axes, and instead bring some supplies to make steel axes (logs, coal, iron ore, flux)

Spare points go to food and drink


Skills:

5 Miner/5 Weaponsmith
5 Miner/5 Armorsmith
5 Grower/5 Brewer
1 Woodcutter/5 Axedwarf/2 Shield User/2 Armor User (The reason for making the steel axes. This will be whoever has the best physical stats: I like having an early fighter to deal with random creatures that come while I'm walling off cavern space or cutting underground trees.)
5 Mason/5 (flexible slot)

These two do the random odd jobs in the first year:

Doctor, 2 in each
Leader/Organizer/Trader (mix)

[Jake]

Still trying to get through worldgen without my PC freezing -not DF's fault, I need to upgrade my RAM- but in previous versions I've tended to look for places with coal and flux, some sort of running water and minimal unpleasant creatures. After a couple of disastrous embarks that resulted in my fortress being wiped out before the first caravan arrived, I've also given magma a wide berth; it's not something I want to deal with until I've got a proper military set up.

When assigning skill points I tend towards a range of skills, since the transition from dabbling to novice takes ages and it saves me fiddling around assigning labours individually. The arrangement I've settled on is thus:
* Hunter (Adequate Ambusher/Marksdwarf/Speardwarf*/Shield User/Armour User)
* Fisherdwarf (Adequate Fisherdwarf/all medical skills in the new version)
* Stoneworker (Adequate Mason/Stonecrafter, Novice Miner/Building Designer/Mechanic)
* Woodworker (Adequate Woodcutter/Carpenter, Novice Axedwarf/Bone Carver)
* Metalworker (Novice Metalsmith/Weaponsmith/Armoursmith/Metalcrafter/Miner)
* Hippy (Adequate Grower/Brewer/Herbalist/Weaver)
* Caterer (Adequate Grower/Cook/Butcher/Fish Cleaner/Plant Processor)
I invariably trade in the anvil and take four copper picks and a single battle axe, two war dogs and two hunting dogs, a single cat and twenty-odd logs to be getting along with. My remaining points go on food, booze and seeds, plus a few extra bolts for my hunter and a rope for a well. The hunting dogs, as you might expect, are assigned to my hunter; my fisherdwarf and woodcutter get a war dog each. The Hippy and the Caterer get handed the spare picks.

* In case you're wondering, my first DF mod was a crossbow fitted with a spike bayonet, which did piercing damage in melee and used the speardwarf skill. I've ported it over to the new version.

[RandomNumberGenerator]

I generally like to have the following:

60 Non-Dwarven Wine Booze(I like growing lots of plants, but with just wine dwarves complain of lack of variety, and I hate wasting sweet pods on rum.)
30 Food(I used to being Cave Lobsters or Turtles for the shells, but that doesn't matter with the new version since they count as processed... so just whatever. Like booze, I bring a variety.)
Anvil
1/2 Picks
1 Axe
2 Cloth/Thread/Splits/Crutches
2 Dogs
and as many bags I can afford. For skills:

1 or 2 Miner/Engravers
1 Woodcutter/Herbalist
1 Leader/Appraiser/Judge of Intent/Social Skill/Social Skill
1 Grower/Brewer/Cook
1 Carpenter/Craftsman
1 Mason/Building Designer
1 Metalsmith(If I only took 1 miner)

This gives me quite a bit of flexibility. I used to only take 1 miner, but digging seems to take longer in the new version so I find myself going with 2 a lot. My woodcutter/herbalist can provide an early source of food should getting farms up prove troubling, and gets enough wood to keep the carpenter busy. He makes beds first, them repeated barrels/bins until my furniture stockpile is overflowing, then switches to stonecrafts. The leader is, well, the leader obviously, and I keep him busy with bookkeeping; I like to know exactly how much stuff I have. The mason cranks out thrones and tables, then coffers and chests for the bedrooms. If I start with a metalsmith or not, I always have one by the second season, because I'll turn one of the early immigrants into one. I've found that making whatever the liason requests(even if it's not very profitable in itself), then studding with gold(very plentiful in the new version) is extremely profitable, because the value multiplier applies to the gold decoration.

[Max White]

As far as location goes, a new player should stick to these rules:
~Sedimentary Flux layer.
~Neutral or good biome.
~Lots of trees.
~Source of running water.

With skills, on the other hand, newbies like simple and effective, so proficient on 2 skills is probably the best way.

[Asmodeous]

The flux layer doesn't need to be the sedimentary layer. You can often find Shale (sediment) on top of Marble (flux) and be even better off than if you had a Limestone or Dolomite layer.

I would seperate those out so your list would be:

Sedimentary Layer
Flux Layer (can be the same layer)
Neutral/Good Biome.
Woodland or Heavily Forested
Brook/Stream.

[Urist Imiknorris]

The flux layer doesn't need to be the sedimentary layer. You can often find Shale (sediment) on top of Marble (flux) and be even better off than if you had a Limestone or Dolomite layer.

I would seperate those out so your list would be:

Sedimentary Layer
Flux Layer (can be the same layer)
Neutral/Good Biome.
Woodland or Heavily Forested
Brook/Stream.

Sandstone /marble /granite is really the best combination. Copper/bronze for training, steel for full power annihilation.

[Asmodeous]

The flux layer doesn't need to be the sedimentary layer. You can often find Shale (sediment) on top of Marble (flux) and be even better off than if you had a Limestone or Dolomite layer.

I would seperate those out so your list would be:

Sedimentary Layer
Flux Layer (can be the same layer)
Neutral/Good Biome.
Woodland or Heavily Forested
Brook/Stream.

Sandstone /marble /granite is really the best combination. Copper/bronze for training, steel for full power annihilation.

Throw a couple Gabbro layers on there and you're drowning in gems and gold, too.

[Urist Imiknorris]

The flux layer doesn't need to be the sedimentary layer. You can often find Shale (sediment) on top of Marble (flux) and be even better off than if you had a Limestone or Dolomite layer.

I would seperate those out so your list would be:

Sedimentary Layer
Flux Layer (can be the same layer)
Neutral/Good Biome.
Woodland or Heavily Forested
Brook/Stream.

Sandstone /marble /granite is really the best combination. Copper/bronze for training, steel for full power annihilation.

Throw a couple Gabbro layers on there and you're drowning in gems and gold, too.

Diorite will get you even more gold; so much that you'll have no problem buying out civilizations.

[Paul]

The flux layer doesn't need to be the sedimentary layer. You can often find Shale (sediment) on top of Marble (flux) and be even better off than if you had a Limestone or Dolomite layer.

How would having shale be better than having dolomite? Shale and dolomite have the same materials in them, the only difference being that dolomite is also a flux stone. Having dolomite doesn't restrict you from getting marble layers, so you could have dolomite/marble. Having marble isn't anything spectacular other than additional flux. It gives you copper, lead, silver, zinc and emeralds but you can get the same with schist, or any other metamorphic rock (minus the emeralds).

And the only bonus Sandstone gives you is even more copper, and who ever needs MORE copper? It's everywhere.

I stick by the fact that sedimentary flux is the best. Iron, fuel, and flux in one layer? Yes please.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Dolomite has Talc. EVERYWHERE.

[Paul]

Oh, right. It's chalk that I was thinking of that has the same as other sedimentary stuff.

Dolomite does have the benefit of being magma safe, though.


Heres something fun I noticed yesterday: If you swap same-type mineral positions in the raws and regenerate the same world, it will swap the minerals. So you can engineer a site to have better prospects by swapping minerals. Like I could swap sandstone with chalk or slate with marble.

Obviously you couldn't share the seed with others (unless you also share the fact you swapped off the minerals), but it could be used to generate better minerals for a site that you like. It doesn't always work though.

[ZedEh]

I'm just getting back into DF after an extended hiatus--how long have we been able to save our embark profiles into a .txt file?

[Shadowlord]

I bring a 20 booze of 3 different kinds, 20 bituminous coal, 20 wood, 20 copper bars, 10 magma-safe stone, 3 cats, 3 dogs, an anvil, 3 buckets, 15 plump helmets, fish, meat, 6 of each kind of seed, and give each dwarf 1 point in ambushing. I believe I gave one of them even more ambushing skill. The idea behind that was to get free crossbows and crossbow skill, but the whole crossbow-using thing turned out to be broken. I also have yet to actually plant any of the seeds I brought, as all of my farms are outdoors.

The first two things I do are:
1. Build a wood furnace, smelter, metalsmith's forge, and carpenter's workshop. Burn 1 wood. Begin building beds from the wood we brought. Make coke from all the coal, then make copper axes and picks from the copper bars.
2. At the same time, make a couple food stockpiles, and begin plant harvesting the outdoors shrubs, and brewing them. Then set up outdoors farms with the seeds. At some point find something (such as animals) to cook. You get a ridiculous amount of food from butchering animals. I don't cook booze, and if you try to cook nothing but booze, the dwarves don't seem to know how to make soup without spilling it all on the floor. Dwarves can also eat fruit raw (and plump helmets). Fish all the fish and turtles up, and DO NOT USE THE SHELLS FOR CRAFTING. I did, because they were filling up my refuse stockpile, and I didn't realize I would never again find any more turtles.

[Wine Biscuits]

you can use wooden training axes to cut trees now, im pretty sure its just as fast, didnt check that though