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[CautionToTheWind]

So, what order do you prioritize? Like starting with setting up farming, or some basic defense, and then all the way to the industries and equipped military. So, what order do you do things?

[Pistolero]

Irrigate, entrance corridor+depot, workshop hall, dining and dorm, workshops. Migrants arrive, defense, magma channels if I have a volcano, move stockpiles inside.

[Shurikane]

BEFORE DF2010
1) Trees.  I need trees somewhere, because I usually never have enough wood.  I do bins for EVERYTHING.
2) River/brook.  I want a water source of some sort, usually for fun reasons.
3) Mountainside.  I like to dig rock. 
4) Magma.  I send my dorfs naked in battle and they mostly succeed so I have little interest in metalworking.


AFTER DF2010
1) Military strategy.  Can I defend the fort early on and/or easily contain damage should all hell break loose?
2) Magma.  I am suddenly much more interested in manufacturing weapons!
3) River/brook.  Once again, for mechanical and fun reasons, but also because I want to farm the plots easy.

[stormyseasons]

Need a brook. For easy and repeatable irrigation, defenses via drowning, permanent water source for a well that doesn't involve breaching the caverns early.

Magma, if I haven't tweaked worldgen to cut down on layers to spare my cpu.

Trees at the surface - again, would rather not enter caverns without a military.

Begin with entrance corridor/depot, dig out food stockpile, wood stockpile, farming area, workshop areas, furniture/finished goods stockpiles. Dining and sleeping quarters after. Military and higher value goods production last. Military might get moved up if I feel like chopping wood or digging coal for furnaces instead of using magma.

[Urist Imiknorris]

1. Secure aboveground farmland.
2. Wall in a medium-sized area (~30x30)
3. Above ground farming, build small proto-fortress above ground, stockpiles in the soil layer.
4. Expand fort until I hit a population ~40.
5. Delve to cavern 3, secure a large area
6. MAGMA

[SkyRender]

1. Find a suitable site (brook, sand, flux, sedimentary layer)
2. Dig out two floors for workshops (partially at first) and a floor for dining and sleeping (again, partially at first)
3. While that's going on, set up farms, stockpiles, and the essential workshops (carpentry, masonry, mechanics, still, kitchen, farmer's workshop) and build basic necessities (beds, tables, chairs, doors)
4. Dig down to the first cavern but seal it up; flood the top-level caverns slightly to cause plants to grow in them.
5. Industry-wise, start with mechanisms made of a valuable ore (silver, hematite, limonite, etc.)
6. Continue down to the magma level and set up the forges; get the steel industry going as quickly as possible and start making large, serrated steel discs
7. Expand and mine as necessary to get more resources; by the time the first caravan arrives, I often have over 150,000 dorfbux in value and at least one immigrant wave
8. Trap the hell out of the fort entrance and make it a maze to navigate; by the time Goblins even ponder attacking, they usually have about two dozen cage traps to deal with

[ElChad]

1) Basic Shelter
2) Farms
3) Food/Drink Workshops
4) Closable Entrance
5) Trade Depot to sell inevitable surplus of food for stuff.

[Levi]

1) Beds
2) Farm
3) Booze


After that, whatever strikes my fancy.  Maybe some trade goods.

[slink]

My priorities have changed slightly in going from 40d to 0.31.x.

Always:

Cut trees
Harvest plants
Dig corridor and a few rooms in soil layer
Dig staircase down into one or more rock layers as needed to acquire stone
Carpenter's workshop makes 7 beds and 3 buckets
Mason's workshop makes a stone block and a mechanism for the well
Move supplies inside
Create indoor meeting area zone
Deconstruct wagon
Create underground refuse pile
Build beds and define a dormitory (barracks in 40d).

40d:
Start planting underground crops in soil layer
Dig well reservoir and build well
Build walls for defense of entrance, with fortified second layer for crossbow-wielding dwarves to guard approach to entrance
Install stone-fall traps outside walls, to be replaced later with weapon traps made from goblin loot
Create aboveground crop area within defense walls
Build depot aboveground, within defense walls
Mechanic's workshop makes many mechanisms for trade in autumn

0.31.x:
Assuming the worst case of winter freezing the aboveground water source:
Dig irrigation tunnels for underground crop area
Mason's workshop makes floodgates and door for irrigation system
Mechanic's workshop makes enough mechanisms for floodgate levers
Get one underground plot area flooded before winter
Still makes booze from aboveground harvesting to hold everyone until spring when well reservoir can be filled
Kitchen workshop makes many easy prepared meals for trade in autumn, using meat carried on embark and possibly fish if a fisherman immigrates in summer
Construct depot underground and defend entrance with cage traps

I haven't gotten any real military plan yet in 0.31.x because of all the bugs.  Because of this, I have been playing 0.31.x with invaders turned off.  My best effort was once when I made a squad of axedwarves.  They were incapable of killing a small animal which entered the fortress.  A war-dog finally killed it for them.  After that, I used cage traps to deal with small animals and gave up any idea of playing with invasions turned on until later in the de-bugging process.  It is much easier to complete autumn preparations 0.31.x if one builds aboveground farms and waits until the second year to prepare the underground farms, but I have been trying to build as if invaders were eventually coming even though I have them turned off.

[Internet Kraken]

My first priority is to locate stone I can use to build my fort. As soon as I unearth a substantial amount of that, I move onto to digging out mini stockpiles and a dormitory. Meanwhile, my masons build the main walkway. Once that reaches sufficient length I begin construction of the food stockpile. I have the diggers continue to supply my masons with stones during this while I set up temporary workshops for masons and carpenters and begin the construction of beds. By this point the food stockpile should be finished, so I move onto building a large enough kitchen to support at least 2 stills and 3 fisheries. After that I build a basic dining hall and then move onto building the main workshop complex. Under ideal conditions this should begin by the start of winter, but many factors can influence this.

Throughout this time my miners are unearthing more stone to use for construction. However, I also have them breach the first cavern layer around the middle of this to establish an easy farming industry.

[Quantum Toast]

Digging a tunnel with a couple of rooms (at least a barracks, farm, still, dining room and food store, usually the trade depot too)
Making some stockpiles
Getting logs from trees and the wagon
Setting up workshops for the mason & carpenter (outside if necessary, I can always move them indoors later)
Setting up furniture
Extend further underground
Wall off an area around the entrance
Look into building a safe water source
Get making stone crafts; they're enough to get a few bits and pieces when the traders turn up, and even the elves'll give some decent booze in exchange for eight or nine dozen limestone mugs.

[Heidrek]

Survive.
Maybe trying, to figure farming out, but mainly I try to survive. Everything else is optional.

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

Survive.
Maybe trying, to figure farming out, but mainly I try to survive. Everything else is optional.

Farming is the first thing you should work on. What the heck do you feed to your dwarves?

[Shaio]

my priorities usually always go like this
1 dig large underground stockpile for food, and wood.
2 set to dwarfs to gather plants off entire map.
3 set one dwarf to wood cutting and fell entire map.
4 dig down till i find magma and can setup a forge area, or mark out my forge area.
5 once location of forges is to be known, all other parts of fortress are built in immediate area near forge or only 1-2 layers away.

[Avaline]

Majority of the time:

- Food/Drink.  This is especially for me since I rarely never embark with actual food/drink on hand.  Thus I forage and set up surface farms, get my kitchen and still up and, if I didn't come with any drink, a carpenter shop to make some barrels.

Though this is priority, the actual ground farming comes much much later.  This early setup is just to survive.

- Workshop setup.  I use Quickfort now to quickly setup mining for all of my stockpiles and workshops.  I then let my miners go off to work.  Eventually, all of my workshops are in place (though many aren't built yet since the needed dwarf isn't around yet).

- Trade. Depot, Crafts, and Gems.  I usually have something I NEED by the fall.

- Farming and leather industries.  Full set of farms are set for over and underground crops, and the associated workshops are setup for them.  Leather comes afterwards, usually kickstarted by buying out lots of leather from traders and, later on, via cattle. 

- Metalsmiths.  Mining is updated to start hunting for metals.  Available ores are then smithed and a plan on how to use them becomes available.  I WANT steel or Bronze eqiuipment in process before my military.

- Military.  Around 40 dwarves gives me enough to start training, hopefully with metal equipment. 

- Stabilization/mass project.  Look for items I'm lacking (not enough wood?  Farming in a deadlock?  Running out of beer?  Bedrooms not made yet?) and/or start some major plan (training my military to swim.  Setting up my 15 floor tower of terror, ext.)

Goes on from there.

Alternative: Deep living

- MAGMA.  Find the magma.  Set it up to be used. 

Then food, workshops, so on.  Exception is that metalsmithing comes after the magma is setup.