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[s1ppycup]

I've been lurking in these forums for a while, but just now found an excuse to post.  I've just created and uploaded the first of what I hope will be a lengthy and informative series of LP/tutorial videos for Dwarf Fortress on YouTube.  These are primarily intended for new players, and I've chosen to use the Lazy Newb Pack + version 31.12 as my demonstration platform.  You can find my channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/51ppycup

I know there are already a million how-to guides out there, and in fact I learned a lot from capnduck's YouTube videos when I started playing, but I thought it would be fun to do one myself regardless

Sorry for the shameless plug, and I hope at least a few of you will find the videos interesting!

Cheers,
s1ppycup

[geoduck]

Pretty good, although you might want to mention something about looking for sand when choosing your embark site, so that you can make glass. (Tho at least now you can import it..)

[Genoraven]

Loops pretty good so far.  I'll use it to get some friends to play =P

[s1ppycup]

Cool, thanks for the feedback!  I don't script these, I just kinda record as I go along, so I definitely miss some stuff -- glad you pointed that out about the sand!  I'll go back and make an annotation about that in YouTube

[Dariush]

I like the utter thoroughness of this tutorial. I actually skipped to video #4 and was astonished to see you didn't even embark yet Considering the whole utter incomprehensibility of DF for newbie player, those videos will be perfect for those with a bit of patience (if you'll continue at the rate it's going). Keep up the good work! The more tutorials are out there, the more choises newbies will have to suit their personal learning styles

[s1ppycup]

Thanks   It will speed up a little as I progress and explain concepts enough times, for instance, that "b" is for "build" -- at that point I'll just build things and stop calling out my keystrokes one by one 

[Still Standing]

Long time lurker here, thought I'd finally register and comment here!

These seem great so far, but what I think they really need is some sort of index.  If a person wants information on the military, for example, they'd have no idea where you talk about it!

Thanks for your hard work though!

[s1ppycup]

Good point, thanks!  I'm eventually going to add some information to that effect to the titles and/or video descriptions.

EDIT: Done!

[izraqthedark]

I play considerably more fortress mode than adventure mode and I've not seen a good adventure mode tutorial and I was wondering if you could go over that with all 3 races and actually get somewhere .

[s1ppycup]

I can certainly try, though to be honest I've never really dabbled with it.  I'll start my "research" tonight

[That guy]

These look pretty good. On part 3 have you considered mentioning that you can press "v" to view the individual dwarves' bios when you're assigning skills? Their likes and dislikes have some effect on their happiness and the quality of the items they make. So if a dwarf likes beds or barrels it's advantageous to make him a carpenter, or a dwarf who likes mail shirts or steel would make better armor (as long as they're making mail shirts or steel armor).

[Spectre]

Nooo! Although I really like your Let's Play, you are telling those newbs things that are just wrong!

For information: You need an apointed noble with the manager position that has his own privat chair. Without a chair, he cant aprove your orders.

Now to the thing you got wrong. There are no such thing as cave ins if you have no support pillars. That only happens in the old 2D version.
Cave ins only occure if you remove absolutly every connection. You can dig out the lowest layer of a mountain and as long as you leave a one tile wide bridge of natural or constructed floor (not a bridge, not floorhatches nor grates) that connects the floating mountain with some hill that has still a conection to the ground, it will float.
Basicly, everything that looses conection with the border of the map will cave in until it hits ground, punching through floor tiles on its way. The only thing to stop a cave in is a wall. Because a cave in cant punch through an entire z level.

Also: If you dont give a dwarf herbalist skills, he can still work as a herblist. Did you even know that you can assign jobs to dwarves, regardless of any skill? Select a dwarve with the v key or through the units list, and then selecting the labour menu where you can tell them what jobs they are supposed to do.

[That guy]

On my first few forts I was wildly overcautious with supports. I had read about the "realism" in the game and figured that hilarity would ensue if I dug out big caverns in the sand. It wasn't until I saw someone's fort with most of a Z level removed to serve as an open stockpile that I learned otherwise.

Also on starting forts I find it easier to build smaller farm plots (3 x 3 or 3 x 4) are better for crop diversity. It takes a while to train up your farmers to where they can effectively utilize big fields, and if you only have one kind of plant to make into booze it leads to trouble.

[Spectre]

The cave-in-if-no-support-system was removed when the game became 3D. It just didnt work.
It will be back some day in the far future.

[AngleWyrm]

Also on starting forts I find it easier to build smaller farm plots (3 x 3 or 3 x 4) are better for crop diversity. It takes a while to train up your farmers to where they can effectively utilize big fields, and if you only have one kind of plant to make into booze it leads to trouble.

I plant 5x5 plots every time, and usually start by designating a field of four-by-two 5x5 plots (eight plots). It is much easier to irrigate once than to try building more farmland later. During the first year I only plant three of the plots, two mushroom and one sweetpod. Then as I get more immigrant farmers, I plant more of the fields.

The result is that I have enough Meals and Dwarven Syrup to clean out the caravans (human & dwarven -- elves get rock crafts), which buys me a variety of booze.

edit: Also, I turn off booze cooking in the z->kitchen tab, because I want more booze and less food.