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[jetex1911]

title says it all. I can play adventurer mode fine, but when it comes to Dwarf Fortress mode, it's like a MR person at a scientist meeting. it's all to complicated for me. can someone teach me how to play?

[shadowform]

Think of it like Sim City, except with rival mayors that seek to destroy your citizens by arming legions of homeless people and sending them to attack you.

[jetex1911]

[cerapa]

Lemme see.

If you want to build stuff then you go to the building menu.
If you want to designate stuff, you go to the designation menu.
If you want to make a stockpile, you go to the stockpiles menu.
If you want to make stuff in buildings, you use the set building tasks/prefs menu.

And now you should be fine and dandy until someone attacks you or immigrants arrive.

[jetex1911]

well, how do i get supplies. all of my troops right now just went fishing!

[cerapa]

Supplies?
Are you sure you are playing DF?

And why does your military have fishing enabled?

[KillerClowns]

OK, first things first.  The Dwarf Fortress Wiki.  There exist people who learned to play DF without it, but these people either got started early when things were simpler and slowly adjusted from there, are some sort of geniuses, or probably belong in a padded cell with no objects allowed.

[Cheese]

Gameplay questions/help section, look at the stuff in stickies. I recommend captnducks tuts. Watch the 2010 ones for farming/irrigation and military

[Trekkin]

To answer your immediate question, fishing and supply-gathering are unrelated.

Any idle dwarf with Fishing enabled will go fish his little alcohol-pumping heart out, no matter if he's almost starving or your entire fortress is filled with fish.

If you see dwarves hunting for vermin, then they're starving.

Probably the easiest way to get food early is plant gathering. To do this, designate an area for plant gatering by hitting the d key from the base menu, then the p key, then hitting enter, dragging out to the opposite corner of a rectangle, and hitting enter again. All gatherable plants (ie not trees) in the area are now going to be gathered by any dwarves with Plant Gathering enabled. To enable Plant Gathering, (v)iew a dwarf, then hit p, then l, go to Farming/Related, hit Enter, scroll to Plant Gathering, and hit Enter to illuminate it.

You now need a food stockpile for them to store their gathered plants. p from the base menu, then f, then make a rectangle. Food will be stored there, ideally in barrels, but it ca sit on the tile unharmed.

[nbonaparte]

Okay. Step by step guide to the menu.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

a: view anouncements
shows things like season changes, notifications, etc.

b: building
stuff you construct. the 'w' submenu is for workshops, the 'C' is for walls/floors/constructed stairs/etc. explore this one yourself.

c: civilizations
shows the civilizations that have access to where you are. If you're on an island, you're probably alone.

d: designations
You can "designate" tiles for things like mining, tree cutting, digging stairs, etc. again, explore it.

r: Reports
this is much like the announcements you get in adventure mode for combat. urist mcdwarf hacks the goblin in the left upper leg with his *steel battleaxe*. that kind of thing.

o: orders
this gets a little more complicated. hitting the listed hotkeys in this menu toggles things. not used much anymore.

k: look around
hitting k brings up a yellow cursor to move around. If you've played simcity, it's kind of like the Query tool. It allows you to see what's on a tile, etc. I believe the adventure mode equivalent is l or something.

j: job list
not used much. lists jobs being done and jobs that need doing.

m: military
very, very complex. check the wiki for info on the new military.

s: squads
again, not covering it here.

N: points/notes
write notes for yourself at a tile.

w: define burrows
assign dwarves to specific areas. I haven't used them, but that's the general idea.

p: stockpiles
designate areas for your dwarves to put stuff. food, goods, weapons, anything.

i: zones
sort of like a designation. garbage dump is the most useful. hitting the appropriate hotkey will light up the option, selecting it. placing a garbage dump tile will allow dwarves to dump an infinite amount of stuff on one tile.

q: set building tasks/prefs
hitting q brings up the cursor like k. when the cursor is near a building, it will show options for it. workshops, for instance, will have options to create tasks, like 'brew drink', or 'forge iron shield'. you can also destroy buildings from this menu with x. the q menu on some furniture will allow you to create a room around it with a flood fill kind of thing. table to dining room, bed to bedroom, stuff like that.

R: rooms
not used much. shows what rooms you have. on embark, this will just show the wagon. once you assign rooms, this will show them and their quality.

t: view items in buildings
shows what the building is built with, and what's inside it. not used much either.

v: view units
sort of like q for units. gives you lots of options for your dwarves, like seeing their wounds, preferences, thoughts, inventory, etc.

h: hot keys
hitting an f- key will assign your current map location to that key. that allows you to jump around large distances in your fort. helpful if you have different parts of your fort 50 z levels apart.

n: nobles and administrators
shows your nobles and what they need. you need a broker to trade, for instance.

z: status
shows what you have in your fort. to get more accurate counts, you need to make a noble to keep records. I forget exactly what the noble screen calls him, but it's the one that doesn't have its settings menu greyed out on the noble screen.

tab: move this menu/map
repeatedly hit tab. you'll get the idea.

? help
not that helpful. has some use, though. This will annoy you when you're trying to change z level, though.

escape: options
pretty much like in adventure mode. abandon the fortress is like give in to starvation.

movies (I don't know what that hotkey is): record movies

D: Depot access
when you have a trade depot, this shows whether not it's accessible to traders. for now, traders don't bring wagons, so it's not very useful.

good enough to start?

[HotSax]

As a, just now emerging from newb-dom, slightly good player, the walk-through tutorials were great for me. Just make sure to watch the Video Tutorials (on of the stickies) for 2010 before you go through the walkthrough, because they basically explain everything new in 2010. Then just follow along with the walk-through tutorials for your first game. After that, try doing it on your own. Don't worry, it'll get easier .

[Trekkin]

Okay. Step by step guide to the menu.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

a: view anouncements
shows things like season changes, notifications, etc.

b: building
stuff you construct. the 'w' submenu is for workshops, the 'C' is for walls/floors/constructed stairs/etc. explore this one yourself.

c: civilizations
shows the civilizations that have access to where you are. If you're on an island, you're probably alone.

d: designations
You can "designate" tiles for things like mining, tree cutting, digging stairs, etc. again, explore it.

r: Reports
this is much like the announcements you get in adventure mode for combat. urist mcdwarf hacks the goblin in the left upper leg with his *steel battleaxe*. that kind of thing.

o: orders
this gets a little more complicated. hitting the listed hotkeys in this menu toggles things. not used much anymore.

k: look around
hitting k brings up a yellow cursor to move around. If you've played simcity, it's kind of like the Query tool. It allows you to see what's on a tile, etc. I believe the adventure mode equivalent is l or something.

j: job list
not used much. lists jobs being done and jobs that need doing.

m: military
very, very complex. check the wiki for info on the new military.

s: squads
again, not covering it here.

N: points/notes
write notes for yourself at a tile.

w: define burrows
assign dwarves to specific areas. I haven't used them, but that's the general idea.

p: stockpiles
designate areas for your dwarves to put stuff. food, goods, weapons, anything.

i: zones
sort of like a designation. garbage dump is the most useful. hitting the appropriate hotkey will light up the option, selecting it. placing a garbage dump tile will allow dwarves to dump an infinite amount of stuff on one tile.

q: set building tasks/prefs
hitting q brings up the cursor like k. when the cursor is near a building, it will show options for it. workshops, for instance, will have options to create tasks, like 'brew drink', or 'forge iron shield'. you can also destroy buildings from this menu with x. the q menu on some furniture will allow you to create a room around it with a flood fill kind of thing. table to dining room, bed to bedroom, stuff like that.

R: rooms
not used much. shows what rooms you have. on embark, this will just show the wagon. once you assign rooms, this will show them and their quality.

t: view items in buildings
shows what the building is built with, and what's inside it. not used much either.

v: view units
sort of like q for units. gives you lots of options for your dwarves, like seeing their wounds, preferences, thoughts, inventory, etc.

h: hot keys
hitting an f- key will assign your current map location to that key. that allows you to jump around large distances in your fort. helpful if you have different parts of your fort 50 z levels apart.

n: nobles and administrators
shows your nobles and what they need. you need a broker to trade, for instance.

z: status
shows what you have in your fort. to get more accurate counts, you need to make a noble to keep records. I forget exactly what the noble screen calls him, but it's the one that doesn't have its settings menu greyed out on the noble screen.

tab: move this menu/map
repeatedly hit tab. you'll get the idea.

? help
not that helpful. has some use, though. This will annoy you when you're trying to change z level, though.

escape: options
pretty much like in adventure mode. abandon the fortress is like give in to starvation.

movies (I don't know what that hotkey is): record movies

D: Depot access
when you have a trade depot, this shows whether not it's accessible to traders. for now, traders don't bring wagons, so it's not very useful.

good enough to start?

The noble he's talking about is the Bookkeeper, who basically serves as a combination oracle and clerk for your whole fort in that once you let him sit on a chair for long enough you will know how much your fort has of everything forever. Set him from the (n)obles screen by (r)eplacing the Bookkeeper position, then (s)et him to Highest Precision

[Gnauga]

I learned DF playing nearly frame-by-frame while following the outdated Your First Fortress tutorial. Supplement with forum material to taste.

[rmunn]

I learned DF playing nearly frame-by-frame while following the outdated Your First Fortress tutorial. Supplement with forum material to taste.

Bentgirder is an in-progress tutorial designed for the 2010 version of DF. The advanced topics aren't quite there yet, but it should get you through the basics just fine.

[silhouette]

Supplies?
Are you sure you are playing DF?

And why does your military have fishing enabled?

Urist McMaceLord cancels kill order: Fishing.