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[NewsMuffin]

I usually embark with the fattest dwarf will appraisal, book keeping, organizing , and whatever else a trader needs. Also a fitting woman to be the doctor, adequate every doctor skill that matters. Call me sexist all you want. I use the saved points for more booze and seeds. Everything else I could likely need levels nicely or comes in the migrants soon enough. I might spend a few points on a dwarf with weapon skills if I'm embarking in a threatening... embark.

[krenshala]

Yeah, every time the traders come I'm like "FUCK I FORGOT TO MAKE ROCK CRAFTS" and end up trading them a masterwork Tower-cap bed or something.

Yup, I do this a lot too.  Three craft shops and three OK (or better) crafters, however, means you can usually churn out enough crap crafts to get what you need before they start packing.

And then the elves come and I do have crafts, but they're elves so I just seize what I need.

On my last fort I didn't have this problem.  My first that region was run over by goblin ambushers, and when embarking for the new one (wanted better resources, so I didn't attempt to reclaim) I noticed that the Elves were listed as WAR on the Civs screen ... and I got a legendary +5 hammer dwarf in my first immigrant wave.    Him and two rookie speardwarves with steel shields and weapons (and the legendary with his <<*silver war hammer*>>) meant I killed off 7 of the 16 elven swordsmen (ok, 15 swords and 1 bow ... not sure where the bow-elf went ... don't think he even fired a shot).

I love that my hammerdwarf incapacitated the first three elves by breaking their weapon hand, and then a few blows later severing the upper spinal column.  I think they were torturing the hippies, however, as it took a LOT of hits to kill them, even with spears tearing up lungs and severing arteries.

[McDwarf]

I usually embark with everybody having Ambusher maxxed out for the free swag (I am recently having second thoughts about this, as the Ambusher skill quickly goes to very rusty, so it might be more efficient to just buy the stuff). Then I give each dwarf maxxed-1 ranks in a moodable skill, preferably related to one of their preferences. I usually give one dwarf 1 point in a social skill to control who becomes Expedition Leader. The remaing points go into non-moodable skills that are useful right away, such as, farming, butcher, and wood cutting, so I don't have to activate it.

Note: pause on embark and turn off hunting on all dwarves or your entire workforce will run off.

For equipment, I usually bring 60 bags of sand, some magma-safe stone and some wood along with the necessary food, booze, and breeding dogs.
I've taken to making glass balls over crafts for trade goods, as it levels up the glassmaker, who can then make high quality, resource cheap furniture and one production run (30) can usually buy out two caravans.

[oris472]

My starting build is a variation on "Tatter's Ragtime Band" found on the wiki, and so far I'm just ecstatic with the results:

* Boss (5 Leatherworking + 1 record keeper/appraiser/negotiator/persuader/J.O.I.)
* Doctor (5 Carpentry + 1 diagnostician/wound dresser/suturer/bone doc/surgery)
* Tinker (5 Metalsmith + 4 Mechanic)
* Iron Chef (5 Armorsmith + 5 Cooking)
* Brewsmith Pirate (5 Weaponsmith + 5 Brewing)
* Druid (5 Gem Cutting + 5 Growing)
* Glassmason (5 Glassmaking + 5 Masonry)

The idea is that they've each got a moodable skill, as many starting points as possible are placed into skills that affect the quality of finished goods rather than speed of production, and time-consuming skills get paired with those that only get used periodically.The Tinker's Mechanics should be kept lower than Metalsmithing at all times to maximize the benefits of a strange mood - this assumes that a Legendary Metalsmith is more useful than a Legendary Mechanic - YMMV.  The Glassmason is there to help you tap the magma ASAP via glass tubes and corkscrews (and maybe glass blocks if you just can't find magma-safe stone) - bring plenty of sand, 40-60+ bags to be safe - and once you've got your magma structures up and running, he's a great source of free trap components and raw green glass to stack your Druid's Gem Cutting up to Legendary before he even touches a real gem - and then forget about rock crafts, you're pumping GEM crafts now.  Use that Metalsmith to turn your pile of precious metals into a solid gold or silver Royal Dining Room, run a waterfall through for good measure, and never worry about unhappy dwarves again!

Item-wise, the only true essentials are:

* iron anvil
* 31/31/31 of beer/ale/rum
* 1 of each 2-cost meat available
* several plump helmets
* a few of each seed
* 4 flux stones (calcite, etc)
* 4 iron ore (magnetite, etc)
* 5 logs (double this (or even more) if you're embarking into a treeless biome)
* Huge pile of sandbags

Conserve points by making your tools on-site!  Deconstruct that wagon.  You can make a steel battle axe and 3 steel picks, compensating for lack of mining skill with extra tools - the Boss will become your full-time miner and should reach Legendary by the end of Year 1, the other mining labors can go to your Metalworkers until some migrants show up, and give the axe to the Doctor so he can go cut down trees while he has nothing better to do (which will be often, since glass and metal render wood useful only for burning and beds...)

Non-essential, but useful:

* 2 or more regular Dogs (burglar alarms, meatshields - train into Wardogs yourself)
* 3 ropes (2 for leashes, one for a well)
* 2 or more Lye for quick soap
* Plaster bags for your Doctor
* a male cat, to keep vermin down (remember to kill any females that show up, to keep cat populations reasonable)
(EDIT:  bituminous coal/lignite is quite useful for sustaining your glassworks until you strike magma - and if you're embarking into a totally treeless biome, you should really bring enough fuel to melt all that sand into something useful, like a magma pump stack)


Put all remaining points into sand, even if you're embarking into a desert or something.  It's dirt cheap, gives free bags, and keeps you from wasting any precious early-game labor hours on the no-skill task of refilling sandbags.

[Nameless Archon]

* 2 or more Lye for quick soap
* Plaster bags for your Doctor

I thought plaster and soap were broken?

Personally, I take 2+ miners, a woodcutter/axeman, carpenter, mason, mechanic, grower/brewer. You can combine the skills how you like. I usually add herbalism to the woodcutter and grower, so that they're doing something when not following their crafts. I tend to get a highly skilled metal worker pretty quickly, but can crank out rock crafts and roasts for cash while waiting.

This lets you build bedrooms and dining rooms, farms, and traps early. With those you're set against everything, though that may not be as Fun as some folks would prefer.

[Gearheart]

¹ I mod my crossbows to have bayonets.

Off topic, but I can't believe I didn't think of this.

Stealing idea, be right back.

[Reese]

* Tinker (5 Weaponsmith + 5 Mechanic)

I'm pretty sure Mechanic is also moodable, and likely to be higher than weaponsmith in early fort...

[Zaerosz]

¹ I mod my crossbows to have bayonets.

Off topic, but I can't believe I didn't think of this.

Stealing idea, be right back.

Post it when you're done!

[Zaik]

I do this:

1 5 miner/5 mason
3 5 miners
1 5 woodcutter/5 carpenter
1 5 mechanic
1 5 planter

[krenshala]

I've noticed the default starting skills (I'm not picky ... yet ... so I use "Play Now!"  ) have changed since 31.12.  I don't get a medical genius any more, and the other skills have been tweaked slightly ... I think.

[oris472]

* Tinker (5 Weaponsmith + 5 Mechanic)

I'm pretty sure Mechanic is also moodable, and likely to be higher than weaponsmith in early fort...

This is true; the Glassmason is also in the situation of having two moodable skills.

If you'd rather hit an artifact weapon than artifact mechanism, you could swap his Weaponsmith with the Chef or Brewer's smithing skill - or nerf the Tinker's starting Mechanic skill by a point or two, and then make sure his Weaponsmithing is always a little bit higher.

Personally, I'd rather have the artifact furniture and especially the armor... too much protection is just never enough and the extra damage from artifact weapons doesn't make much difference when the best conventional weapons are sufficient to kill most enemies in one or two hits.

* 2 or more Lye for quick soap
* Plaster bags for your Doctor

I thought plaster and soap were broken?

Soap & plaster, broken?  What version?

[Tywuzhere]

I'm by no means a master at this game, I started at the beginning of summer, so like 4 months ago.
I've finally got a pretty good grip on the game though...
I usually start out with a few farmers, a mason, a carpenter, a woodcutter, two miners, and if I have any extra points, I'll go for a weaponsmith.

Then I get rid of one of my anvils, so I have extra points to get a cat, a bunch of Plump Helmets, and a dog.

Make sure you get your farms set up as soon as you can so you don't have to deal with those. Then you can just work on getting your fortress layout, barracks, bedrooms, stockpile areas, etc... Then you can focus on military, defenses, and trading. That's what I always do, and it usually works.

Except there always seems to be that one dwarf that goes insane and kills everybody, and my sherriff is too drunk to do anything about it... Make sure you've got a good sherriff set up too, or when a dwarf gets in a weird (fey) mood, wall him off for awhile, just in case. I've lost 3 fortresses to an insane dwarf, just because I wasn't prepared for a dwarf to kill everyone of my other dwarves...

[Reese]

Personally, I'd rather have the artifact furniture and especially the armor... too much protection is just never enough and the extra damage from artifact weapons doesn't make much difference when the best conventional weapons are sufficient to kill most enemies in one or two hits.

To me, the point isn't the artifact, though.  The point is what skill the dwarf has just become legendary in.  I'd prefer to have the higher chance for masterwork weapons than masterwork mechanisms, as I don't tend to use a lot of traps (not counting elaborate death traps, which don't benefit from mechanism quality anyway)

[oris472]

Personally, I'd rather have the artifact furniture and especially the armor... too much protection is just never enough and the extra damage from artifact weapons doesn't make much difference when the best conventional weapons are sufficient to kill most enemies in one or two hits.

To me, the point isn't the artifact, though.  The point is what skill the dwarf has just become legendary in.  I'd prefer to have the higher chance for masterwork weapons than masterwork mechanisms, as I don't tend to use a lot of traps (not counting elaborate death traps, which don't benefit from mechanism quality anyway)

Aha, I see what you're saying - Legendary Weaponsmith > Legendary Mechanic.  By far.

IIRC, mechanism quality only affects trap accuracy. Cheapo mechanisms work just as fast as masterwork in bridges etc. and are essential for a danger room.  Since you only really need a handful of weapon traps to defend an early fort until you get a proper deathtrap going, you could just give him 4 Mechanics instead of 5, make a few good mechanisms for traps, then pull him off Mechanics well before he levels up and just give the labor to someone else. 

Another possibility is switching Mechanics with Brewing - again, one might do 4 Mechanics instead of 5 just to be safe, and watch his skillgain closely.  With magma, it's easy to keep a Metalsmith constantly busy making barrels and bins and it's almost certain that he'll always be a better Metalsmith than Mechanic.  And before magma, your Metalsmith won't have much to do at all, so Mechanics can fill a little of his down time until you get the forges up and running.

[rephikul]

7 novice ambushers, one also have novice appraisal and judge of intent. I dont actually use the ambushing skills, I just take it for the free armour sets.
Also, 60 dogs