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[languard]

Inspired by another thread (can't find it again) I've been working on creating some learning scenarios.  Short, easy to accomplish goals that will help new players learn the game.  These won't pose much of a challenge to experienced players, though they still might be fun to try.  Each scenario is a separate fort.  Much like the scenarios from SimCity or Capitalism 2, the goal is to accomplish something very specific with that particular fort.  Nothing says that you have to stop once the goal is met, but you have 'won' and can abandon to start the next scenario.  The scenario list I have so far is thus:
Basic
   0. Basic Scenario Setup: Lazy Newb Package, disabling aquifers, setting dwarf cap to 30
   1. Digging, Housing, and Furniture
   2. Management/Crafting - Main goal is to create 200x of each type of rock craft (craft, instrument, toy, mug)
   3. Establishing Farming Industry - Main goal is to have a lot plants (haven't started toying with numbers yet)
   4. Processing Plants - Main goal will be realated to mill and farmer workshop outputs
   5. Food Industry - Hunting/Cooking/ect.  maybe combine with 4?
   6. Wrapping It Up: The Economic Fort - Main goal will be to create x amount of wealth.  Metal industry before this?


Here is what the first one looks like:
Scenario Description:
The purpose of this basic scenario is to gain experience in digging out rooms, creating furniture from rock and wood, and smoothing/engraving stone.  You will need to create some nice rooms for your dwarfs, and a wonderful dinning hall.
For new players: It is important to note that there is not one way to play Dwarf Fortress.  There are many, many different ways of playing.  The setup for this scenario is 100% geared towards letting you complete it within 2 game years tops.  It shouldn't even be that hard to hit the bonus objective of finishing it in the first year.  However, the lack of farming and food production will leave the fortress in a dangerous position after scenario goals have been completed.  Not to say that it's impossible to continue, but you'll be cutting it very close on food and drink supplies.
Goals:
   1. The original seven dwarfs must have their own room
   2. Each room will have a bed, cabinet, chest, and statue.  At least one of them must be stone.
   3. Each room will be fully engraved
   4. Each room will have at least 9 squares of floor space (3x3)
   5. There must be a common legendary dinning room
   6. Bonus: Do it all in the first year
   7. Extra Bonus: Finish it before the first caravan shows up
And here is the outline of the video tutorial:
   1. Embark selection
   2. Preparation
   3. Designating digging
   4. Designating trees/plants
   5. Stockpiles
   6. Workshops
   7. Digging the rooms
   8. Smoothing/Engraving
   9. Hurry up and wait
  10. Installing Furniture
  11. Designating Rooms

Updated to address some good points raised in the thread.

[metaliturtle]

Looks good so far.

[Naina]

I'd separate digging from housing/furniture.  Have the first session be carving out the entrance, digging stockpile rooms and digging an irrigation channel to set the farms up.

Then make the second session "establishing the farming industry", then Housing/Furniture.

I only suggest this because a new player may run out of food or booze before finishing the entire first module.

[NKDietrich]

I'd separate digging from housing/furniture.  Have the first session be carving out the entrance, digging stockpile rooms and digging an irrigation channel to set the farms up.

Then make the second session "establishing the farming industry", then Housing/Furniture.

I only suggest this because a new player may run out of food or booze before finishing the entire first module.

This is my suggestion as well. Sustaining a small number of dwarves should be the first priority. Then set up other exercises. You might also want to suggest that noobs cap their dwarf population relatively low, around 30. They can still get experience with most aspects of the game at that number, and 30 dwarves are super easy to take care of.

[Drakeero]

I think that might have been me.  Here's the plan I was using.

Play a bunch of random forts mainly with stoneworking to play around with fort design in the first 1-2 years, figuring out how to make stuff, place furniture, dig for stone, learn basic management skills like quantum stockpiles if you're digging in rock and don't mind that breach from reality, workshop and stockpile placement, and just getting familiar.  About how long does it take a dwarf to perform a task or group of tasks?  How fast do food and drink stockpiles drop over the seasons as migrants come in? [Also, why a bookkeeper is so important].  And, just how much ambushes suck.  [Never played a single fort long enough to get a seige.]  And, another important thing, getting a good idea how to design your fortress for future growth so you don't paint yourself into a corner.  Bonus for learning to think in 3D.  Mainly just "welcome to the playground" stuff like "how deep can I dig?".

Then I realized that a lot of my forts were having trouble, a lot of trouble.  I was toying around with farms and such but everything was looking rather, sad.  And the survivability of forts was pathetic at best.  Food was a never-ending struggle which often resulted in crisis.  Same with drinks.  Farms just never seemed to get tended especially when seeds got mixed in with the kitchen stockpiles a good distance away.  I didn't know how to set up a metalworking industry, just a dirt cheap stone crafting industy.  Same with other industries.  Then I got an idea.  Create different forts with the sole purpose of practicing different industries.

My first fort was a farming fort.  To make things easier I went into the init and turned off assaults.  Don't worry, I'll turn them back on later once I'm on my feet.  I've already forgotten what it went like but it wasn't too pretty.  Not in a Fun way but a disorganized mess, but at least I had adequate food and drink.  Not much, but survivable even with more migrants.  I probably would have been instantly annihilated by a seige.  My second farming/brewing industry fort was a massive success.  5000+ drinks, 4000+ plants, 1.4k seeds.  Centralized living center [no individuality, longer distances to bed, but it was sweet], workshops, resource, finished good storages set up fairly well.  I got good at dwarf management and managed to keep everyone busy for long periods.  The only problem is the trade caravans only had 1/300th the weight to carry what I was ready to export.  Oh yeah, I embarked out away from mountains so the whole thing was dug out of 3-4 z-layers of soil no aquifers in thick tree-rich jungle.  Everything was wood.

My third fort was a meat industry fort.  It was also a mess being a first attempt.  My animal husbandry sucks but that's why I was practicing it.  Another problem is I got too adventuresome and dabbled in too many other industries as migrants came in.  The whole thing showed some order but was still a logistics mess and it never really accomplished much.  Shelved that one.  Now I"m about to start my next game but I'm going to practice a military themed fort with only one major export, asskicking.  I suppose this might be a very good time to learn the metalworking industry as well.  [Going to self-challenge myself not to use magma forges this time around... Ha... not like I could dig that deep and organize it anyway].  Since I'll be digging into stone I can use the noob stone industry for profits without overwhelming myself with too many logistics [I hope].  Also, going to dabble in some more mechanics other then just cage traps.  And, assaults are now back on.

My future plans involve a fort that finishes developing a meat industry and then one that not just gets the side products tradeable, but turns them into finished goods.  A lot more complicated then something as linear as Farming -> Brewing.  Then I'm going to try to build a zoo just for the fun of it!  Get as many creatures caged/tamed as possible.  [Already finished switching PET_EXOTIC with PET tags until the Dungeon Master is fixed.]  Another reason I'm interrupting my plans with a sudden interest in military is so I can more safely open up caverns to get underground trees and bushes to grow in psuedo-farms [and capture those creatures.]

Side-projects: practice the hell out of the glassmaking industry, learn how to micro-manage and gem encrust stuff, a "mechanics palace" filled with redundant and pointless [not always] plumbing both water and magma [unless my FPS dies horribly].  A sub-section of that would be more intricate room layouts.  Non-rectangular rooms in 3-D as well as in 2-D.  Oh yeah, can't forget: get a more complete "farming" industry down with all the other sub-industries.  And that's basically what I have in mind right now.

This all leads up to some really fun forts I want to do.  Like, a double biome embark with an untamed wilds mountain and haunted/terrifying glacier at the far bottom of the world.  Build a palace out of glass at the bottom of an ocean.  Use a hack to embark on a named mountain and create a super-rich super wealthy super-decorated mountain hall.  Make a massive zoo/butchery.  And some pretty grand stuff involving spoilers.



I tend to have trouble trying to follow walkthroughs that try to cover too much information, cover it too quickly, or try to break it down into too many small sections.  That's why I decided to just try entire industries and sometimes sub-industries at a time until I got good at them, then go work on super forts and mega-projects.

My ultimate goal?  Create the perfect world and litter it with forts, making them grand, then abandoning them.  Then uploading the world for people to go through all the forts in adventure mode.

[tompliss]

   4. Each room will be at least 12 squares (4x3)

you're including walls, aren't you ? :p

[languard]

Some good comments/feedback, thanks all.

Regarding Survivability:
The plan was for the scenarios to be self-contained.  SimCity (and I think SimCity 2000) had something similar.  You would start a new city in scenario mode, and once the goals were completed you got a 'good job' screen, but could continue playing if you wanted.  Each of the basic lessons would be a new embark.  This would help in getting practice for finding good embarks, and help in getting use to outfitting your dwarfs since each embark would require a different setup.  Bring 100 booze and 90 food and you'll have no problems lasting until the first caravan, even with a migrant wave.  Given that you wont need an anvil, cloth, splints, ect, it is very easy to find the points to do so.  I'll also tweak the description to make it clearer that the basics are 7 different scenarios/forts, not one fort with 7 tasks.

Regarding Max Dwarfs:
That is a good point.  Probably should have a pre-scenario setup tutorial explaining how to tweak the ini files.

Regarding Rooms:
I meant 12 squares of floors, not 6 squares of floors and 6 squares of walls, so the designation would look like this:
xxxxxxx
xx xxxx
xx xxxx

[gtmattz]

I would totally fail this first one...  The 'housing' in my forts consists of NOTHING...  I find that dwarves that hang out in 1 tile meeting areas that consume masterwork food and drink will happily sleep on the floor forever.  I am not even sure I could bring myself to bother digging/constructing rooms for my starting 7, let alone furnishing them with more than a bed 

[Namfuak]

As much as I support doing this sort of thing, I think you'll quickly find waiting for all rooms to be engraved is a LONG process.  Keep in mind that you can't put down any statues until it is done or the corner won't be engraved.

Also, I'd recommend doing 3x3 rooms and taking out the weapon racks.  Just put the beds in one corner, the statue in another, the cabinet in another, and the coffer in the last.  The reason I say this is that 4x3 rooms are going to be annoying to find a usable aesthetically pleasing repeating pattern for.  And if you have 5 items in them (so that one space is left itemless) it will be even worse.  Also, weapon racks serve no purpose except pleasing nobles and creating barracks (weapons aren't actually stored on them, same with armor stands) and are made a mason's shop, so they don't really teach you a new skill of how to start an industry.

Also, if you want to try practicing building across z-levels, use a sandwich bedroom design.  If you keep your room at 4x3 it will probably be the most space-efficient you'll get anyway.  It's on the wiki, but it's pretty simple to explain.  Basically, you have an entrance level with up down staircases, and attached to each one one z-level above and one below is a corresponding up or down staircase, which houses the room.  If you want to get really fancy you can place floor hatches on them to act as a "Door."

[Lytha]

   1. Digging, Housing, and Furniture
   3. Establishing Farming Industry

Comments on what I have so far?

No. That gives new players the impression that housing is more important than a farming plot. Which it absolutely is not. Begin with the farming industry scenario and delay the housing until some time later.

I learned DF from threads or a tutorial that gave me the impression that a water source would be the most important thing ever, and that led me into my first tantrum spiral when I started with a megaproject-alike irrigation project while ignoring everything else. So, make sure that the new players get the priorities right unless you want to mislead them.

[Shoku]

If you're going to have them doing stone smoothing just tell them to smooth the dining room. It helps increase the value anyway.

I think the first fort should basically just encourage them to dig out some largish rooms, place some workshops, and a depot. Next step is farming and probably making a well that will work. After this is a good time to deal with migrants and auxiliary stuff like weaving, and now rooms for them become reasonably important. Finally you want to get forges going and get them setting up some military squads.

This actually goes further than what I think a tutorial ought to explain but more reasonable people would probably agree that holding their hand this far would tell them enough about how to operate the interface and they should be able to well enough tell what is happening as they venture into other stuff.


More importantly though is how you're guiding them through this. Would it be a webpage with some skeleton forts set up ready for whatever they were to do or something very different?

[Stelknecht]

Digging a cistern and well, maybe.

[languard]

After much internal debating, I'm going to leave the basic order mostly as is.  You have to cover digging before you can cover farming, and having a scenario based just on rooms/dinning halls doesn't make much sense to me.  I've added a scenario description that hopefully makes it clear that following the tutorial will leave the fortress in a dangerous position due to lack of food/drink production.  Also working on tightening up the language in the goals.  Also the tutorial part will be video tutorials.

Working on some Intermediate and Advanced ideas for scenarios as well.  The intermediates would get tutorials, the advanced ones would not.  I mean, if you need a tutorial for building a palace down where the Fun never ends, should you really be trying?

[Xenos]

Hmmm...maybe start the dwarves with a large enough stockpile of booze/food to last a couple years (make it clear that this is normally NOT the case)  This way they would be able to survive into the farming scenario w/o threat of dying (unless they play REALLY slow.  Use a modded save so booze/food is very cheap to purchase?)

[Gnauga]

Hmmm...maybe start the dwarves with a large enough stockpile of booze/food to last a couple years (make it clear that this is normally NOT the case)  This way they would be able to survive into the farming scenario w/o threat of dying (unless they play REALLY slow.  Use a modded save so booze/food is very cheap to purchase?)

If you need an expensive number or type of item during embark, you can mod your embarking dwarf-bucks so you have tons of food/drink. You can also mod your dwarves to speed 0 and mess with their skills via runesmith while you're setting up your scenario, and then return everything to a normal level for the scenario.