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[Lytha]

At the moment, my first action is to press the pause key and to adjust the labors of the dwarves with Dwarf Therapist. Then I have them cut down the wagon, allow the copper nugget as a non-economic stone and build a wood furnace to get the production of the pick going.

If I were in a life-supporting environment, I would set up a food stockpile and send them out to gather plants, but that's not the case for me at the moment.


I'm in a phase of "embark with as few items as possible in an environment without water or plants" at the moment.

[Wastedlabor]

1. Embark with 5 novice miners + something else, one cooker/brewer, one leader, picks, food, booze, one bucket, one rope, some stone and wood, one male war dog and several female war dogs. I don't really need any fancy stuff done the first year, just survive any hostiles on arrival.

2. Assign some war dogs. Wall the wagon. Don't even bother cutting wood. Let the war dogs storm the random hostile.

3. Dig down to the caves, wall the caves, dig down to the magma. Set up cage traps. Build beds and a small dining room. Build a well.

4. Build the Trade Depot. Continue digging until the first caravan.

That's it. I play low pop cap so defenses are mechanical and digging the corridors of death is top priority. If dwarves get hungry they can eat some dogs.

[Spaghetti7]

My start goes something like this:

-Dig out my fortress 1 z-level down, make stone, wood and the other essential stockpiles.
-Cut down lots of trees, make another stone stockpile since the other is running out of space.
-Realise my dwarfs are starving and quickly make all the workshops and gather lots of plants.
-Make a nice military, that will of course be crushed at the first ambush.
-First ambush comes, everyone dies, start again.

Ok so it was a bit more than my start but none of my fortresses last any longer than that.

[Psieye]

Why build anything on embark? You got the stone around you, just carve it the shape you want and put on some doors. It's quicker, lower maintenance, and gives you stones to work with later. Especially if time is a crucial factor in getting shelter, why screw around with pieces of wood and stone?

SLOW. My miners don't have time to carve all that out at the beginning, they need to find the caverns and magma sea. Everyone else needs to be on stand by to wall in. 5 non-miners can put up 15 rocks into a wall much faster than 2 miners can dig out some nice hole and then have everyone move the stuff in there. Less if I replace some walls with workshop inaccessible tiles. I make a random hole in the ground of maybe 4x6 size and that's everyone's dorm and dining room until I've found the magma sea and set up the magma plumbing.

[WrathNail]

As I typically embark in hostile or evil environments, getting basic defenses up is key.

In fertile areas I bring NO seeds or plants whatsoever, instead relying on plant gathering and later above ground farming and fishing as an immediate source of food. Also saves up points to spend on weapons to repel the undead.

[NewSheoth]

The first thing I do is think what will this fortress be. For now I embark on rather benign surroundings: with a volcano and a brook/river, in warm/hot/scorching, preferrably untamed biomes with at least some trees (I want to level up my military training and commanding skills, as well as really complicated trap designing skills before embarking on evil glaciers and oceans and such). I find a good place for the fortress, preferrably somewhere between the volcano and the river/brook and in a slope. Then I quickly dig out a relatively big hall, deconstruct my wagon and move everything inside as soon as possible (if there's no danger on the surface) and build a couple of workshops a drawbridge to seal the entrance. Then I go about setting up farms and magma industry halls and generally expanding. Somewhere around then, or a bit later on, I trap the entrance or make a heavily trapped detour to be able to keep the gates open. Then I do whatever strikes me fancy.

[Uzu Bash]

SLOW. My miners don't have time to carve all that out at the beginning,

You're saying that mining is slower than construction? Are we playing the same game?

[Vercingetorix]

I always start off with seven peasants, six picks, and one axe (along with supplies...I bring more instead of spending points on experience).  From there, I start digging towards the caverns/set up my farms while the woodcutter chops down trees.  From there, he starts making beds and barrels and whatnot while the rest are either carving out our initial settlement or walling off the caverns ASAP.

[Starkos127]

I usually embark with basic equipment. I always make sure I have 20 urists of every type of alcohol; a male and female war dog; and a male cat.

My dwarves usually look like this:
2 miner/masons
1 woodcutter/carpenter
1 woodcutter/mechanic
1 doctor (2 levels of every doctor skill)
1 "Brew Master" grower/brewer
1 Peasant (with appraiser skill)

I'm still a bit new, I've just been experimenting with different biomes. Lately I've been playing with !!FUN!! volcanoes, no accidents yet 

[Musashi]

I dig an entrance, make a large enough storeroom, and make enough stockpiles to put everything inside before those motherfriggin' buzzards steal everything again.

[eggrock]

While it's not the very first thing I do on embark, breaching all 3 caverns and having magma workshops is something I get done before the first summer arrives. Flat embark area and a lot of idlers micromanaged to wall off caverns immediately. Then I build my fort vertically with the surface for trade and lumber and the depths for housing and the magma for my first industries. Stone crafting is an immense waste of time in my book, though when I have spare dwarves I will pursue it to see what fun crafts I get out - definitely not something my starting 7 should ever deal in.

I find stonecrafting to be highly useful early on. Getting stonecrafting up asap allows me to buy just about every useful good from the first year's caravans and get the clothier, leatherworker and cook up and running in short order, and indirectly the glassmaker with cloth bags (bought and made). The farmers wind up with plenty of seeds and once someone with gem cutting/setting arrives in a migrant wave, he or she can skill up by encrusting stone goods.

After awhile the stonecrafter pumps out so much crap that bins can be a problem, but by that time there are excessive amounts of dye, thread and cloth for a textile industry. Basic pigtail cloth goods have a higher base value than common stone goods so clutter can be reduced.

Caveat: This is in a calm area and assumes caravans make it to the fort easily in the first year.

[FuzzyZergling]

I usually dig down into a soil area for immediate food stockpiles, with farms coming right after.
Then, I dig a few z-levels lower to set up workshops and an everything-except-food-and-refuse stockpile.
Bedrooms and a meeting area come later.

[thijser]

1 Generally explore the area finding water, wood mountains, look for the volcano(If I embarked on one) and look for defensable spots. After that I look for annimals.
2 Dig a entrance hall of some 10 tiles long. This is usually done somewhere close to the water for the farming area.
3 Dig out a small industry area with a few small stockpiles large parts of which are in the entrance.
4 Dig out a farming area
5 Make floodgate and lever and finish the farming area.
6 Make a dinning area.
7 Expand the indusry area.
8 Make a meeting hall near the lever for the farming area, this will become the main leaver area.
9 Make beds+bedrooms.
10 Make cage traps for defense
11 expand the whole fortress.

[LoveMachine]

I used to bring a stonecrafter - you can easily buy the caravan with mugs and stuff but it takes loads of bins and/or hauling, crafts are otherwise useless and you'll likely get a legendary stonecrafter through a mood at some point anyway.

Better to have a good mechanic and sell the low quality ones.  They're too heavy though, so start making lavish meals as the caravan draws near.

If you still don't have enough then buy their most expensive ingredients as soon as they arrive, cook them up real quick and sell it back to them.

That's why I get farms up straight away - so the cook has plenty to practice with and there's lots of high quality food and booze to cheer everyone up during the coming horrors.