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[Lobster]

Hmmm, firstly turn off all of your mods. Using those mods without actually playing the game first, it just ruins in and makes no sense. Try playing the game as it was designed a few times. To do that you'll probably need to read a few guides to get used to the basics.

The way to learn and play DF is to fail many many times. If that will be too frustrating for you, then you'll have to just give up now.

But don't give up. The best fun from DF, all the stuff you've read about on the forums, comes from playing until you get the basics down and then invariably trying some grand (read: stupid) idea that results in !!FUN!!

DF isn't a game you can win. In fact the closest definition of winning is a fortress that is up and running and self sufficient. Which is really rather boring once you actually achieve. Its only interesting to try and achieve it and have fun occur in the meantime.

Also DF is less random than you make out. Firstly, you can have some control over the resources you start with by picking an appropriate embark. Secondly you can trade for more or less anything that you don't have. And making enough goods to trade is usually fairly straightforward.

[Dorf3000]

Random chance,
I hate chance I hate dice, dice games are stupid. Luck dice, get away from me I have no desire to play games of chance,

But thats all there is in DF if you embark somewhere you simply hope for good, there is no unlocking or working towards, you just work with what you get in the location.

Stop playing computer games, they ALL use random chance to determine at least some part of the outcome.  Learn chess or Go instead where everything is determined at the start and only skill and planning determine your success.

On the subject of 'perfect embarks' and having every possibility available all the time, when you go to a restaurant and order the soup of the day are you mad that you can't have the soup of yesterday too?  When you build a snowman do you complain that it's too cold to wear a t-shirt?  When you vacation in Paris do you feel frustrated that there's no London in it?  Enjoy what you have and forget about trying to have it all.

DF isn't a mountain to be climbed and a flag put on the top once you're done.  You're never done, it's always uphill, it's always learning, the FUN is in the trying!

[brucemo]

I try to do good embarks, too.  I can understand embarking on a glacier, and that sounds fun, but I normally try to make the best defended and most economically viable fort I can as quickly as I can, and I trie to find embarks that will enhance this.

To the OP:  If you want coal, you need to embark in a place with sedimentary stone, preferably sedimentary flux, meaning dolomite, chalk, or limestone.  If you see this type of stone in your embark description you should end up with tons of coal, iron, and flux, so you can make a steel industry rapidly.

It seems to me the choice is between that or a volcano, since you normally don't get sedimentary stone with a volcano.

Sometimes it's hard to find sedimentary flux with a near-surface water source that's not an aquifer.

[Ieb]

Embarking on chalk or limestone areas are among the best areas, since they tend to have magnetite clusters(more precisely known as "so much iron that I'll never need it after this one cluster is done"), and if you REALLY want to be picky, try to pick somewhere, for example, with a 4x4 embark, 1/4 of the area is chalk/limestone, and the rest having different stone layers. You'll have some variety to what stone, minerals and gems you can find on the site, but it's not THAT great really. Unless you really want to mine all those unique gems and make, I don't know, the world's most bitchin' non-artifact platinum/adamantine statue of cheese?

And if you want to take it easy for a few ingame years, why not just turn off enemy attacks from the init file? Make the fort as big as you want, get a proper military up and when you're all set, turn on invasions again.

Another piece of advice would be not to get too attached to your forts if you're not playing them to construct some sort of megaconstruction. This is a "learn from mistakes" sort of game, everytime you screw up, you tend to know why and how you screwed up, so next time the mistake won't be repeated. Burrows, unfortunately placed channels that flood the entire fort, building walls on a bridge that ends up collapsing(the wall, not the bridge) and takes down seventeen dorfs on it's way down, all legendary and socialites. There's so many ways for your minions to kill themselves and as result start killing each other, that it's ridiculous. It's not even funny.

But that's where the glory of it all really is. At least, that's the conclusion I've noticed people tend to get to once they become jaded from all that baby-murder they read and see take place.

"Oh look at that 2, that's her head. Dem dorfs, man."

[Fishbulb]

I think steel's overrated. The fort I'm currently playing — Halllords, thanks for the triple consonant random-name generator — is on a sedimentary plain, and it's got steel coming out the ears. It's got so much steel I ordered up a few hundred steel saw blades to line my hallways with traps. It's got so much steel I had to dig out a new cave and dump the stone just so I'd have a place to store the bins.

But you know what? Steel's not really a challenge. You find the ore, you find the flux, you find the coal, you dig for a bit and you're done. And then your soldiers are basically unkillable.

Next fort out, I think I'm gonna try for a bronze industry. Hunting for copper and tin ores vein by vein strikes me as more challenging that hitting one magnetite cluster and being set for life.

Point is, it gives me no satisfaction to build a perfect fort in a perfect location. It gives me great satisfaction to scratch a shallow hole out of unforgiving, ungenerous earth and by god, make my dwarves thrive anyway.

[EddyP]

All types of stone? Most of them are redundant. When I embark I look for just a few types of stone - one out of limestone/chalk/dolomite and at least two out of granite/diorite/gabbro. They've got everything you need. Volcanos aren't needed as there's magma on every map, underground rivers don't exist anymore, and in my experience large rivers and oceans are overrated. There are trees in the caverns and lots of people make tree farms now, so aboveground trees aren't vital. For civs check before you embark rather than afterwards so you don't waste time.

[rephikul]

But you know what? Steel's not really a challenge. You find the ore, you find the flux, you find the coal, you dig for a bit and you're done. And then your soldiers are basically unkillable.

You know, pretty much all non spoiler metals are like that. Bronze, silver or copper it's all the same. That's why I made it harder for iron & flux to coexist in my mod.

[Ancre]

Heh, I kinda have the same problem as you, I think. I have a perfect plan and I want it done to the very letter ; I have a game with vast options possibles and I want to have the opportunity to try every single one of them, and achieve them (it mostly happen with "construction" games where you build something, for me). If things are not exactly the way I want I can get frustrated and quit. It does not make for a fun game actually.

My solution is, try a different approach. When playing dwarf fortress, however counterintuitive that sounds, don't try to build a fort. Try something else instead, try surviving in a crappy embark, try that Fortress Defense mode and see how long your dwarves can survive waves after waves of sieges, try things where planning is supposed to be efficient instead of aesthetic, because that way you won't care if the colors aren't symmetrical or if there's three tiles difference between the placing of those two walls, and you can repair mistakes then. Or try to write a story, where you don't know what will happen, so you actually don't plan everything ahead. And if Urist McYouCareAboutHim dies and you're very frustrated about his death, include it in your story. Actually, just don't make a plan on how you're going to play the whole game before playing. It worked for me

[Indricotherium]

I hear you, OP, though for me it was a little different. I had a bad case of the Never-Unpause's. Everytime I wanted to decide anything, trees to cut, places to dig, place a workshop, even putting in an order to repeatedly brew drinks - I'd pause the game. and then just look around the fortress for things that needed 'tweaking'. Hours would go by, but only IRL.

I'm not sure how I did it, but reading the stories and advice here helped a lot, but something snapped in me and I'm now happily zipping around my un-paused fort (most of the time!) and getting on with it while letting the little drunks get on with it too.

Also, I don't know if this will work for you but it does for me, think of the caravans as a mini-game for acquiring the resources you might be missing on your map. Protect that dwarven liaison! My map (so far) lacks all forms of flux (and the metals to make bronze, iron I'm drowning in) and yet 7 years in I have 5 dwarfs in full steel armour. I pay a premium for flux stones, steel bars, pig iron and weapons and armour made of steel. The other 12 in the military are making do with iron for the moment. Why do I stay here? Because for the project I am doing the map is otherwise ideal.

While it's true that you may not be able to have everything in one fort, you do have everything in the game at your disposal. You may just need to run several forts is all. There's nothing wrong with running several forts and switching between them when you tire of the seaside and wish to bask by the volcano.

Anyway, hang in there! Recognizing you have a problem is the first step!

[madciol]

I have bad news for you. Toady in newest future version (0.31.19) signifiantly lessen amount of different ores, minerals etc. By design. You will be supposed to rely way more on caravans.

[chewie]

This lead to all my dwarves running outside to pick up his stuff.
You can imagine around fifty dwarves running up to a siege of goblins trying to grab the dead goblins gear. At the time I had no idea about burrows, and as the fortress I had just spent a good 12 hours game time building I was nearly in tears as a good forty dwarves dies to the goblins simply by running up to them with a sign on their foreheads saying "Just picking up your dead goblin friends stuff, please shoot me in the face'

But this is supposed to be the enjoyable part right? Dying=Fun?

Jup. You have to be more sadistic. Like "Hahaha, those dwarves are so stupid. Look at them being sliced up in tiny bits lol"
Don't start to have feelings for your your dwarves. Then you can REALLY enjoy it.

Also if you have done mistakes and the most terrible thing possible happens ("your Fortress has crumbled to its end"), you STILL have the possibility to reclaim and do it better a second time. (and imagine how good you feel when you have successfully beaten a 100-goblin siege)

[rephikul]

I have bad news for you. Toady in newest future version (0.31.19) significantly lessen amount of different ores, minerals etc. By design. You will be supposed to rely way more on caravans.

How's that forcing the player to rely on caravans if they can still dig up the now-even-less-variety ores wherever they are? Sorry for offtopic, but I stopped bothering with the DF future topic. Too much green text hurt my eyes.

[celem]

Also, consider losing speed:0 for a bit.  Learn to play at the intended pace and see if it helps you out.  Learning new things with warp-speed dwarves can be tricky and the challenges are much more enjoyable when balanced

[obliza]

Stop playing computer games, they ALL use random chance to determine at least some part of the outcome.  Learn chess or Go instead where everything is determined at the start and only skill and planning determine your success.

On the subject of 'perfect embarks' and having every possibility available all the time, when you go to a restaurant and order the soup of the day are you mad that you can't have the soup of yesterday too?  When you build a snowman do you complain that it's too cold to wear a t-shirt?  When you vacation in Paris do you feel frustrated that there's no London in it?  Enjoy what you have and forget about trying to have it all.

DF isn't a mountain to be climbed and a flag put on the top once you're done.  You're never done, it's always uphill, it's always learning, the FUN is in the trying!

I play chess all the time, when it comes to chess I'm a extremely patient person who does not mind a 4-5 hour game.
Imagine going to Paris, you know their are many attractions, the Eiffel tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame etc. You start a trip planning to view all of them but it turns out three of them are currently closed due to a private tour (or whatever) you have no control over this, this does not benefit you in anyway, its not fun to you, you simply have to deal and view them on the next trip. I don't enjoy that.

Also, consider losing speed:0 for a bit.  Learn to play at the intended pace and see if it helps you out.  Learning new things with warp-speed dwarves can be tricky and the challenges are much more enjoyable when balanced

This is one thing I plan to do in my next fortress.

Jup. You have to be more sadistic. Like "Hahaha, those dwarves are so stupid. Look at them being sliced up in tiny bits lol"
Don't start to have feelings for your your dwarves. Then you can REALLY enjoy it.

Also if you have done mistakes and the most terrible thing possible happens ("your Fortress has crumbled to its end"), you STILL have the possibility to reclaim and do it better a second time. (and imagine how good you feel when you have successfully beaten a 100-goblin siege)

I named every one of my dwarves. My best friend and room mate who I spent 95% of my time with is a Kindergarten teacher I really am not allowed to be sadistic :|

I hear you, OP, though for me it was a little different. I had a bad case of the Never-Unpause's. Everytime I wanted to decide anything, trees to cut, places to dig, place a workshop, even putting in an order to repeatedly brew drinks - I'd pause the game. and then just look around the fortress for things that needed 'tweaking'. Hours would go by, but only IRL.

I'm not sure how I did it, but reading the stories and advice here helped a lot, but something snapped in me and I'm now happily zipping around my un-paused fort (most of the time!) and getting on with it while letting the little drunks get on with it too.

Also, I don't know if this will work for you but it does for me, think of the caravans as a mini-game for acquiring the resources you might be missing on your map. Protect that dwarven liaison! My map (so far) lacks all forms of flux (and the metals to make bronze, iron I'm drowning in) and yet 7 years in I have 5 dwarfs in full steel armour. I pay a premium for flux stones, steel bars, pig iron and weapons and armour made of steel. The other 12 in the military are making do with iron for the moment. Why do I stay here? Because for the project I am doing the map is otherwise ideal.

While it's true that you may not be able to have everything in one fort, you do have everything in the game at your disposal. You may just need to run several forts is all. There's nothing wrong with running several forts and switching between them when you tire of the seaside and wish to bask by the volcano.

Anyway, hang in there! Recognizing you have a problem is the first step!

This helps a lot thankyou.

My solution is, try a different approach. When playing dwarf fortress, however counterintuitive that sounds, don't try to build a fort. Try something else instead, try surviving in a crappy embark, try that Fortress Defense mode and see how long your dwarves can survive waves after waves of sieges, try things where planning is supposed to be efficient instead of aesthetic, because that way you won't care if the colors aren't symmetrical or if there's three tiles difference between the placing of those two walls, and you can repair mistakes then. Or try to write a story, where you don't know what will happen, so you actually don't plan everything ahead. And if Urist McYouCareAboutHim dies and you're very frustrated about his death, include it in your story. Actually, just don't make a plan on how you're going to play the whole game before playing. It worked for me

I will do this

Must go but thankyou all for the feedback I really appreciate it.

[Frogwarrior]

I might also suggest: Face your fear. Embark once with one objective in mind: To run your fort into the ground as spectacularly as possible. Make everyone best friends and arm them to the teeth! Dig into the third cavern layer and don't put up any traps! Make your outpost go down in flames, and LAUGH as it does so.

Once you've taken savage pleasure from wrecking your creations, it will be a lot harder to be too offended if things don't go perfectly. Goblins uncloak in your dining room? AWESOME, you say, with a cruel smirk, I've always thought the decor could use a little more red, while you send in your militia to wipe out the intruders.