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[Serrational]

Just becuse ths happened recently to me, I just wanted to see how other peoples first forts went down.
Me? Horrific tantrum spiral which ended up with dead kittens, no food and everybody moshing it up and smashing the rooms. And when my best hunter went mad with nothing to hunt he started sitting in the barracks shooting anybody who went in. Not happy.

So, I've said my piece, anyone else want to speak their minds and tell what happened?

[Killabyte]

I had no idea how to farm so everyone died within the first year or so of thirst. Quite a boring end really.

[Darvi]

I had the lower levels flooded with magma, followed by raging !!dorf!!s everywhere.

[Rince Wind]

I didn't know how to use traps. And after one look at the military screen i decided that it was too complicated.
And then 7 Goblins or so came, I ignored them, because usually Goblins are just cannonfodder. Well, not the armored kind in DF. They slaughtered everybody.

[moki]

My first fort met a watery death. Dug a moat connected to the river without lookin if there were any rooms underneath. The whole fort was on one level at that time and I hadn't built any doors either, except a raising bridge at the entrance and only exit... a raised bridge linked to a lever in the first room that got flooded and nothing to stop the water from spreading out and killing the dwarves locked inside by their own machinery.
To say it with one of my favourite movies:
 

Urist McDave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry, Urist. I'm afraid I can't do that.

I have to say, it's not too bad for a first try... there was some potential for Fun, but sadly I abandoned before it started. Should have dug my way out or started anew with the one miner who was digging the moat, eventually damming the river and pumping out the first fort. Except I didn't even know, that was possible... *sigh*


[edit]
Now that I think of it, that couldn't have been the fist fort. I don't think, I knew about mechanics and drawbridges... maybe the second or third. The first definitely died of hunger and thirst. I think, I cooked my whole starting supply of plump helmets, leaving me with mountains of delicious roasts but no seeds.

[NSQuote]

DIGDIGDIGDIGDIG - wait, I'm out of food?

Time to farm I gue - *all water on map freezes*

Your fortress has crumbled to its end.

[Nexii Malthus]

The first fort always fails due to lack of food.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

I started in 40d, before I checked the internet for any tips.

I tinkered around, waded through the in-game tutorial and finally managed to build a carpenter workshop. And a bed. But i didn't know how to dig and I was being attacked by all kinds of woodland critters. Quit in frustration, more or less.

Now the second fort ended with a bit more FUN. It involved not knowing how to get food/drinks and a spectacular tantrum spiral. Ah, memories.

[Jacob/Lee]

First fort: no food
Second fort: no food
Third fort: Ground to a halt when I made all my dwarves drink water instead of booze not knowing how important it was.

[slothen]

40d, I had watched captainduck's tutorials for hours.  I gave up after the first year or two because I didn't like my design.  It wasn't until around my third or forth fort that I started having trouble with ambushes because I began to underestimate them and didn't prepare well enough, so I would abandon after incurring a significant number of deaths.  I've never lost a fort to lack of booze, lack of food, or an honest to armok tantrum spiral.  Invaders, floods, HFS, and forgotten beasts have done it, but usually I get bored with a fort after 6 years and am unsatisfied with how I've built it and abandon.

My current fort is on year thirteen, and I've done lots of stuff I've never done before.  Automated showers, execution pit w/ megabeast, throne room for duchess, deluxe hospital, deluxe jail, water reactor, giant water trap, and a danger room.  Next step is to construct and enormous magma pump stack.

[Urist Imiknorris]

I abandoned my first several forts.

[Namfuak]

I'm almost positive my second fort actually lived long enough to die to HFS.  I knew it existed, but I had no idea how to mine around adamantine tubes.

I think my third died to the first goblin siege when I found out the hard way that the escape tunnel I had built was perfectly visible to goblins.

[Cassicotca]

Cant remember first but most epic failure was with a 1 tile meeting hall. Had 2-3 dwarfs die in battle with goblins and the 80 other went berserk and there was blood and furniture everywere.

[Kluge]

First fort: no food
Second fort: no food
Third fort: Ground to a halt when I made all my dwarves drink water instead of booze not knowing how important it was.

Probably this. I remember I kept hitting the "?" key trying to figure out wtf was going on.

Somewhere in my first few tries, I remember learning about cave-ins after my prized miner was incapacitated after I finally learned to farm.

... Then I learned about floods...  -- And I didn't know how to look for a proper site... I remember one time I had an underground river where Evil popped out. After that, I assumed there were always underground rivers, so I made a point of building elaborate storage units above ground. ... And then I discovered [curious] animals, so I set up elaborate traps, including a ridiculous spiral hallway lined with weapon traps which led out of my one-tile upstairs/downstairs tile leading to the Outside...

...Then there was the volcano.......... and that series of training accidents where I gave high-quality weapons and had no armor...

[dwarfguy2]

I embarked near a magma tube. Imps came up and burned the whole fortress, killing most of them. One of the survivors went berserk, the other was still down in the mines. I sent him to mine into water and drown himself, but he never did. He got thirsty, went back up, and was chased and eventually slaughtered by the insane dwarf.

Nowadays I usually just abandon because of too much stone and not enough space.