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[Jake]

It usually works out cheaper to bring a load of wood logs with you instead of barrels. Mind you, you don't actually need that many of them until you've received your first couple of migrant waves.

[DracoGriffin]

It usually works out cheaper to bring a load of wood logs with you instead of barrels. Mind you, you don't actually need that many of them until you've received your first couple of migrant waves.

Aren't wood logs 3 pts and lowest value meat 2 pts? How do wood logs work out cheaper?

I suppose if you're considering the 2 pts meat is limited, but wood logs is "unlimited", so I guess at whatever the cutoff point is for 2pt meat, wood logs would become cost effective but that's a lot of food/barrels before you run out of 2pt meat.

[Carrock]

I usually buy enough food and drink to last me until the first caravan, occasionally brewing a bit extra if I get low. Barrels rarely become an issue, and since I carry on buying most of my booze I've had to dump some to free up space. Only after 5 years has my current fort started farming (but I've set a population cap and only have 45 dwarfs). It means I can concentrate on getting weapons and armour going, as well as getting rid of stone everywhere. The day I learn to live with unpolished walls and stones lying around all over the place is the day I'll enjoy DF more, but I get obsessively tidy in DF. I've lost forts due to an ambush killing all the dwarfs clearing up after the previous ambush.

[Kian]

What's the absolute least you need to embark with? Items you don't embark with it, then get from a caravan count as needed, since you can't produce them on site. The wagon itself will give you wood for a carpenter workshop and wooden axes, which solves wood issues. What do you need to build the first pick, though?

[TurkeyXIII]

Anvil, copper nugget.  That is all.

[Biowraith]

I've taken to bringing one unit of each type of milk, then on arrival turning it into cheese.  Food and a barrel for only 1 point.

[Jororked Forgefire]

Just the wagon.  Dwarves don't need supplies.  With the addition of clay, making enough to buy everything in the caravan in the first autumn just got easier.  Course without trees things get 'interesting'.

[PopeRichardCorey]

Just the wagon.  Dwarves don't need supplies.  With the addition of clay, making enough to buy everything in the caravan in the first autumn just got easier.  Course without trees things get 'interesting'.

Making enough to buy the entire first caravan has never been difficult.  How does Clay make it any easier?  You need fire to make clay, and that burns through your Wood.

[Girlinhat]

To start a fort from the barest of bones, you need one weapon-grade metal, and anvil, and a stone (so that your forge will be fire-safe) OR one pick and one anvil.  If you have this, you can cut yourself off from the surface entirely and never have any contact with anyone ever.

[Urist Imiknorris]

To start a fort from the barest of bones, you need one weapon-grade metal, and anvil, and a stone (so that your forge will be fire-safe) OR one pick and one anvil.  If you have this, you can cut yourself off from the surface entirely and never have any contact with anyone ever.

Ashes are technically fire-safe.

So you only need an anvil, a piece of (weaponable-metal) ore, and the wood from the wagon. Use the ore to build a wood furnace, make two bars of charcoal and one of ashes, deconstruct the wood furnace, use the ashes to build a smelter, smelt the ore, deconstruct the smelter, use the ashes & anvil to build a forge, and forge a pick.

[Cotes]

Ashes are technically fire-safe.

Aphorism! Sigged.

[Funburns]

You actually don't need to embark with anything at all.

Deconstruct the wagon immediately, use the three logs to construct a carpenter's workshop and two wooden training axes. Deforest the entire map repeatedly, building yourself a wooden palisade while gathering plants and constructing barrels to hold the booze in, and trade for a pick and anvil in the autumn. Proceed to build an entire civilization with fewer resources than seven homeless people.

I usually get my dwarves some skills that raise happiness earlier, create value faster and cause less metal depletion during smithy training, in case I don't get good migrants. As for items, I go with the 2x pick and 1x axe combo because I do like digging out my dream-fort earlier than the winter frosts.

[Girlinhat]

See, that was the thing.  The question was "What do I need to embark with, including things I would have to buy anyways?"  In some way or another, you have to import an anvil and pick (or some ore).  Because of this, these are considered "must take on embark" things, because if you don't embark with them, you will HAVE to buy them later, so all you're doing to yourself is squandering a year.

[Lord Darkstar]

Well, you don't ever have to have an anvil. Nor a pick.

IF you are going to be a surface dweller, no pick needed. You can use wood and plants from the area, and wherever you start, you get 3 wood out of the starting wagon, so that's a carpenter's workshop (1 log), and 2 logs left for whatever (training axe to cut trees to start your lumber industry, for instance).

If you aren't going to bother with metalshops, you don't need an anvil.

It is possible to build a highly successful surface or suspended fort using only wood and surface available resources. However, you do have to look out for a few things. Such as: No stone means no early mechanisms nor anything that depends on that. No stone and no metal means never any mechanisms. No mechanisms really hurt my fortress defense abilities, so I find it very challenging (no traps, no drawbridges (NO LEVERS OR LINKS!), no traction benchs, etc).

With clay, you can make a LOT of stuff, and clay is often available to surface. With sand you get glass making.

[Nekudotayim]

It is possible to build a highly successful surface or suspended fort using only wood and surface available resources.

Never tried it, but do constructions burn? One dragon and this castle will be a flaming hell on earth.