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[ledgekindred]

A little bit of wiki, a little bit of forums, and huge, giant, massive piles of dead dwarves.  I started on one of the 40d releases and probably had 20 forts before they survived even a season or two.  Tons of trial and error later and I've had a couple of forts last for over 10 years before I generally get bored with the epic military slaughtering anything that so much as shows its face on the map. 

I kept bugging friends of mine to play it, but nobody was impressed with the lack of fancy 3d graphics until I got one of my Old-Skool UNIX buddies to try it, based on his love of rogue-likes, and now he does little else but play DF and talk about the epicness of his forts.

[Silvit]

i first got into the game in 07, at first i picked it up without too much Fun and for the first few months used the ingame help (?) then a friend who i had introduced to the game asked me about the wiki. ever since then i have been using the wiki and the forums to discover more of DF.

[wrwr]

The wiki when questions came up. After some minor setbacks, my fourth fortress survived long enough to see the second and even the third year. But for some mysterious reason it got no caravans and no immigrants.

[Triaxx2]

I spent a couple of hours banging my head on a wall. I play DF well.

[evileeyore]

Capt Duck, then the wiki, then the forums (though I still rewatch episodes of Capt Duck, read the wiki and the forums)..

Then I learned from the burning/freezing/starving/torn apart/drowned cumbled remains of thousands failed fun fortresses.

[MythagoWoods]

Lots of dying, swearing, and hilarity.  Only after I got a grip of the basics did I discover the wiki and this forum.

Doesn't stop my dwarves from the constant suffering though.

[Mungrul]

I started out as so many do after reading Boatmurdered.
My initial attempts to play were like banging my head against a brick wall.
I hated the interface; I hated how the game looked. How could such wonderful stories come out of something so ugly?
I gave up in frustration.

But stories kept me interested until RPS pointed out TinyPirate's complete and utter newby tutorial.
Due to not understanding how water worked, I ended up flooding the world of my first fortress while trying to divert a stream on top of a volcano. Then imps shot fireballs at my dwarves and burned them all.

But thanks to the tutorials, I was hooked.

I think the biggest turning point for me was realising that farms only worked properly if you used the seasonal crop functionality.
After that, everything else was garnishing. Now all of my fortresses are mental sprawling affairs, and I love every second of it.

I still can't play the game without some degree of prettification, and to that extent I only play using Mike Mayday's releases, but I don't mind the interface at all now (well, okay, the 2010 military interface still bamboozles me), and I honestly think it's probably my favourite game ever.
It's certainly the most insanely detailed one.

I just wish that the rate of migrant influx wasn't quite the torrent it is now. I got so used to having to attract migrants to my fortress in 40d, it's not uncommon to see a migration wave of over 20 just a couple of years into the life of a new fortress for me.

And children. I hate children. Uninvited guests who are completely useless for seemingly endless years, and the buggers just keep popping up.
I may very well have to create a baby drowner again. It worked incredibly well in 40d, and kept my framerate at reasonably playable levels.
My current fortress has a population of 232, I think a third of which are children and babies.

Dwarf Fortress.
Where infanticide is a performance option.

[shadenight123]

i learned it like a dwarf.
instead of climbing the curve of hell i dug right through it.
Instead of emerging to the top and look at the sky, i dug deep beneath it and reached Hell and beyond!
and when i reached the end of the tunnel i dug i looked back.
Yes, i had many caveins.
Yes i had to read a couple of things written on ancient scrolls, but hail god i managed through. And now i'm enjoying quality time.

To turn it back into modern language non metaphorical:
i tried this game thrice.
first times, ascii killed me. i was still a little young.
second time, difficulty killed me plus the ascii. i was still too young.
Third time, i read boatmurdered, i beat the shit out of my own head for being so stupid, and got back to it.
Though by then, i discovered "lazy newb pack". and...tilesets.
from then on, i know i may not be an hardcore who goes only ascii, but with tilesets, i'm as happy as hell when dwarfs break the candy bars.

And yes, the wiki helped. As the "complete guide for utter newbs on DF". i didn't even know you could smash people with a bridge by repeating the order!

[The Merchant Of Menace]

My girlfriend taught me everything I know about DF, after that it was just trial and error.

[jaxy15]

TinyPirate's guide and the wiki helped me.

[proxn_punkd]

Wiki magic, and a lot of forts I deleted as soon as something remotely went wrong (or even just got too intimidating).

[flieroflight]

slowly

[Cuppsworth]

I just kept playing until I got better. Even now I'm not very good.