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[Pukako]

Stayed up late one night reading Boatmurdered (WHY ISN'T THERE A MOVIE OF IT OUT YET?).

Downloaded it the next day.  Watched Cap'n Duck, only his version was slightly older than the one I had and some things didn't quite gel.

The wiki and this forum have been invaluable, and the trouble I have now is expecting EVERY forum to be this useful, fast, and forgiving of complete nubies...

[Darkmere]

+1 for Tinypirate's tutorial. CaptainDuck's vids were available, but my reading comprehension blows my listening comprehension out the window. So I started there, then moved on to the wiki and TnE. Then I registered here.

[Syrup Roast]

I learned to play DF by having lots of fun. And now that I have a more-or-less functioning knowlege of what's going on, I can have fun. And whenever I come across fun, I learn from it so I can have more fun.

Yeah it's a positive feedback loop of sorts.

[Matazat]

Read a bit of Boatmurdered and then found The Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial for Dwarf Fortress, which helped me get started. It was all trial and error and constant wiki lookups from there.

[Eoganachta]

I was recommended it by a friend after he told me about such jewels as !!Cat Tallow Roasts!!. Normally being good at learning how to play a game by trial and error in under and hour, I crashed and burned when it took me till my second fort to learn how to move up and down z levels. ( I only found out there was more z levels after I zoomed to a that had run up a hill and then I couldnt figure out how to get back). After that I spent a week or so before the end of year exams reading the wiki and trying to get a fort established without the little guys being maulled by wildlife, starving, dying of thirst, asphyxiation, etc
In my first 'successful' fort (read: got migrants!), I rage quited after my mayor and manager/broker were both one-shotted my a mood-dwarf (at which point I still didnt understand) and managed to kill half my military who were only wreslers. lol
After that I watch CaptnDuck's videos and finally learnt how irrigation worked, struggled with the military, and actually didnt die.
But I'm still learning. I only found out how alerts worked about a month ago, and I'm still going back to the wiki

EDIT: I'm starting the Fortress Defense mod. New gen. Fingers cross. My last fort got up to year 8 without a single goblin getting past my last line of defenses (and even then only one or two even got close.); time for a little more excitment!

[Jimlad11]

deleted

[Dutchling]

Followed a guide that covered most of the basic things, than followed the wiki military guide and never had any real problems with the 'learning curve'.
Of course there were enough small things that I need to look for in the wiki or ask here at the forums

[nanomage]

i just played it until my forts ceased to die. wiki was a help though but i tried to look it up as a last resort only

[Gamerlord]

I cheated for the first three forts.  Using super-dwarves via runesmith  figured out the basics of producing things like crafts and food, but I'm only now learning the military ropes and stuff like glass and fertiliser. It took me ages to figure out how to make things from adamantium, and even now I need the wiki for different ores. But Im slowly getting there. If you're good at modding, you can reduce the learning curve by boosting dwarves, or you can just go the runesmith route for the first few games like me.

[Psieye]

Camped at the wiki for days before I ever started the game up. This was in the 40d days, so my first fort was about learning how to make a well and the legend of carp. Really though, it was just camping at the wiki for days on end - just like how I once spent days on TVTropes.

[Gamerlord]

just like how I once spent days on TVTropes.

Been there. Between these forums and TVTropes, I go on this forum most. Just barely.

[Naina]

I discovered DF through TV Tropes and, at this point, DF wins the time tug-of-war. I started out reading the classics: Boatmurdered, Syrupleafs and Headshoots, then pretty much read the entire wiki. Then I just dove in, with the wiki open and about a million tabs.

[Tharwen]

I started on the quickstart guide but after a couple of pages I just experimented and used the wiki for detailed information.

Honestly, I think the controls and the stairs are the hardest things to grasp in the entire game.

[Cabbagetroll]

Slowly and painfully

[Sir Leonard III]

A bit of help from my sibling, the wiki and the forum.
On my third fort I managed to have an amazing food, steel and wood industry going along. The only problem was messiness.
Now on my fourth fort I finally managed to not have everything littered with stone, and it's not just a direct stairwell down into the earth, surrounded by walls.