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[Scheming Koala]

For me it probably took me a me maybe week to learn how to get a self sustainable fort going and I thank Captnduck for his great tutorials for helping me understand how to play. The Biggest problem for me though was learning Advanced Military.
 
Also it took me a few weeks to start using the default Tile set because when I first started I used a graphics set to learn what I was looking but I really wanted to use the ASCII characters, not because I wanted to be hard core, but because I wanted to use my imagination to visualize what all the monsters and stuff look like.

[Trapezohedron]

About half a year to understand most of everything this game has to offer.

[Indricotherium]

I honestly don't remember as it was the 2D .23 days. But probably 2 weeks to a month. The wiki, the wiki has ALWAYS been there for me! <3!

[AutomataKittay]

Around a week before I succeed in running farms well, another few weeks before majority of industries' been touched on. And a few months before I understood what obsidian farming needed in term of effort. And a while more with the mechanical things. It's been a year or two since I started playing, and I'm just getting around to pressure plates and drilling through aquifiers, as well as setting up a proper metalworking industries, instead of shambling works.

Reading the forum and wiki helps a lot, I'm mostly just lazy 

[kotekzot]

I've been reading the DF wiki for a few days just for laughs before I even started playing, so I was fairly well-prepared. Took me a while to get the hang of manipulating the interface, though.

[freeformschooler]

Exactly as long as it took me to read the length of the Quickstart Guide on the wiki.

[BloodBeard]

I look at it as how many forts it took to learn.

My first fort I had no fucking clue what anything meant and what you were supposed to do. I promptly abandoned didnt come back for a week or so and decided to take a look at the wiki.

My second fort I learned to dig out a fort, set up workshops, fish, that pumps pump liquids to the level of the pump, i.e. how not to flood your fortress when trying to make a well. I eventually said fuck it and purposely drowned my dwarves.

My third fort which I just remembered now after trying to remember all this was a pretty cool fort. I think I learned to farm on that one and set up traps, but decided to drown my dwarves again after discovering obsidian casting and went looking for a tall map.

And my fourth fort I learn how to set up a military, provide housing, general food production, get magma forges up and running, how to build pump stacks, perform controled collapses, and little things in general. I planned to carve out a giant hole in the side of a mountain and magma cast a nearly 100 z-level tower but I got bored with it, especially since I learned about HFS during this fort and that megebeasts didnt always survive. There was no HFS in this fort and were no living megabeasts so I just stopped playing it.

By that time I pretty much knew how to do everything, even if I havent done it yet. The wiki was the biggest help. So really it took me 3 forts to figure everything out. I'm not sure how long the timeframe was for all this.

[ricemastah]

About a week before I started modding. On that note I'm still learning to master the modding system, which would mean to me, knowing all the tags and being able to use them without having to look them up. Of course with new tags being added it means I'll probably never get to that point. Looking back at my first 2D fort kinda makes me laugh, but The things I learned... also the possibly 'bad' habits that carried over from those days amuse me.

[Angel Of Death]

About 2 years.

[Neonivek]

I still don't understand it

Though that is mostly because at one point I could play it perfectly... then the military and burrow changes were added

Now I can't make heads or tails of it.

[Untelligent]

Couple days.

[Dimitri]

About a day or so for the basics.

The new military wasn't the easiest thing to wrap my head around, but I don't think I could go back to 40d now.

I'm still learning new things every now and again, but I know most of the ins and outs. I'm just a mediocre player. 

[thvaz]

I got a fortress running in the second day, reading only "How to survive your first winter" on the wiki. It was a lot harder to survive the first winter in the early versions.

Five years later, I am still losing, because losing is fun.

[Lectorog]

Play times:
Learning that you use the number pad to navigate: 10 minutes.
Learning how to do the basics (build, mine, that's about it): 10 hours.
Learning how to make a fort survive to see a caravan: 24 hours.
From there it mostly just fell into place, gradually learning, generally surviving.

That said, it took me about a week; I played many hours a day when I found this game.
Oh, this was almost entirely without the wiki. I tried to use a tutorial, but didn't understand it. I only started using the wiki after this time.

[Urist Mcinternetuser]

About a week with no help from tutorials or the wiki.