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[vjek]

I cannot recall how I stumbled upon DF, but regardless, a few weeks ago, I downloaded it, and have been hooked since.  Here's my story.

Client installation was seamless on windows & linux, no problems with either. ( everything here discussed is version 0.31.25 ).  I pressed "Create New World!" followed the prompts, took the quick & easy choices, and there were dwarves on the ground!  I figured out how to dig, so I dug!  Figured I would plant some food, thats always a good idea, but.. nope, can't plant here.  Hrm, worry about that later, let's dig some more.

Figured out how to dig down, that was novel.  can I dig up?  not really, ok.  figured out the interface and building stuff, there's trees, lets chop them down, make some wooden stuff.  All good so far.

Then goblins came and killed everyone. hehe.  Ok!  try #2

This time, really took my time in selecting a spot.  I wanted BIG cliffs, (didn't know a damn thing about biomes at this point) and trees.  Found a spot, embarked, tweaked my dwarves this time to give them some super awesome skills like cooking (har, har) and ventured forth.  And still couldn't plant food, so starvation, unhappiness, and a long spiral of doom.

Try #3, I've found the complete noob guide by now, and read the first 6 parts, so I figure I'm all that and a bag of chips, nothing can stop me.  except thirst.  no drink, no water, frozen lakes!  frozen well! augh!  dying dwarves, this time of thirst.  Ok, next time, not so close to the polar ice cap.  However, I did learn to defend against goblins and make a squad, so that was great. They sucked horribly and died in droves, but at least the goblins didn't get inside.  Much.  And I learned I really should have a well somewhere inside.

Try #4.  warm, forest, river.  Good wet sand for the inside farming, food - check.  water - check.  Tried to build a second well down by the dining hall, and flooded the fortress. hrm.  Why did the first well work (up at river -1 level) and this one didn't.  Ah ha, Uncle Wiki knows the answer, it's water pressure.  Ok, so by this time i'm being more careful with saves and backups, so I recover from the deluge in the dining hall incident and move on to a totally bad-ass military and digging like a dwarf obsessed.  I'm trading like a fool, making crafts, bone bolts, i've got marksdwarves, axedwarves, they kill forgotten beasts like a hot knife through butter, and then... i hit a cavern for the first time...  wooo.

And keep going. and going! and some more digging! and then some digging, and then adamantine!  I skip from copper straight to adamantine, and manage through quite a bit of logistical juggling to outfit all my military in adamantine crossbows or battle axes and shiny outfits of varying kinds.  This is a very good day.

However, I want magma.  and... my layout sucked, and my digging was very haphazard, and I found no iron, haven't smelted a bar of steel, and I hate this reliance on wood.  I want a no-wood fortress!  Ok ok, I want a bed-only-wood fortress!  Turns out, that's a lot harder than you'd think, but apparently there are trees underground in the caverns! woo.

try #5.  It's just you and me, advanced-world-generator.  blew a whole 6 hours nailing down my river-forest-200 volcanoes 33x33 world of joy.  I've now got embark points with exposed lava on the surface, forests, and a river within a 2x2.  Life is good!

Still no iron, though.  No steel.  in fact, in this round, no copper nor anything remotely resembling a metal and the embark point said "shallow metal" and "deep metal" both.  Well, more digging out after i've reached the first cavern, but at least I've got magma, a magma driven crafting area, water channeled down and wells to choke a camel.  butcher-tanner-bolts-kitchens all set up, and things are proceeding well.  This is the one I'm going to try and play out until the end, but this lack of metal is disconcerting.

In fact I have yet to see, in any of the games so far, any iron bearing ore of any kind.  Strange!

lessons learned & points to ponder
----

• a manager dwarf, very important.  gotta get one of those right away.  Micro managing individual stations gets old after a few dozen hours.
• animal-cage management is ... elusive.  I can't figure out how to get rid of my cages.  I've got custom stockpiles that work for everything else, but cages, nope.
• sometimes custom worlds are fun, but if you go too far "astray" from the standard settings, FPS falls drastically (cpu rises, things going on in the background not obvious to me at first)
• water/magma channeling, doors, floodgates & levers is awesome fun.
• I still haven't made a single trap, and probably really should, but the military is damned effective, after you get past the odd requirements
• When the manager won't make something, and there's no error message in the announcements, you should REALLY find out why.
• bins are a must. no matter what they have to be made out of.  and rock pots.
• archers are best, first, and far more effective against thieves/snatchers/runners, but axedwarfs kill faster and are harder to kill
• randomly, for no apparent reason, dwarves still just die of thirst, despite having hundreds of drink available, and many accessible wells available with fresh tasty water

I still don't know if you only get the one local area.  Is the rest of the world there for adventure mode, or... ?
and my only suggestion:
A warning that mountain biomes cannot be farmed, no matter what, would be really great information for a starting player.  Even if it's just once!  Would have saved me a gaggle of frustration at the start.

Anyway, there you have it, my story.  Thanks for reading.  Oh, and before I found Maydays tile-pack, my wife called this new obsession "pixel dwarves".  So, thanks "pixel dwarves"! I anticipate more fun in the future!

[Lancezh]

Good read! =)

I started to "cheat" at the start and use DFReveal and immediately after that DFProspector since i'm sick of worlds with NO ore at all although i had it on the embarkscreen, afterwards i undo the reveal and do either a new embark or stay if i see any metals in the prospector...

[jhxmt]

Sounds like you're off to an excellent start - it took me a lot longer than six fortresses to learn all the things you've listed above!  (Particularly squads!  )

I still don't know if you only get the one local area.  Is the rest of the world there for adventure mode, or... ?

If you abandon your current fortress, you can (a) start up a new one elsewhere in the world, (b) reclaim your old fortress(es) or (c) start off an Adventure in the world.  Or (d) just read up on all the legends and history of the world. 

[Il Palazzo]

Hi there vjek. I can see that you're doing great climbing the learning curve. I suppose I don't have to remind you that "losing is fun".

To your questions:

I still don't know if you only get the one local area.  Is the rest of the world there for adventure mode, or... ?
and my only suggestion:
A warning that mountain biomes cannot be farmed, no matter what, would be really great information for a starting player.  Even if it's just once!  Would have saved me a gaggle of frustration at the start.

At present, you can only play in the local area in Fortress mode. Some interaction with the outside world is planned for the future releases - check the dev logs if you're curious.
You can explore the world in its entirety(including your fallen fortresses) in the Adventure mode.

You can farm in any biome, as long as you can find some soil(if not on the surface, then in the caves). Additionally, with a tiny little bit of dwarven engineering you can flush an area with water to create mud, which is plantable as well.

[Girlinhat]

Fortress mode restricts you to your embark area.  The only movement in and out is traders coming and going, invaders coming and going, wild animals coming and going, water entering from rivers or cavern pools, water leaving through any map's edge (and magma by all associations), and migrants coming.  You cannot leave your settlement, you cannot send dwarves away, you cannot move.  Sometime eventually we're going to be able to send out trade caravans and send out armies, but for now there's just your plot of land and the insanity contained within.

Look into getting a danger room.  Build an upright spike trap with wooden training spears, station your military atop it, and then use a lever to push the spikes up and down.  This rather easily trains all of their skills in a very short time.  It's a bit cheating, sure, but when you're new it's invaluable for defense.  Just make sure that your soldiers are all FULLY armored.  Helm, breastplate, mail shirt, gauntlets, greaves, and boots.  Anything less is lethal.

[vjek]

Good read! =)

I started to "cheat" at the start and use DFReveal and immediately after that DFProspector since i'm sick of worlds with NO ore at all although i had it on the embarkscreen, afterwards i undo the reveal and do either a new embark or stay if i see any metals in the prospector...

That... is an excellent tip.  I will definitely be doing this in the future.  ( I checked and it's 100+ levels of nothing but cassiterite, so... /sadface )

Thanks for all the responses so far, it warms my "dwarven" heart.    I did eventually find out about how to make soil/mud, but just starting out, a serious PITA.

[Graebeard]

Welcome home! 

Be careful what advice you take from the weathered veterans you encounter here.  It sounds like you're doing great, but there are still parts of the game that you haven't encountered and that most people wouldn't want spoiled for them.  Be extra careful with DFProspecter, since it can reveal all sorts of stuff.  It can also mess up your FPS, which is why Lancezh mentioned reverting to a back up.  I'd also be careful of anything you see around here in a spoiler tag.

As far as Iron goes, the most recent version has much lower ore density than prior versions, and it can be tough to find iron ore.  The good news is that every world with goblins has an unconventional source of iron: goblin invaders.  Fire up those magma smelters, gladly accept the seasonal offerings your goblin friends bring, and fuel your iron industry with an increasingly abundant supply of wonderful goblinite.

Animal cages shouldn't be too tricky.  Building an animal stockpile will help you organize both empty and full cages.  You can get your goblin/elephant/troll/macaque zoo up and running in no time with a few cage traps.

[Satarus]

You can grow in any biome, but for planting you must have
1.) Seeds appropriate for the underground or above ground plot.
2.) Soil OR Mud.
3.) A dwarf with farming (fields) labor enabled

Mountains and glaciers are a bit harder to farm in because you have to go with the mud route since they lack any soil.  Your mystery deaths of thrist is interesting.  Make sure your burrows aren't causeing conflict.  Also you need enough barrels of booze for your entire thirsty group at any given time.  100 units of booze in 10 barrels means only 10 dwarves can drink at a time. 50 units of booze across 25 barrels will let 25 dwarves drink. This is more of a problem with you have skilled growers giving you bigger stacks of plants.

[Quietust]

If you're having trouble finding certain ores, make sure you're embarking in the right places. In versions 0.31.19 and later, unfortunately, the Embark screen only tells you if you've got soil, clay, aquifers, "shallow metal(s)", and "deep metal(s)", so you'll need to actually embark in order to see what stone layers are actually present. Cassiterite (tin ore) and Bismuthinite (bismuth ore) only show up within Granite and Garnierite (nickel ore) only shows up within Gabbro, though most other ores can be acquired simply by having at least one layer each of sedimentary, igneous extrusive, igneous extrusive, and metamorphic.

If most of your regions are just low in minerals in general, generate your next world with Mineral Occurrence set to "Everywhere" (for custom worldgen, set Mineral Scarcity to 100) and you should get "Shallow metals" and "Deep metals" pretty much everywhere (as it was in 0.31.18 and earlier).

The good news is that every world with goblins has an unconventional source of iron: goblin invaders.

I'm pretty sure goblins have to deal with mineral scarcity too, so lack of access to iron ore could force them to use copper (or even degrade them to cloth/leather if they have no metal at all). Besides, invaders in general don't seem to wear metal armor in 0.31.25, at least in upgraded fortresses - in a fort upgraded from 0.31.15, the only goblinite I ever get consists of weapons and shields.

[Nameless Archon]

I cannot recall how I stumbled upon DF, but regardless, a few weeks ago, I downloaded it, and have been hooked since.

DOOOM! DOOOM ON YOU!! (And us too, but we knew it already.) DOOOM!

Then goblins came and killed everyone. hehe.

This is how my first few trials ended. It's not uncommon even today.

said "shallow metal" and "deep metal" both.

Note the difference between "metal" and "metals". you are much more likely to find iron with the latter. In particular, I strongly recommend lowering the mineral scarcity value (default 2500) to something lower (minimum 100). I've heard others say this is too low (other metals crowd out iron, so they use ~600 or so) and others say this isn't enough.

I modded cobaltite and cinnabar to be iron ores. Works well.

• a manager dwarf, very important.  gotta get one of those right away.  Micro managing individual stations gets old after a few dozen hours.

I double this guy up as my broker. I'm usually not trading for long. (Haul everything, summon broker, trade once, unsummon.) Keeping him mostly idle (work orders don't take that long to process) leaves him ready for broker duty when needed.

• animal-cage management is ... elusive.  I can't figure out how to get rid of my cages.  I've got custom stockpiles that work for everything else, but cages, nope.

What do you mean here?

• I still haven't made a single trap, and probably really should, but the military is damned effective, after you get past the odd requirements

I loves me some archers and axemen, but there's a subtle beauty in 10xserrated steel discs slicing the limbs off anythign that even looks at my fortress funny, or in a trap that slams two bridges on a room and fills it with water or magma (or both).

• When the manager won't make something, and there's no error message in the announcements, you should REALLY find out why.

Managers don't make anything. they only approve orders, which get passed to the workshop. Your manager needs a chair and table to approve work, but you may already know this.

• bins are a must. no matter what they have to be made out of.  and rock pots.

Bins from wood for early storage, and useless metals for later storage. Buy binned items (leather/cloth) for the bins later on.

• randomly, for no apparent reason, dwarves still just die of thirst, despite having hundreds of drink available, and many accessible wells available with fresh tasty water

Most likely cause is inaccessible terrain (miner digs down and can't get out, dies of thirst).

[Minuit]

animal-cage management is ... elusive.  I can't figure out how to get rid of my cages.  I've got custom stockpiles that work for everything else, but cages, nope.[/li][/list]

Cages are considered "Animals" for stockpile purposes.  Just enable animals in a stockpile and all of your cages, empty and full, will be sent there.  You can disable individual animal types if you want, say, one stockpile for goblins and one for minotaurs, and there is even a toggle for storing empty cages at the bottom of the screen.

It's not entirely obvious that that's where cages and traps would be stored, but if you think hard enough about it it can be made to make sense.

[thegoatgod_pan]

People dying of thirst randomly never happens for no reason--major culprits are failed moods, dwarves who are just plain sad enough to become melancholy and construction/digging errors.

[ledgekindred]

Very nicely written.  I always like to read stuff like this as it gives me a fresh perspective on the game.

If you appoint a Chief Medical Dwarf, you will get a "health" option on your 'z' menu screen.  You can browse through your dorfs from there to find the ones that are thirsty and hunt them down and find why.  I'm going with the rest of the group that you are probably having dorfs mine or wall themselves off.

Cage traps are extra fun.  You can then use the trapped invaders as sparring "practice" (ie. fodder) for your military!

For goblinite, you want to check your standing orders from the 'o' menu.  If you have "forbid other death items" (I think it is) then your dorfs won't collect stuff off of fallen invaders unless you first reclaim it.  I personally think this is a GOOD strategy as it prevents your non-military dorfs from running out into battle to go collect a shiny new sock that someone dropped. 

Bulk dumping and reclaiming aka Get rid of all that rock really easily.  It took me months to discover bulk actions.  "d-b" takes you do the bulk actions menu.  Then you can dump, reclaim, hide, etc, by specifying a rectangular region.  No more 'k' to examine every rock one at a time and order it dumped.  Make a 1x1 garbage dump zone ('i' menu) and order all that loose rock to be dumped.  Reclaim it all after it's been dumped and the dorfs will leave it there, but it will be available for craft use, etc.  Anything that's been dumped and doesn't have a specific storage area will be left there.  It's a Quantum Stockpile. 

[Sutremaine]

Sometimes you get more than one civ to choose from, and civs generally have different important stones and metals. To change your civ, press Tab on the embark screen until you see 'Your Civilisation' and one or more names. Make a note of the name, embark, check what you've got available, abort the game and repeat. Steel and other alloys will always be available (don't ask how), so if your civ has access to both flux and iron you can build up just enough steel to help you through the early days. Survival and fuel requirements will make this considerably more difficult, but the raw materials will be there.

It is possible to dig up. There are two ways of doing this. The first is to dig a ramp on your starting level, which will allow access to the level above. Be careful not to dig out the wall 'behind' the ramp. Ramps need support. Imagine a ramp as being shaped like a /|. The | part of it needs to be touching a wall. The second way of digging up is to use stairs. There are three types of stairs, but for everything except the 'ground level' of the staircase you can just use up/down stairs. Up/down stairs can be used for the 'ground level', but using up stairs leaves the floor fully intact and is therefore safer.

[Anathema]

As far as dying of thirst, it's really not a very enlightening death message - if a dwarf is for any reason unable to access supplies or unwilling/unable to care for himself, thirst is what tends to kill him. The most common cause of thirst deaths for me is injury: a dwarf who suffers major injuries and goes to "rest" (as opposed to "sleep", which is what healthy dwarves do) is completely dependent on other dwarves to bring him food and water; he will die of thirst if no one does. This is the only time you actually need water, by the way, healthy dwarves prefer alcohol but injured ones must have water. He's brought water by someone with the "feed patients/prisoners" labor, and all dwarves have it on by default, but unfortunately it seems to be a pretty low priority job - it may be that all your healthy dwarves were just too busy to bother bringing water. If you have injured dwarves and some labor to spare, it's a good idea to have a "nurse" or two with no labors assigned except recovering and feeding wounded, just to make sure it gets done.

Also make sure you have a functioning well, you have designated it as a water source, and you have buckets available - however if any of those is your problem it should be obvious, you'll get a helpful job cancellation message when a dwarf tries to bring water and can't for one of those reasons.

Dying of thirst can also mean a dwarf got trapped somehow (either physically, i.e. built a wall between himself and drinks, or stuck in a badly assigned burrow, or trapped by a hostile goblin or even animal that scares him). It can also mean the dwarf got so unhappy he went crazy/melancholy/whatever, at which point he stops drinking and eating and will die of thirst eventually, effectively suicide, there's nothing you can do once a dwarf gets to this point (happens if he's unable to fulfill a strange mood, or just too much unhappiness from normal causes like friends dying).