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[dmurray]

I'm really trying my hardest to get into the game. I mean I understand the basics, follow tutorials and all that so I've gotten that down
perfectly (apart from the military but I haven't read tutorials so I'm gonna deal with that later on).

Quick question I just wanted to know: during any kind of attack from outside my fortress... could I just remove the up stairs from my fortress to the outside and that will stop any chance of them reaching me?

But my biggest problem (I'll shorten it here): I don't feel like I have time to get past the basic survival (like food, booze, etc) and do anything I want out of fear of being attacked or even, what I *should* be doing.

Let's say I have a stream, plenty of trees, flux stone, deep metals and some soil.
I have no idea what I should really be *doing* after the basic: get food, wood, meeting hall, bedrooms. I get 7 Dwarves and usually I try to get some sort of stone (just for basic crafting), I make the beer, food, get some chicken eggs but after that... I don't get it. I either get bored in terms of "okay, I want to make some nice rooms down below but hauling the stone out of the places I want is too time consuming". What I'm really worried over is invasions and the likes; I really don't want to switch them off since I think that's going too far on the cheating scale but I just feel that even with 12 dwarves total with the first wave of immigrants, by the time I do *anything* beyond getting the basics to survive up and running... I'm gonna get attacked and I don't like it.

I mean, okay, make traps. Yes, that's do-able but forges need wood or coal and I can't know if I'll have a lot of coal. Even just using wood seems like it'll run out very fast. I could use the reveal tool to find the GMS and avoid caverns but that still means being very time consuming to the amount of ambushes that could happen or at least it feels that way.

So can anyone post any sort of advice, thanks?

[Thor]

Usually follow this, but normally ALWAYS forget the damn refuse pile/garbage.

[dmurray]

Forgot to talk about that graph actually.

Usually the making stockpiles bit gets me: I mean, I either have one large (say 20x20) stockpile but all the tutorials I see tell me to make multiple ones that size.

But, going by that chart: I get up to say, the wealth and traps part and then I still have the problem of what my fortress should do since like I said... moving stone is too time consuming and the lack of wood for smelting really bothers me.

Do you follow that guide completely? If so, do you just leave the stone laying around in your rooms?

[Dynastia]

There are two incredibly cost-efficient trap systems.

1. Drowning Chamber
--------------------
Build a long corridor full of cage traps. You can build the cages out of wood, so there's no coal needed. Rig the entire chamber so that it can be sealed, flooded and drained at will. Refer to the wiki if you have trouble with pumps, lever and mechanism usage.

2. Dodge Stairs
--------------------
Build a deep stairwell, around 5x5 with the centre 3x3 channelled out to form a long long drop. Build the stairs so that to descend each level, a creature must make a full circuit of the 5x5 room. On the walkways, build many weapon traps with about 3 weapons each. It doesn't matter what kind of weapons you use, wooden spiked balls and menacing spikes are good choices, as are bone crossbows loaded with bone bolts. The concept is that invaders will eventually dodge a trap on the walkway and plummet down the stairwell. Place upright menacing wooden spikes at the bottom if you're worried the stairwell isn't high enough.

[KtosoX]

Nice chart, wish I had it 2-3 years ago But it's a bit out dated. There is no need for barrels in the current build, just make rock pots. Get rid of rocks and save wood for charcoal!
And about militia, my current embark build contains 3 dwarfs with 3-4 mining and 2+ dodge. They are usually enough to get rid of badgers.

[Laurin]

If the stones are bothering you, just hide them from view - either individually or via the designations menu:
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Hide_Items_or_Buildings

[dmurray]

If the stones are bothering you, just hide them from view - either individually or via the designations menu:
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Hide_Items_or_Buildings

I am extremely fecking embarrassed now. 
Thanks for that!

Okay, hopefully that'll at least get some of the annoyance outta the way.

[Lamiales]

If you are afraid of ambushes you should avoid crafting (creating wealth) in the start.

A corridor full of cage traps easily nullifies any ambush, and it costs just 1 stone and 1 wood each.

If you are not already doing it, you should not dig your main stairwell directly from the surface, but channel and mine a small entrance and dig down stairs then. This way, buzzards have to fly through the entrance and you can put cage traps there too.

Also you can build a wall surrounding your entrance quickly and build a bridge with a lever assigned to it, so you can lock yourself in if you dont feel ready for an ambush.

As for what to get next, i didn't see you making a hospital, that is pretty important. After that get armor and weapons and make a dwarf a full time soldier (danger room if you want to, or use goblins from your cage traps). Dont forget that you need an animal stockpile for the cages.

I wouldn't recommend building a staircase with a hole in it, because if your dwarves fight on it they will dodge down there too

I actually wonder though, do you guys have a set order in that you do things? On my last fort the priorities got a bit messed up...
 

[dmurray]

Can you explain the channel thing?

I assume I channel out the area and then what do I do for immigrants and the likes?
Do I just leave the ramps there and have a hallway or two with a bunch of traps?

[Lamiales]

Do I just leave the ramps there and have a hallway or two with a bunch of traps?

Exactly. It looks kinda like this at the first level below the surface:

Code: [Select]

###########
#r  ^  >>>#
#r  ^  >>>#
#r  ^  >>>#
###########
where r are the up ramps, ^ are traps and > down stairs. You should only see the 3 ramps where you channeled on the surface. Of couse you can make it longer and put more traps in.

[dmurray]

I see and the goal is to have the ramps as the enterance, so to speak?

But one thing confuses me... why have ramps and the whole channel? I mean, isn't it the same thing as just a hallway with traps?

If it's the fact of buzzards, I thought my farm would be safe since what I do is use soil underground. So I make my underground fortress, then make upstairs to smoe soil/sand/clay so I can farm indoors.

[Broseph Stalin]

The best defense is a raisable draw bridge at your entrance with a downward staircase under neath it that leads to a long and unefficient route into your fortress. Make sure it doesn't actually go into your fortress until your finished loading it with traps, it should act as an automatic siege gibber. Cage traps are attractive but you have to remember the baddies never abandon their boss in a cage. If he gets stuck in a cage trap (He will, he's always in front) then they're just going to stand around in one spot making the rest of your traps useless.

You should also get some archers as quickly as possible. Most early sieges won't have any archers so even if your just firing bone bolts into iron clad soldiers they aren't going to stick around as long.

If you don't want to mess with coal or burn wood you'll have to use magma which poses it's own problems. One thing you could do is have your magma workshop directly over the GMS and have your metal workers live down there. You could have special haulers who do periodically take them ore and bring their goods back to the surface. Of course if your using reveal then you're already a dirty dirty cheater so there's no harm in digging a channel, using liquids to fill it with magma, and then setting up shop wherever you like.

[Quiles]

Fortress mode quickstart guide on magmawiki
A very very good tutorial, I've used it for all my fortresses

[Lamiales]

I see and the goal is to have the ramps as the enterance, so to speak?

But one thing confuses me... why have ramps and the whole channel? I mean, isn't it the same thing as just a hallway with traps?

If it's the fact of buzzards, I thought my farm would be safe since what I do is use soil underground. So I make my underground fortress, then make upstairs to smoe soil/sand/clay so I can farm indoors.

Yes it is just a hallway with traps. If you dig sideways into a mountain, you don't need this. It is for when you embark on a flat surface. The ramps instead of stairs are for caravans (bugged now so you can use stairs too) and because they are slightly faster.

I only mentioned it because i used to just start my main staircase on the surface and dig straight down, so i ended up with buzzards everywhere.

[Neyvn]

Fortress starts are quite easy when you get the hang of it, after that you will find that you will be doing things differently and creating more difficult embarks with set restrictions such as not digging stairs down or even only digging in Stone. Heck after that you may end up doing what I do and thats play as humans with no digging a fort at all...

The best method of starting is what many have said already. Make a safe and secure entrance via raised bridges, make sure you read the 'Tooltip' before placing a bridge as by pressing the wadsx keys, the W will make the bridge rise from the North if its Height is that of Two or more which forms a wall at the most south part of the bridge 'tile', asd will do the other directions while x will return it to its default of a retracting bridge, this is the bridge that disappears when not extended. This can be useful for covering a gap without needing to worry about making a wall from the bridge, ie over that staircase down from the surface.

Don't forget that you need to attach a bridge to a lever via mechanisms. Making three Mechansims is the min to make the bridge work. 1 for the Lever and 2 for the Connections. Dwarf Magic not included. (How does this lever -5000z down operate that bridge on the surface with only two mechansims. Spores...)

In case this is where your having troubles.
Build a Lever by pressing Shift+t, this will open the Traps window, then press l to build a lever. When thats finished being built, Query it (q fyi) and press b for connect to bridge, you will then be given the list of all bridges on the map, but if you have only built one, press enter twice. This way you have selected two mechansims, one for the bridge and the other for the lever. The Mechanic will take his sweet time (GAH STOP DRINKING AND FINISH THE WORK) but when done, query the lever and press Shift+p, a dwarf will waddle over when he has no job and pull the lever. BE WARNED. If you built a raising bridge, anything standing on the tile which becomes a wall will be crushed, and if anything is standing where it drops to when lowered, it too will be crush. Both ways of death will obliterate what ever is there. Its handy for crushing all spare stone (not that it should be considered spare, go build a catapult you slacker)...