40d Talk:Your first fortress

Other

Content from Getting started

The goal of this page is to explain in detail, and for newbies, how to:

1. Generate a world (possibly from a seed)(probably will link to article(s) on the topic)
2. Pick a fortress location
3. Name your fortress and starting group
4. Buy skills and items, for the biome type picked in #2 (probably will give the newbie build from the starting builds page)
5. Play the first month or two of the game, for the biome type picked in #2

I don't know how to write an article that does this, but I do know that this is what this article should be.
--Savok 11:19, 2 November 2007 (EDT)

I'd like to avoid having an overabundance of tutorial articles again. It sounds to me like all of the above would fit into Your first fortress just as easily. --Peristarkawan 12:00, 2 November 2007 (EDT)

Should we go ahead and just #redirect it?--Draco18s 12:07, 2 November 2007 (EDT)

Done. --Peristarkawan 12:14, 2 November 2007 (EDT)

Recording a Movie

I was thinking that someone could record a movie following the steps given here, as a visual aid. As DF is very structure-based it would help to visualize how the fortress is supposed to look. Memo 15:13, 4 November 2007 (EST)

Choosing a location

Your surrondings

flux, iron, etc.

Is it really necessary to recommend a sedimentary layer? You don't really need to start with iron at all, you can just let the goblins import it for you and melt their armor for an essentially infinite supply. Unless this changes at the end of Army Arc I'm not sure starting iron is needed.

• Who said this? Anyway, goblins aren't that reliable, at least in the early years. I've settled in everything but Terrifying regions and I've yet to be sieged or raided. Kobold thieves up the wazoo but no goblins except the odd snatcher. Corona688 19:24, 30 October 2008 (EDT)
• Melting is a terrible way to get metal unless you have magma, that's pretty much impossible to argue. Goblins show up at population hurdles, though, so you probably just haven't gotten big enough yet. Regardless, iron-level equipment can be replicated with masterwork leather and bone equipment. Iron is far from critical. Helpful, but not critical. --ThunderClaw 20:23, 30 October 2008 (EDT)
• _IF_ you have a magma source, you can also easily strip human and dwarven caravans of all their iron/steel items if you want to. Plus order more bars. This is terrible under an economic point of view, but even a single skilled stonecrafter will turn out more wealth than you ever reasonably need, so from your second or third year on this should not be a problem. Especially since you hardly ever need iron or steel except for high quality weapons and armour. Qwertyu 07:31, 5 November 2008 (EST)

  I have to second this. Between goblins and traders you can eventually amass a couple hundred iron (or steel if you've got access to flux). Masterwork leather is really not too bad, but masterwork steel is 2.67 times better, plus metal armor can be layered. Masterwork leather armor offers 20 points of protection; to this you can potentially add a masterwork coat, totaling 35. However, if you add steel chain and plate over that, you can get up to 155/115 for the upper body. And you need it: I've seen dwarves get head injuries when sparring even when wearing a top-quality steel cap and steel helm. I just got through a siege where one dwarf who is an adept armor user and high master shield user received a brown neck injury (and lost an eye) despite a exceptional steel cap and helm and shield. It was probably the elite bowman that did it. Without all that steel, she'd probably be pulp now.
  It may be a lot more trouble to get your steel through melting than smelting, but get it any way you can.--Maximus 22:23, 7 November 2008 (EST)

Have to be in contact with dwarves?

"You will want to be in contact with dwarves to get immigrants and a dwarven trading caravan."

Is it even possible to settle somewhere without dwarves? --Juckto 18:18, 24 May 2008 (EDT)

Nope. Even on a volcanic island on the opposite side of the map from any dwarven mountainhome, caravans visited. It's worth noting that the local map was all land, but still they took ships over to get to the island itself, I suppose.--Dadamh 14:49, 30 May 2008 (EDT)

Ships don't exist. "Boats are the enemy of tiles. And tiles are the enemy of boats." --Toady One

They don't need to, either - the caravans just bring along seven units of lava, one block of green glass, and a legendary glassmaker. Once they get to the beach, they turn a tiny patch of sand into an ocean-spanning bridge.

That, or they tunnel under the ocean with an unskilled miner - he'll become legendary soon enough. --Savok 23:01, 30 May 2008 (EDT)

Well, I sort of meant it as a joke. Off-screen boats. My entire tile was flat land, but they still got there somehow, so I was supposing boats over the water.--Dadamh 07:32, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

What if every map edge is water (ex. really large embark zone on a really small island)? What would happen then? 71.194.101.232 22:39, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Buying Skills and Items

Skills

Skill choices

I know skill choices are largely a matter of preference, but the inclusion of a Bookkeeper, Manager, Expedition Leader, and Broker in the landing party definitely merit a mention, as well as whether or not a beginning player should throw a few skill points at improving his Broker's and Leader's key skills. Being able to talk that first dwarven caravan into throwing some extra sides of meat in could mean the difference in survival for a newer player.--Xazak 19:29, 3 November 2007 (EDT)

I agree with this. When I make a new Caravan, I often make a Leader-type with ONLY leader/trade related skills. Even just having the ability to SEE the values of the items (even if you have them memorized) helps aid in making a good first-year trade session. And the first-year Dwarven caravan doesn't expect a large profit. I've done large deals with them that only netted them a 10-coin profit. --Nekojin 12:45, 14 November 2007 (EST)

I think good bridging points are the seasons and end of the years; To aid readability and to separate into chunks, I think a listing of 'things to accomplish by winter', 'things to accomplish by spring (your first immingants!)', that sort of thing -- To avoid having a gigantic page, it might be better to split them off into "your first year", "your second year", especially because the gameplay changes signifiantly when you start getting nobles and your construction focus starts to shift from mere survival into making your dwarves happy, trading, and onward to economy and such. If people are interested in taking this approach, I'd certainly help with the writing. Bhodi 13:10, 4 November 2007 (EST)

Current skill list could be improved. Gem setter? Just wait for immigrant... Starting points can be spent in better ways. Mechanic/architect won't have time for architecture if he has well-planned day. Woodcutting goes up really quick. 4 points in axedwarf will give you enough active defense for everything that isn't strong enough to force you to lock all dwarves underground. Weaponsmith isn't really needed at start. Your unskilled dwarves aren't good fighters, and this 20-40% damage won't change much. Proficient in herbalism is too much. It's either only to bootstrap aboveground farming or to replace it entirely (for starting fortresses) in which case you don't need grower skill. --Someone-else 16:35, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Speaking of gem setters, they're completely worthless because it takes more time to stud 300 exceptional mugs with gems than it takes to make 300 masterwork mugs. --GreyMario 16:50, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Hey now, the point of gem setting (after you've gotten a legendary one of course) isn't to stud your mugs, its to decorate those statues/thrones/tables/doors for the king or just general enjoyment of the fortress. Its not like you need gems or gem-studded objects for trade, buying out caravans is so trivially easy without that. And if you're going to stud a tradegood with gems, stud something with more intrinsic value than a mug - even a masterwork one isn't worth all that much.

More generally on skills, i've been finding that once you get comfortable with the game you want to load up on skills that are harder to level up. I haven't even been starting with miners my last couple games, leveling miners is pretty easy. I often grab dwarves who can do one to two of the following: Carpentry, Building Design, Masonry, Mechanics, Weaponsmith, Armorsmith, Metalsmith. After that, choose one of Clothier or Glassworker (and possibly grab some related profession skills). Make sure one dwarf has leader skills (I prefer 1 in each of Negotiator/Appraiser/Judge Intent/Persuader/Consoler). Combine these as you see fit (though I generally combo Architect/Mason and make my Mechanic my broker/trader/bookkeeper/hopefully leader). And make sure to get a Brewer/Grower to handle your food needs (starting with a trained cook I find to be less important than a trained brewer). Anything left I put into other possibly useful and hard to train skills - gem cutter or setter being most typical. The real trick is suitably micromanaging the 'easy-train' necessary jobs to avoid polluting your desired mood skill before the first wave of immigrants arrive. I've also been starting with an anvil most of the time too, and crafting my axe (and sometimes my picks, although you don't save much doing that).

Which isn't to say beginners shouldn't start with some experienced miners and so forth. But the herbalist is wholely unnecessary (I've only above ground farmed once, and that was for dye plants and 4 years in). It would be more worthwhile to recommend they start in an area with a soil layer to make underground farming easier (and soil layers seem to be pretty common). But the starting advice recommends so much food that the only difficulty is figuring out how to irrigate, not having the time to do so before they run out of food. Finally, defensive skills are overrated. You want defense? That's what the mechanic is for. Stonefall traps are far more reliable than a military dwarf, and won't take ages getting into position, be sleeping/eating/drinking when you need them, or take an unlucky hit and die instead of finishing the critter. Far too much of a gamble, especially for a new player. (Kobold thieves are easily dealt with by drafting everyone within a small radius, or just letting it run away if only one dwarf is nearby - they won't try to engage your dwarves once spotted - or by dogs for that matter).

--Squirrelloid 01:31, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

I have a concern that fisherdwarf is a suggested skill. If you are along a river or ocean, chances are any fisherdwarves will be horribly mauled by deadly carp and longnose gar. Fish are deadly enough to any dwarves getting a drink from a river without tempting fate by actually fishing. One dwarf dying along a river creates a deadly cycle of dwarves attempting to loot the body and then being killed by fish.--quartic 14:19, 30 May 2008 (EDT)

Of note, if your map has at least one layer of sand, it's better to spend your skill points on your miners into something else like mechanics instead of mining. Sand digs fast even with unskilled miners and they skill up at a fast rate. A much faster rate then any trade-skill, so it's a far more efficient setup. Also, if you embark to any location with stone a Proficient Stonecrafter is essential for generating wealth and more importantly clearing up all the stone laying around.--Robbox 20:25, 17 October 2008 (EDT)

Dwarf with appropriate skills not necessarily the leader

I used a skill assignment similar to those recommended here and my presumptive leader with mining/judge of intent/consoler/appraiser/record-keeper/organizer was passed over for the weaponsmith/armorsmith. He was assigned outpost leader, manager, trader, and bookkeeper despite not having a single appropriate skill. And to really rub it it in, one of his traits is "never speaks out or attempts to direct activities." At least I was able to switch the jobs other than leader back to the right dwarf for the job (and I'm forcing the smith to smooth stone all day for his presumption.) One other factor that may have been involved is that the smith is friends with 5 others and the intended boss-dwarf has but one friend and one grudge. --Danny Rathjens 02:12, 7 April 2008 (EDT)

I believe giving the intended leader a couple points of social skills (Negotiator/Consoler/etc) prevents this, but it could use some testing. Walliard 11:43, 4 November 2008 (EST)

Switching out Weaponsmith/Armorsmith

I was thinking, instead of switching out the weapon/armor smith for a fisher, you could switch them out for a craftsdwarf and remove 1 point from building design for fisherdwarf. --0todd0 19:57, 1 September 2008 (EDT)

The weapon/armor smith is certainly the weakest in this setup, I don't take him with me also. It mostly takes quite a while until you are ready to smelter stuff, usually having quite some migrants already at the time. And even if you have an untrained dwarf. Working with metal is seldom something you need to go really fast. So I for one always take 1 military trained dwarf (marksdwarf) with me instead of the smith, to take care of the early monsters, which can otherwise be quite a pain. --Catpaw 08:56, 22 September 2008 (EDT)

Items

Huh?

Is this still up to date? In the newest version of DF, you don't seem to spend money on skills, but rather use points from a collective pool. There doesn't seem to be enough points to even come close to creating the suggested group. I've never actually played a game (hence my consultation of the "first fortress" page), so I'm not sure if I'm just missing something, though. Any advice? --DuckAndCower 23:47, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

Nevermind... I just realized I needed to remove items from the pool first. Maybe a note that you have to hit Tab to get to the items page would help? --DuckAndCower 23:52, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

Personally, I can't seem to get rid of any items, and I only started with 200 points. Any tips? --MrGuy 08:08, 22 November 2008 (EST)

I haven't read over the redone article yet, so the following answer is said in ignorance of it, but that shouldn't matter.

To increase the number of items, press +, so to decrease, press -. This may not work with a laptop. If you are using a laptop, see Key_bindings, which may help you. --Savok 11:00, 22 November 2008 (EST)

Beginning the Fortress

Intro

Wall of text

I think the "Beginning the Fortress" section isn't very pleasant to read. The bullet points help a bit, but I think numbered ones (matching the "TOC" above it) would be a bit more helpful. I'd however prefer to split the steps using numbered headlines, then it'd clearly define each step and automatically be indexed at the top. Thoughts? --TwoD 13:03, 2 November 2007 (EDT)

That's beyond me, but anyone who can should feel free to clean it up and make it as readable as possible. --BahamutZERO 01:37, 3 November 2007 (EDT)

I believe the following sentence to be much to hard to understand for its continued existence: "Stairs can go as deep as you want in a stack if you keep making up/down stairways on top of each other. You can continue stairs from both the top and the bottom of up/down stairways, but only from the bottom of downward stairways, and only from the top of upward stairways so only use the upward stairway or downward stairway when you're not planning to ever go further that direction." Iluziat 02:23, 15 September 2008 (EDT)

Trading

Anvil

The caravan is by no means guaranteed to bring an anvil the first year. (Out of ten games started and played through first year, I think I've gotten an anvil twice.) You can request one from the liason, though. I'd edit the entry myself, but I'm not certain how to word it without totally changing that whole paragraph.--Xazak 15:41, 11 November 2007 (EST)

I think that Humans always bring an anvil or two, but I may be wrong. Memo 17:02, 11 November 2007 (EST)

You are not correct, Memo. I've had fortresses that have gone anvil-less for 2 years before a Dwarven Caravan finally brought one (brought three, actually). Edit: The first year's caravans (Fall Dwarven, Spring Elven, and Summer Human) are largely randomized. I've seen vastly different products being brought in on all three of those, with roughly similar settlements and trade requests. --Nekojin 12:18, 14 November 2007 (EST)

Trading vs Growing

Is it just me, or is it much easier to teach people how to trade for food than it is to farm/grow/brew? I find one dedicated stonecrafter is more than enough to purchase all the food that can be possibly thrown at you, and will likely even be legendary by the time the second trade caravan comes along. For a "newb strategy" this might be the way to go instead of trying to explain floodgates and channels right off the bat. Weasello 10:50, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, but you're forgetting something. If a trade caravan gets ambushed or if they don't sell anything to you, then you're in trouble. And of course, trading with an Elf is like trying to get blood out of a stone.

My recommendation is to get food three ways; 1) Grow Plump Helmet 2) Fish 3) Kill animals for meat.AlexFili 07:43, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

Eeeeeexcept you don't know how to properly trade with the elves. As a general rule of thumb, if it once lived, don't sell it to them. Silk is fine, buy shit from the elves using the *cave spider silk sock*s you made from the dwarves' cave spider silk cloth that you bought with your *cat meat roast [40]*. --GreyMario 15:16, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

Alternately, trade them craploads of stonecrafts. I mean, there are two ways to clear a fortress of excess stone (stone blocks and stonecrafts), and one of them provides tradegoods, so stonecraft like mad. You'll get nice clean hallways too. Mechanisms would almost work, except they can't be binned. They're also a great early trade good, but elves will complain about the weight - you can unload a couple on the elves generally though if you clear them out (supplemented by lighter things, like... stonecrafts). Mechanisms are far better for doing things like buying metal bars and an anvil off the dwarf caravan, because they're more value/mass than those are.

You can also unload all those Narrow Giant Spider Silk loincloths you'll start collecting on elves, just make sure to check for blood spatters - elves don't like those too much.

--Squirrelloid 17:20, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

Office not required to meet with liaison

I met him in my barracks with no office built. :) --Danny Rathjens 02:00, 7 April 2008 (EDT)

I confirm. When I forgot to assign office to my Exp leader, he conducted meeting with liaison at meeting hall (designated from well)--Dorten 03:46, 7 April 2008 (EDT)

I also confirm, my leader's thoughts included 'was embarassed to hold a meeting in a dining room'.--Gemmy 13:35, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

Despite having built an office for him, he refused to use it while he was still an expedition leader - and received no bad thought because of it. From a different game, after becoming mayor he does receive an embarassed thought if no office is assigned. --Squirrelloid 13:48, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

I fixed this in the article a week ago. Anydwarf 15:24, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

Stockpiles

Moving refuse stockpile inside

Section about stockpiles recommends moving all stockpiles inside as soon as possible. It's wrong thing as it creates miasma if not handled properly. Best thing that can be done is either making custom stockpiles - one for bones/shells/skulls (inside, near craftdwarf shop) and one for rest (outside, near tanner), designing special anti-miasma room for refuse or order dwarves to dump rotting things into water/magma/chasm etc.

You dont understand the point - if your miasma creating stuff is usually put outside, the shit hits the fan one or another way when u have the first siege or even only ambush. Made this clearer in the article.--Koltom 21:36, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

Just for an example, I store my refuge and graveyard in a nearby cave/mountain/basement. I usually make the corridors a bit more winding then usual, and I put a few doors in for an air-lock effect. a 5x5 refuge pit should be enough for the first year, and 1-3 coffins in the graveyard just in case. AlexFili 07:41, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

Long Term Planning

Should we add a section discussing what sort of population percentages might be assigned to various tasks once migrants start coming in? Or perhaps adding a page discussing Mid-game and Full Population fortresses and what people can do during them? --RomeoFalling 21:41, 25 October 2008 (EDT)

Sure, I'd love to compare notes. I've got a late-game fortress right now with 164 dwarves. 50 are doing skilled work, 15 are soldiers, 17 are leeches nobles and children, and the remainder (82) are hauling full-time. Legendary dwarves of any sort can turn out so much product, you need like 3 or 4 haulers for each of them just to keep them supplied and their workshops free of clutter.

Of those 50 skilled dwarves, 4 are miners; 7 are woodcutters who actually spend a lot more time wood hauling; 2-3 are bone carvers or wood crafters turning out practice bolts; one's a glassmaker; 2 are fisherdwarves (they waste most of their time hauling the fish they've caught); 3 are growers who actually haven't grown anything for like three years (they turned out about 5,000 plants in the early years, and booze-roasting and trading for food has kept the fort well-fed since then); one's a brewer/cook doing the booze-roasting; one's a mechanic who made most of my trade goods in the early years (he's mostly hauling these days though); one's a blacksmith churning out nickel bins; and 14 are furnace operators (I've got 3,000 bars, half of which are copper). Most of the hauling at this point is bringing ore to the smelters, bones and corpses to the carvers, and cramming all their output into bins. In the previous "phase", I had at least five dwarves doing everything they could to keep my forges clear of copper armor while I trained up an armorsmith to Legendary+5.

Oh, and I also have a full-time miller getting rid of all this dimple cup I grew in the first years. Not sure why, I don't have any clothing industry to speak of. And a few of the soldiers with nervous injuries are killing wildlife for the bone carvers to process. I suppose I could butcher some of them but I've got too much meat and leather from the traders as it is. One of the soldiers has 13 goblin kills, 27 elephants, and over 100 other animals. Attaboy.

The earliest phase of the fortress centered around the farms. After a few years I shut them down altogether and had about 40 clearing all the stone out of an enormous room near the magma pipe, then started up smelting operations. Everybody not involved with that started hauling all the food to the new fort center. The miners have continuously been seeking out ores and digging/widening corridors. Everybody sleeps in a big barracks. Bedrooms are for sissies.

A few years back I sent some soldiers out to clear the chasm of hostiles, in concert with miners sent to breach their lairs. I've had three sieges and I think four ambushes, with few casualties. The worst losses I've had were to failed moods and The Ogre Incident in the first year. Been quite lucky in this fort. Wardogs took the brunt of the last siege, though I've been replenishing them through trade and still have 58 plus 10 untrained dogs.

About a year ago I moved my depot to the back of the fortress, where the new operations are, and I finally bridged the chasm, which was visible from the surface and actually was a great natural defensive line against invaders from the south. (The new bridge path is heavily trapped.)

I still haven't gone hunting for adamantine. I want to train another 20 marksdwarves first. I certainly have enough bolts for it now (about 6,000). And plenty of exceptional steel armor... which the recruits can't carry just yet.--Maximus 02:15, 26 October 2008 (EDT)

Just thought I'd add my two cents to this... 275 dwarves (100 children, 48 soldiers, rest workers) I have 10 legendary masons that make blocks full time (for my castle/village I'm building), 4 smelters, 2 wood burners (no lava, kill me now!), 2 armorers, 2 weaponsmiths, 4 mechanics (gates/portcullis/pumps for fountains, etc.), 2 butchers, 2 tanners, 2 weavers, 2 clothiers, 4 brewers (you would be SHOCKED how fast 2k beer disappears with 100 children...), 2 weavers, 2 threshers, 4 planters (need plump helmets for food/beer, I import ~1000 meat a year to supplement my stocks...), 1 gem cutter, 1 gem setter, 4 miners, 4 woodcutters... 40ish haulers, and another 40 engravers/masons (who put up blocks full time). The rest... nobles, and people I'm too lazy to check their labor on.

Noticing 15 years in my dwarves are invulnerable, 16 axedwarves is overkill when one can rout the goblin sieges (14 toughness, 10 agility, 9 strength... just one of them. He was originally a level 72 woodcutter... wonder how many trees that was?) Even my children usually have one or two maxed out stats when they hit puberty. God only knows what I'd do with the economy enabled, probably die. If you don't have any big construction works in mind, anything over 150 seems superfluous. --Gotthard 23:36, 9 November 2008 (EST)

Rewrite

I suggest an almost total overhaul for this article. The major headings are good, as are the images, but it kind of stops there. When talking about your first fortress, we should be explaining the core concepts of the game, providing links to more detailed reading, and encouraging the user to think for themselves, using examples to illustrate the concepts. The way this is set up is a loose example that railroads the user to a specific mold that doesn't even work that well for many people. We should refocus it onto a clear, full explanation of the interface and the considerations for getting started, then use a specific sample from a real game to show the thought process involved. Any other suggestions? --ThunderClaw 17:54, 30 October 2008 (EDT)

I agree. Our "newbie overview" material is scattered all over the place and incomplete. The quickstart guide has a heavy focus on the interface, like I believe you're suggesting here, although it's really minimal. Other important stuff is scattered throughout the FAQs and guides. Then there's also Indecisive's illustrated fortress mode tutorial, which is good in its own right, though there's a lot of redundancy between it and other pages. We need to do a lot of consolidation and streamlining of this advice.--Maximus 18:46, 30 October 2008 (EDT)

Actually, in further scrutinizing this page, it's quite good; the only thing I could fault it for is that the recommended starting build is too specific, which is part of your complaint.

What interface advice do you think is missing from this page?--Maximus 18:58, 30 October 2008 (EDT)

All the data is there, that's not my gripe. The gripe is that the way it's presented, you already have to know what you're looking for. Most guides that are attempting to introduce concepts will enumerate the concepts very clearly, then list specifics after it's been explicitly described what they're dealing with.

For example: the descripion of the embark location screen.

1. Temperature, amount of trees, amount of plants, and a hint at the sort of wildlife at the center of the selection rectangle.
   • Look at the example picture again. Notice that you are told that you'll see no trees or plants here (mountains being too high for either to grow), but that's only true for the exact center of the local area.
   • You'll notice that the local area includes some trees and plants on the edges, which is often all you need.
   • To get more information about the non-mountain areas you can press F1 F2 F3 or F4 to view the different types of biomes.
2. Nearby civilizations that are capable of interacting with you. Other settlements are shown with various symbols on the regional map.
   • You will want to be in contact with dwarves to get immigrants and a dwarven trading caravan. However, dwarves are, sometimes seemingly magically, everywhere - it is impossible to settle anywhere without dwarves (assuming there is at least one surviving dwarf civilization).
   • You'll want to trade with humans and elves if possible.
   • Goblins mean trouble, but it's hard to avoid them without hiding on an island and you will be attacked by Goblins some point in the game anyway. Just don't set up your first fortress right on top of a goblin fort.

In this example, what does Temperature actually mean? How should I interpret the tree count? Why do I care how many plants there are? What is this nebulous hint about the kind of animals I'm going to run into? Aside from what I see in the example pictures, what should I expect to see? The answers to these are NOT obvious for newcomers to the game, but are taken for granted by veterans like us. The biome comments are one of the biggest offenders. I had to read this wiki for hours before I had a good handle on what the alignment and biomes added up to.

We need introduction, enumeration, explanation, example, in that order. That is how all Prima strategy guides are written, that is how all instruction manuals are written, and that is how most academic textbooks are written, too. It is simply the best way to present alien information, especially when you are in possession of an exhaustive list of topics (which we are, in this case). Currently, we're extremely light on enumeration and and explanation, and too narrow-minded in the examples. Fixing all that is likely going to require a complete rewrite. --ThunderClaw 01:22, 31 October 2008 (EDT)

I suggest that if you want to "completely rewrite" a tutorial, it would be better to keep the tutorial as it is and write up a completely new one. A variety of examples is more useful than a single thoroughly edited tutorial. There are differences between a Prima Strategy Guide and a wiki. These differences should be harnessed in a way that empowers the wiki.

Here's an example that is beyond my own wiki-editing capabilities, but should give ThunderClaw what s/he's looking for without requiring a complete rewrite, or a new tutorial: create a "why" tag which, like the verify tag, allows newbies to easily ask for expansion. This could even be a FAQ-like new category, so that we could quickly edit this tutorial in small, easily managed chunks that more users would likely contribute to. Eg,

Temperature, amount of trees (why trees?), amount of plants (why plants?), and a hint at the sort of wildlife (why hunt?) at the center of the selection rectangle.

Put another way, introduction to concepts and keyboard commands should be distinct content, and a step-by-step guide should contain only enough enumeration and/or examples to cover all exceptions once. Additional exploration should be available as links. But then again, that's just my take on it, and the prize goes to the guy who actually does the deed. --RomeoFalling 20:38, 4 November 2008 (EST)

That is a good way to deal with the example part of what I was talking about. It'll shorten the article fantastically for people who don't feel they need detailed explanations, but it doesn't address the other problems: bad enumeration and incomplete explanation. The bad enumeration part is really what's killing this guide most, because many times concepts run together and it's difficult follow.

This isn't just a 'Prima' thing, this is the fundamentals of technical/instructional writing that all engineers, scientists, mathematicians, researchers, and most liberal arts majors have to learn in college because it just panders to the way that humans traditionally process information and concepts. Wiki formatting and such will definitely be different from a paper strategy guide, but I still maintain that the writing in this article is fundamentally flawed because of the poor enumeration that leads to incomplete and confusing explanation.

Anyway, I'm going to do up a rewrite of this pretty soon. The history will always let us revert if everyone universally considers it crap. --ThunderClaw 10:07, 5 November 2008 (EST)

To be clear, I wasn't questioning Prima's quality.

It worked perfectly well for me when I first started playing a few weeks ago. For a certain subset of the population, the best way to learn is to make a bunch of random choices and then see why those choices are imperfect. Further, I question if it "panders to the way that humans process info," or if it merely panders to the way AMERICANS process info.

Regardless, space is abundant and memory is cheap. What's wrong with keeping this copy intact as is, and then writing up a "Your First Fortress v2.0" guide, possibly based on this one? I still say that two guides are better than one. --RomeoFalling 18:18, 5 November 2008 (EST)

Oxford follows the same rules that I'm advocating, so I seriously doubt it's 'just an american thing'. Toyko University also advocates writing like this. The problem isn't space, the problem is that it violates so many basic writing tenents that many people could find it unreadable. I'm glad it worked for you, but it certainly didn't for the community I tried to get into the game (who, incidentally, are from America, Canada, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Mexico), who almost universally called this guide confusing and frustrating. --ThunderClaw 12:59, 6 November 2008 (EST)

First part of the rewrite is done. We really need more images. Hopefully I'll be able to get to that soon. I'm going to finish with the actual play explanation a little bit later. Savok's play tutorial got branched off into a sample game, and not deleted. So far really it's just been an overhaul of how things are arranged. --ThunderClaw 12:59, 6 November 2008 (EST)

Thanks for keeping Savok's guide somewhere. Really excellent work. I see what you mean about readability now. --RomeoFalling 21:52, 6 November 2008 (EST)

Bringing along coal

I modified the anvil embarking strategy to encompass bringing along coal and lignite as well as a single unit of charcoal; the problem with bringing a 1-1 ratio of charcoal to items for smelting is that while a single unit of charcoal costs 10☼, a unit of coal/lignite costs 3☼ and can produce 3 units of coke; a 27☼ discount after the first charcoal needed to start the coal industry.

Oh, good call. I couldn't remember how much a hunk of charcoal costs when I was writing it. Thanks for the catch. --ThunderClaw 13:49, 6 November 2008 (EST)

Food/Booze Numbers

I think it would be very helpful to newbies to quantify how much food and booze they'll need per dwarf. I think the relevant pages say that a healthy dwarf drinks something like 9 units of booze per season, but newbies may not know. We might want to have a section that just tells them straight up how much food and booze 7 dwarves will go through in a year. If they've got that much, then they can rest assured that they won't starve their fortress to death.

Just a thought. 68.102.237.253 01:52, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

That's more than covered under both starting build and food & drink. The numbers suggested in this article are enough for a year - that's more than ample, even for a newbie. (I bring enough for 1-1.5 seasons, depending on the expected challenges on the current map.) If they want, they can do the math (dividing by 4 seasons and then by 7 dwarves - not too tough.)--Albedo 02:15, 22 October 2009 (UTC)