User:Granite26/Tutorial

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

DF Tutorial Fort:

Install the game

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups (ctlv, ctlc)

Init.txt

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.

[WINDOWEDX:1200] [WINDOWEDY:900] [FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps

[GRID:120:60]

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.

[FPS:YES]

Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file. Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.

[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL] [AUTOBACKUP:YES] [AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]

Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps. Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.

[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]

The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy. Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.

[TEMPERATURE:YES] [WEATHER:YES] [ECONOMY:YES] [INVADERS:YES] [CAVEINS:YES] [ARTIFACTS:YES] [ZERO_RENT:NO]

For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots. Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.

[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]

If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.

[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]

Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.

[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]

The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults. 
 

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial. If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.

[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]

Interface.txt

Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of keyboard mappings. Better not change anything here just yet! If you are using a laptop or other special keyboard, you may need to make changes though. There's a good explanation here.

World_Gen.txt

Finally, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

Starting the Game

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press e to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:

[TITLE:NEW] [SEED:1749346575] [HISTORY_SEED:3061036161] [NAME_SEED:1528795001]

You can also look at picture 1.  Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever.  Pic 2 is the full map.  I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world. 
 

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

Selecting a Region

There are any number of theories about selecting a region. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.

1. Sand - Required to make Glass
2. Magma - Required for many types of fun
3. Trees - The other source of fuel
4. Water - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
5. Minerals - Required for mining
6. Trading Partners - Required for Caravans
7. Danger Level - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
8. Aquifer - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
9. Flux - Useful stone for making steel

There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that layer. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and Temperature are there. Temperate means that the map will freeze in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing f1 reveals the details of the mountain. f2 describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing f3 causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press e to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

Prepare for the journey carefully.

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press c to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. tab to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press -. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll tab back to the dwarves and give them skills.

• Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

• Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

• Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

• Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

• Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

• Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

• Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. tab over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press n to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press space to start the game, then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and space is the key that controls this. First things first, I'm going to press esc and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The cinnabar vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be for some nice furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the < and > keys to change z levels. If I get lost, f1 focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. ↑↓→← moves around that level, but < and > will move vertically up and down. < will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing < again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. > twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

5: The Early Years

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

5a: Defenses 101

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

5b: Sustainable Fort

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

5b1 Dwarf Stats.

Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend. Here's my bill: Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast! The entire leather bin The rope The cat in a cage I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap. Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy. Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price. Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military. Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on. Food : Food = good Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

6 Exstatic dwarfs

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.