40d Talk:Starting build

Hey, I'll have to see who wrote these starting builds and see if I can't contact him/her, but "About & Challenges" sounds uh... not informational? How about "Overview"? I don't want to edit your work here without your approval (even though I could do so on my own.) Schm0 22:14, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

Feel free to adjust the "About & Challenges" to anything else. It was just something to group one of the blocks of text and encourage others to write similar blocks of text. "Overview" sounds much better. --Shagie 22:55, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

i wrote the dwarves & skills part and wrote a small info on why to take this kind of a build as most of the items you take are heavily dependant on the area you are in.

Overviw sounds better though so i agree with that

also for the guy who asked why 10 bags; bags might be hard to come by in this version since cave spiders arent always there, which leads to little or no silk in the starting areas, and hunting might not be the best idea if you have dark gnomes or something like that in the area, and if you dont have any bags, making a glass indrusty will prove very hard.

No sand on a map makes making glass even harder. No, impossible.--Draco18s 05:52, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

Remove Fortress Sites?

Most of the page is about items and skills. The fortress sites section doesn't seem to fit. I'd like to move that information to another page. Either location, biome or region. --Strangething 00:40, 7 June 2008 (EDT)

trade goods

The mountain build suggests lots of turtle for trade goods as you'll have no wood, however shell and bone goods are worth next to nothing and roasts are worth enough to build out whole caravan. So rather then crafter and wood cutter skills I'd just go with a high-level cooking and sell excess food. (on the other hand shell and bone goods don't rot away ¬_¬) --Shades 06:03, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

I think the idea is that the bones and shells make fish and turtles marginally more valuable than other meat. --Strangething 00:00, 7 June 2008 (EDT)

With shell and bone you can create tons of bolts or crossbows to sell to merchants for next to no cost. --AlexFili 04:15, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

I'll keep the bone bolts, myself. Do you have any idea how incredibly fast marksdwarves-in-training go through them? --Savok 08:56, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

Fair enough, but if you can make goods to sell to the merchants then that's great. Don't forget, if you have plenty of wildlife and goblins, you can have enough bone to create bolts AND spare crossbows! --AlexFili 09:25, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

Food

The builds suggest taking at least 6 of each 2 cost food items, but I would suggest only one of each 2 food item (for a free barrel) and a lot of turtles, which leave both shells and bones. As other meats only leave either a bone or nothing at all. So for the easiest game use turtles. --Soyweiser 09:16, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

Steel Axes?

I noticed in the build it says to get 2 copper picks and one steel axe. The first real attempt I made at getting a fortress going, the first thing I did was ditch the _steel_ axe in favour of a cheaper material, and got a better pick. Steel items cost 300. Copper costs 20. While it makes sense to have a few extra copper picks in case your miner gets killed, a good solid iron pick will make the early mining (And his skill increase) go a lot faster. Contrarily, you really don't need steel axes. Iron is more than enough. Even copper will do just fine. And you really only need one. And, rather than ditching your anvil for stuff, try ditching your steel axe for 100 logs. Thats more than enough to last you till you have a smelter going and can make your own axes. - Stormlock 7:03 Nov 1

Steel axes are the only axes available on the preparation screen now. Does anyone know if this is a bug or not? --Xazak 18:47, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

Digging speed is not affected by the material the pick is made out of, as explained on the pick page. Neither are battle axes. Therefore, you should just take the cheapest one. I've never been able to pick any axes other than steel either, however. --Valdemar 17:33, 10 November 2007 (EST)

Layout

Should we really be dividing this up by biome? Seems to me it would be a better idea to lay this out as a series of options, e.g. "If you're settling in a mountainous/treeless region, drop your axes and take logs instead" etc. The new choices for landing site seem too diverse to keep the old formula methods of deciding on party goods. --Xazak 18:48, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

IOGT

I added AA to the IOGT title since ... I've never even heard of the IOGT and had to Google it. --Geofferic 11:13, 19 November 2007 (EST)

2.2 and 2.3.2.4

These two have a lot of redundancy between them. I can't really think of a good way to merge them though, since there is definitely information in each that should probably stay separate. --Qalnor 16:06, 2 December 2007 (EST)

Agreed. Moved some advice to external linked page. Fedor 03:46, 12 December 2007 (EST)

Critique of the "Rapid Expansion" build

I didn't write it, so I'm not going to rewrite it unless I get approval. But I do have some beefs with it. Fedor 03:54, 12 December 2007 (EST)

• The introduction is too wordy for this page and is more suited to a player's guide.
• The cross-training causes some of the dwarves to simultaneously be in demand for several essential early tasks, such as food-preparation and digging both.
• Suggesting a hunter/ranger is a death sentence on some maps; a warning is needed. Also, you also NEVER want to suggest making your leader a fisherdwarf, warning or no; at present, it's just too dangerous a profession at many sites to risk your appraiser/organizer/trader in.
• Strange moods in key trade skills are essential for a truly high-value fortress. The suggested skill set doesn't work at all well with strange moods; most dwarves will get nothing interesting from a strange mood and you don't know what The Smithy will make.
• Instead of the The Smithy being a "jack of all trades", he should be a master of a couple, chosen with both an eye to your fortress location and to his innate preferences. You'll get much more value this way, which is the declared point of this build.
• The comment "This build does not require or recommend bringing plump helmets due to their cost." is factually incorrect. A 4-point plump helmet gets you five 2-point booze, plus several seeds, for each one brewed; all of this can become food. I know of no cheaper way to ensure both food and drink than bringing plump helmets.
• Bringing stone is unnecessary to make workshops. Just make the temporary buildings out of logs or raw materials and free them up later.
• The comment "as you are nearly always getting a horse with your wagon" is incorrect in my experience; I've known times when a horse was pulling the wagon, but more likely than not I don't have one.
• The comment "The only thing you need is your anvil, a few stones and bars of metal, everything else is optional" is totally false for many fortress sites and requires a skilled, experienced player at all others.
• Speaking generally, this build is very much tailored to particular ways of playing the game, assumes particular kinds of site, requires a fair amount of skill, and therefore is - IMHO - not particularly well suited to an introductory page as written.

Agreed Kidinnu 09:03, 12 December 2007 (EST)

Starting builds page sucks

Frankly, this page sucks. There is too much irrelevant and or useless information. I made a few changes to cut down on the clutter, but the advice on this page stinks. We should focus more on what the best uses of points are instead of personal builds that have little relation to optimal strategy. I don't have time to do this right now. --Belasarius 23:20, 29 January 2008 (EST)

Added an introduction which, hopefully, explains what creating a build is about (skills, items). I'd suggest moving the discussion of possible environments somewhere, but didn't want to replace that large chapter with a simple ' biomes' :-) Samyotix 16:51, 19 February 2008 (EST)

Ambusher Skill?

Do you still start with free items? If so, how much Ambusher is needed? Because I just tried this with novice ambushers/proficient marksmen/+4 other dwarves and no one got any crossbows, armor, or bolts. (Which, when your starting ontop of a goblin fortress, is a pretty rude surprise - that your marksdwarves don't actually have weapons).

Unsigned comment above was Squirrelloid

I believe ambusher has to be the (joint) highest skill level that dwarf has to get the free equipment. --Shades 10:09, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

As of 27.176.38c, a Marksdwarf 4/Ambusher 2/Armor User 2/Wrestler 2 gets free armor + weapon + bolts, but if you mix in *any* civilian skills they seem to not get the free equipment. --Kidinnu 08:00, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

Disagreement with the thrust of the builds

So, while I will grant some of the advice on this page is good for your first game where you're really trying to figure out how everything works, it seems like really poor advice for maximizing your starting dwarves.

I consider my starting skills as follows: (1) What is fast and easy to train without any investment (take no ranks in these skills)
(2) What would be especially valuable to get a legendary off a mood (take a full 5 ranks in some such skills, don't pair with other mood skills if possible)
(3) Which skills are absolutely essential and don't fall under 1.

My generic choice looks something like the following, although I vary a little based on fortress goals:

Armorer 5/Leader stuff (Negotiator/Appraiser/JoI/Consoler/Flatterer usually)
He'll do really early mining until he hits Skilled (so as not to risk the valuable Armorer skill as the mood skill) and then be put on bookkeeping as soon as he gets an office.

Weaponsmith 5/xxx 5
The xxx is generally another craft, often metalsmithing. He has a high likelihood of weaponsmithing for a mood (also valuable), especially as he's more likely to do some weaponsmithing before anything else (since he'll be making the battleaxe at the beginning). Also a possible early miner.

Mason 5/Building Designer 5
The mason is mostly the go-to dwarf for building structures, so architecture is the only logical combo. Its also rare enough a skill to be demanded that it won't interfere with his masonry much, and hard enough to level (with substantial impact on the value of structures like roads and wells) that I can't justify starting it less than 5.

Brewer 5/Grower 5
Cook 5/Grower 5
I'm a big fan of entirely underground farming to start with - any other farming can be splashed after trading with the elves/humans and getting seeds from their plants later - indoor farming is more than sufficient for the fortress's food needs, so no herbalist needed. And these two can feed a fortress of 200 without breaking a sweat. They will each smith one copper pick in the beginning for a splash of metalsmithing in case they get a mood.

Carpenter 5/xxx 5
Mechanic 5/xxx 5
Finally, I'll need a mechanic and a carpenter. What I splash with them will vary from game to game. Often I find my carpenter and mechanic doing a lot of work early and later having abundant freetime, so another craft is often in order (generally having the two of them in the same production tree), though this is where I vary my skill set the most. As their secondaries aren't going to be the mood skill, its not worth sticking valuable metal skills here though. But clothing line or gem setter/glassmaker are good bets (other glass industry skills, including gem cutting, don't have any impacts on quality of most items). I've also run second masons here and so forth.

Skills I absolutely don't start with: Woodcutting, Mining, Stone/Bone/Wood Crafting, Herbalist (unless I'm trying to live above ground entirely for the last one). Woodcutting, Mining, and those crafting skills all train fast. And Mining will have plenty of practice time as I hollow out storage and living spaces before I need to worry about rock retention rate. I generally pass mining duties on to dedicated miners with the first immigrant wave (generally sometime in the first summer) and then level them to legendary as fast as possible with fortress expansion, prospecting, and random busywork if need be. I also rarely start with any military skills - mass drafting and mechanical traps can handle the early game without a problem. By the time I expect real opposition I'll have had immigrants I don't know what to do with that I can draft and set to training - often producing champions before the first real wave of goblins hits.

Starting equipment:
Anvil, some copper and iron bars, some rock (generally bauxite), 1 charcoal, some Bituminous Coal, min/maxed food/drink supplies with an emphasis on turtles, seeds (generally 10 Rock Nuts, 1 of all the others, and i'll get plump helmet spawn to plant with from consumed/brewed plump helmets i bring with me), and some random bits of cloth, leather, thread, cut gems, etc... for insurance against moods. I'll often try to bring an animal that will likely pair up with one of the wagon animals (if Muskoxen are available, its a sure choice). Early game involves building a smelter, making coke, build a forge, make 2 picks (team grower) and an axe, and build some other essential buildings out of bauxite temporarily (this keeps the bauxite locked up and thus not crafted into doors or tables - i'll want it for mechanisms and floodgates later).

This is remarkably different from the advice offered here, because most of the builds push Mining as a starting skill, and don't consider mood skills at all (a rather important considerations considering how valuable some skills are and how valuable others aren't - making a legendary boneworker the old-fashioned way is easy).

--Squirrelloid 02:46, 20 November 2008 (EST)

Like a lot of things, it depends on biome. A skilled miner and military skills can be critically important for a starting party charging in to someplace savage. A location with a lot of water and dangerous water creatures can breathe much easier if everyone can swim and fight the carp menace. It's only natural that in an already secure site that you'll want to build for efficiency instead, though. --Navian 10:14, 20 November 2008 (EST)