40d Talk:Starting build

(Moved from Starting builds to conform to article naming standards.--Albedo 14:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

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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 furnaces and metalsmith's forge definitely can't be made out of wood and you won't be able to get stone unless you have at least one pick. Bringing along extra metal bars and building them from those then reclaiming after could work. But it's probably best just to always bring at least one pick. The copper pick only cost 20 points at embark and the stone costs 3 each and the copper bar you would have made the pick out of costs 10 so taking a pick along actually saves you 2 points at embark - Praxis

• 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)

I suggest to remove the horse from this build. --Kami 07:18, 9 February 2009 (EST)

• Even if you had a chance of 100% to get 2 of them this way, they are not that cheap.
• You could bring some dogs instead providing you with some additional protection.
• Comparing prizes and speed of reproduction dogs are a better emergency ration.

If you remove the horse and buy 4 of any iron ore and possibly some flux you can get the smithy to start making steel weapons really early. When I played this build the smithy didn't do much after making the picks until the miners had dug out a decent fortress so this could give him something to do--Praxis 10:40, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, and doing just that. It's hard to make sense of it, even for an experienced player. For posterity, the original section is below, in spoiler.--Albedo 18:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Rapid Expansion A plan for quick growth followed up by heavy immigration works well both as an early game strategy and as an assist for a late game foundation. Starting off with the anvil is also much less troublesome if you drop both battleaxes and make your own picks too. Don't worry though, you'll be digging out cavernous villas in no time, and cheaply too, with this build. Food and stone will be in abundance and you'll have excellent worker time utilization. And due to the early metalworking and distributed skills your dwarves have, soon you'll have powerful steel-armored warrior workers that'll form the bedrock of a city guard. Always build a wood burning furnace, Smelter and Metalsmith's forge first, and take apart that wagon for extra logs. Either burn those logs into charcoal, or smelt coal into fuel, and then make your tools. Dwarves & skills By dropping both picks and axes you'll be able to afford a lot of useful skills, and you'll be able to get a metalsmithing shop running within the first seconds of your game, so no precious time is lost. Your Dwarves are divided largely into two groups, your laborers (Butcher, Baker and candle--er, Brewer) and your craftsdwarves. Essentially a Blue collar/White collar divide to set up a nice class war later. Also, by having such wide assortments of skills, your dwarves will get lots of attribute bonuses and become extremely capable fighters by the time you need to worry about that. Laborers are given mining and growing skills with some extra to cover food production. The Ranger is the oddball, but will spend his early days gathering plants and hauling items, so fits here. Your first order of business with them is to dig that top layer out quickly and get some farms started and fully stocked. Then, as they grow, you can go back to digging out the rest of the base. The Baker: +5 Mining, +2 Growing, +3 Cooking. The Brewer: +5 Mining, +2 Growing, +3 Brewing. The Butcher: +5 Mining, +2 Growing, +1 Butchering, +1 Tanning, +1 Leatherworking. Make some bags for sand and the Quarry Bushes and a butcher's shop before the Ranger starts his hunts. The Ranger: +3 Woodcutter, +3 Carpenter, +1 Herbalist, +1 Ambusher, +2 Axedwarf. Be sure to assign a war dog or two to this guy, since he's the only one who needs to go outside. Once he gets an axe, he'll also be a competent fighter and hunter and will start with armor due to +1 ambusher. Craftsdwarves focus on running shops, building trade goods, and making the outpost as profitable as possible in the first year, to attract additional immigrants that can be thrown into the mines or toil in the mushroom fields. They should have very broad skill bases, but the actual choice of leader is up to you. The Smithy: +1 Weaponsmith, Armorsmith, Metalsmith, Furnace Operator, Wood Burner, Stone Crafting, Bone Carving. This guy will cover all of your rarely needed creation skills, and make your picks and axes. After this he usually ends up making scads of stone crafts for sale. Glassmaking, gem cutting, and potash making are good as well, and even with novice in all areas you'll build fast enough for these rare items. The Foreman: +3 Building Design, +3 Mechanic, +1 Judge of Intent, Appraiser, Organizer, Record Keeper. Building design and mechanical work is extremely quick work, so instead give him nobleman skills to spend the rest of his work hours on. These are extremely useful in the long-term. The Freemason: +5 Masonry. It seems a bit silly to give him just one primary skill, but Masons are usually working 24 hours a day on all variety of stone doors, chairs and tables. There's a variation if you want a more 'compact' design of those last two: The Construction Worker: +5 Masonry, +3 Mechanic, +2 Building Design. The Lazy Boss: +3 Fishing, +3 Fish Cleaning, +1 Judge of Intent, Appraiser, Organizer, Record Keeper. This is not as useful or safe, as Fishing is a time-intensive skill, so it takes him away from his record keeping job for extended periods and a carp might kill him. It also forces your Mason to get behind on Queues every time someone needs a trap build or a workshop set up. Halting book-keeping doesn't slow down any production, so the original stat-spread can work out better. Items The only thing you need is your anvil, a few stones and bars of metal, everything else is optional. A point of contention is the Iron Axe you'll be making, as some may prefer it to be steel. Steel Bars cost 150, which is three times the cost of iron, and only provide a small damage bonus and no chopping speed bonus. If you start in an area with Limestone or Chalk you'll soon be able to smelt Steel with your functioning metalsmith shop anyway. If you're on a map without trees, well, I suppose you don't need the axe at all. But in that case you'd be better off taking the picks, dropping the anvil, and buying a few hundred logs. 1 Anvil - this is what makes it all possible, and helps you get started faster. 3 Copper bars - these cost 10 each, and will be your picks. Three for the price of one, literally. 1 Iron bar - this costs 50, and will be your axe. The 40 extra is worth it for the damage increase you get over copper or bronze. 2 Bituminous coal or Logs - you can smelt two coal into 4 fuel for the cost of 2 logs. Inexpensive at 3 each, one can afford to bring more. 4 cheap stone - bauxite is good, because it can be used to build magma floodgates. That's what you need to get started, but this is a guide for the items on your list. This build does not require or recommend bringing plump helmets due to their cost. Instead, encourage your dwarves to eat the turtles and meat out of the barrels and cook wine biscuits. Your farms will be running amazingly quickly anyway, and for half the cost of a single helmet you can make feed several dwarves on baked beer. You'll get enough seeds from brewing the plump helmets soon enough. 26 of Wine, Rum, Beer and Ale 36 of rock nuts, Plump helmet spawn and Pig tail seeds 11 turtles - these hilarious little dudes are way better than the meat you usually set out with, what with all the bones they leave. I use these as 'before farming' rations and build up a good supply of bone bolts. Shells are also valuable to have around. 1 of each other 2 cost meat, for extra empty barrels. Barrels cost 10, so getting any food below that can save you money. 2 Dogs - preferably war dogs or hunting dogs. Assign these to your Ranger. Bring a pair so you can make more dogs. 4 Leather - you need leather bags to process quarry bushes and to gather sand for glass. Four will be enough, and you can get it for only 20. 1 Horse - they're relatively expensive but will help you begin breeding horses faster, if you get a horse with your wagon. Livestock are a valuable commodity for meat and bones, and you want as many of these possible 'emergency rations' on hand. Be aware that it is not guaranteed to get a horse pulling your wagon, especially when muskoxen, camels , donkeys and (sterile) mules are also quite possible - check which animals are available, and see if your odds are improved any. Ending up with three different types of domestic animals is quite possible, making you unable to breed until a caravan or a migrant brings more of that one animal - or you trap some wild ones. Consider wisely. If you do it exactly as written, you will end up with a few points left over. Grab some extra food or upgrade one of your copper bars to an actual copper pick, if you want a faster start. These foodstuffs will last a very long time if managed properly, so get your farms going and start preparing for next year now.

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)

Actually, as of 40d, as long as the ambushing skill is the highest skill (eg proficient ambusher, skilled mason, skilled engraver) as Shades pointed out, they'll start with the armor/crossbow/bolts.--Kwieland 08:58, 18 February 2009 (EST)

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)

I encourage you to add all this stuff to the main page. Gairabad 15:52, 9 December 2008 (EST)

Maybe it would be best on an advanced starts page? I certainly wouldn't suggest it for a beginner. I think the difference is in the length of time you plan to spend developing a fortress. If you're in it for 1-2 game years, go ahead and do as this article suggests. But for a long haul, I agree with the idea of this. I would substitute a siege engineer for a carpenter to this list, as it takes FOREVER to level up and does effect the damage from siege weapons. I also like to use catapults to train siege operators, so I use them more than most. Mechanics, masons, growers and brewers can all be leveled up fairly quickly too when locked in a room :].
The other way to look at this list is what are the easy skills to level up. Need to train soldiers? Try Squirrelloid's "fast" list Woodcutting, Mining, Stone/Bone/Wood Crafting, Herbalist. I didn't think of the last one, but it does level quick. --Kwieland 09:08, 23 February 2009 (EST)

Time for a split

This page is starting to get an automated warning "TOO EFFIN BIG!" (32k+). Reading over the above history of complaints and comments, it hasn't gotten any better, only bigger.

Maybe it's (way past!) time we split it up, following the general strategy that other bloated "How to" pages are leaning towards - the main page is theory/general advice, and that ONLY, with a "Design" page with specific (personal) examples. (The alternate is trying to split it into two starting skills/starting pages, but too often they're tied together into one concept build.)--Albedo 02:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC) Bold text

Better explanations of personalities

"Some are obscure or abiguous, but some ("Is constantly active and energetic") are a clear sign." needs to be clarified. Most newbies won't understand what this is a clear sign of. Perhaps a few examples would really make this 'a clear sign'. Kenji 03 13:16, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Always used skills

Removed some because they are not nearly always used. Contemplating removing mechanics as well. Specific reasons:

Military: its very easy to play a fortress with no military whatsoever, so claiming virtually every fortress will use it is ridiculous. Also, military is not a skill, its a set of skills, and any given fortress might use very different military skills.

Metal(all?): Its a set of skills, not a skill. Its also trivial to not use any of the metal skills in a fortress, and a number of people have played 'live like elves' and similar types of fortresses. There is absolutely no reason virtually all fortresses will use metal skills.

Cooking: quite possible to run a fortress without it.

Re-added butchery because its impossible to play the game without using butchery. You must slaughter all those kittens (not to mention other random animal offspring) or your CPU will die. This is not a list of 'you should start with dwarves with these skills', this is a list of 'you will use this skill in 99.9% of your fortresses'.

Mechanics: I would have axed it except mechanisms get used for so many diverse things its hard to imagine a fortress that never uses the skill without going out of its way to specifically never use the skill.

--Squirrelloid 12:16, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd hardly call butchery essential. For the purposes of preserving your framerate, a cage works equally well (possibly even better, since caged animals count towards the cap of 50). --LaVacaMorada 19:21, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

All the skills you deleted had caveats attached - "hard to do X without...", "if you want X...", "absolutely not necessary", etc. Your examples are a stretch, the equiv of personal challenges - do you understand what "virtually every fortress" means? You can run DF without using any skill(s) you choose to avoid if you really want to - no Masonry (wood/metal only), no Appraisal (never trade), no Brewing (trade for booze, keep population small), no Mining - name it, it's been done. Butchery is completely optional - be vegetarian, dump the excess animals into magma. ANYTHING is possible - but this is a vanilla advice section for newbies for your average fort, and the average fort DOES use those skills, within the clearly included limitations.

Further, these are hinting at what skills to take for a "starting build" (the name of this article, remember?), so is more about that than "technical" quibbles. The paragraph that follows this list starts "Many other skills will certainly be used, but not often enough (or critical enough) to spend (many? any?) points on..." Like butcher. Consider the entire context before editing.--Albedo 19:29, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

First, consider that the following paragraphs also say 'mining is easy to level' and 'butchery is not worth investing in', so despite almost certainly using them it still explains which ones are worthwhile or not.

The point of the section was to convey what skills you would always or almost always create jobs for, not what skills you should start with. It follows and is part of a discussion that covers many reasons to start with different skills, its use is not in telling you what to invest in but in letting you know what you will need to use. If you can easily imagine a fortress that doesn't use a skill and survives at least 5 years, the skill does not belong in that list.

This is not a vanilla advice section - see 40d:How to safely start fortress mode or 40d:Your first fortress or 40d:Quickstart guide for that. This is a general theory discussion on starting builds, aimed primarily at advanced players (although newer players could gain insights from reading it). I should know, I wrote the section to begin with, and I certainly wasn't writing it for starting players.

--Squirrelloid 09:05, 5 April 2010 (UTC)