Embark - Revision history

168.229.254.65: cheap bags: notes on sand

2026-02-19T19:08:56Z

cheap bags: notes on sand

Quietust at 03:10, 7 December 2025

2025-12-07T03:10:40Z

Ziusudra: /* Creating Your Settlers */ added intro since this a new screen

2025-12-03T17:00:00Z

Creating Your Settlers: added intro since this a new screen

Ziusudra: /* Difficulty */ fixed main link, split categories into paragraphs, expanded economy hard/normal diffs

2025-12-03T16:47:07Z

Difficulty: fixed main link, split categories into paragraphs, expanded economy hard/normal diffs

172.56.104.127: /* Difficulty */

2025-12-03T06:29:04Z

Difficulty

Silverwing235: /* Choosing a Site */

2025-03-24T23:17:05Z

Choosing a Site

Jeff Agudelo at 00:44, 16 October 2024

2024-10-16T00:44:34Z

Chr1styn: /* Picking the Right Location */ fixed grammar

2024-03-01T04:58:38Z

Picking the Right Location: fixed grammar

Ziusudra: /* Choosing a Site */ added civ access, white/magenta existing sites, removed pathfinding specificity, added 1×1 not recommended

2023-12-04T12:59:32Z

Choosing a Site: added civ access, white/magenta existing sites, removed pathfinding specificity, added 1×1 not recommended

Ziusudra: /* Skills */ reworded skills not using embark points for rule T

2023-12-04T12:34:13Z

Skills: reworded skills not using embark points for rule T

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 * When choosing all that different food, be smart. Press "n" Go to "Meat" section, press "e", and search for one particular kind of food, "meat", for example. Press enter, rinse and repeat. This way, you can quickly add food from different animals and be sure you don't have any 2 foods from the same species. Also, it's good to make a template so you won't have to do the whole thing all over again when you start another fortress.
-'''Cheap Bags''' - while even the cheapest bags (made from cave spider silk and low-value leather) cost 10 points each, you can instead simply bring several units of [[sand]] costing 1 point each, as each unit of sand will be stored in its own bag made from a randomly selected material (including giant cave spider silk and valuable creature leather).
+'''Cheap Bags''' - while even the cheapest bags (made from cave spider silk and low-value leather) cost 10 points each, you can instead simply bring several units of [[sand]] costing 1 point each, as each unit of sand will be stored in its own bag made from a randomly selected material (including giant cave spider silk and valuable creature leather). The sand can be dumped at a [[garbage dump]] to free up the bags, or turned into [[glass]].
 '''Don't Really Need That''' - unless you have tailored your embark for metal production quick and early, an anvil is typically unnecessary and the 100 points you get from refunding it can be better spent on skills or additional foodstuffs (can't really have enough foodstuffs). By the time the Dwarven caravan arrives in the fall, a 100☼ iron anvil, or even a 300☼ steel anvil, should be little more than an inconvenience. This can sometimes be <s>problematic</s> [[Fun]] if you are unlucky and the caravan does not bring an anvil.

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 The enemies settings affects how attacks against your fortress can occur. The "Off" preset prevents [[siege]]s, [[megabeast]] attacks, [[werebeast]] attacks, and [[Creature#agitated|agitated wildlife]], although on site hostile [[undead|wildlife]] and [[evil|environments]] will be unaffected. "Hard" allows these attacks to occur at roughly half the [[population]] and [[wealth]] of a fortress set to "Normal".
-The economy settings affect how much [[population]] and [[wealth]] is needed to unlock [[Noble#Triggers|landholders]] and [[Fortress#Nomenclature|fortress ranks]], how much [[Zones#Quality_and_value|value]] is required to increase the quality of zones, and how often nobles can make [[demand]]s and [[mandate]]s. With "Hard", the wealth needed is five times, the zone value is triple, and the noble period is half that of the "Normal" difficulty.
+The economy settings affect how much [[population]] and [[wealth]] is needed to unlock [[Noble#Triggers|landholders]] and [[Fortress#Nomenclature|fortress ranks]], how much [[Zone#Quality_and_value|value]] is required to increase the quality of zones, and how often nobles can make [[demand]]s and [[mandate]]s. With "Hard", the wealth needed is five times, the zone value is triple, and the noble period is half that of the "Normal" difficulty.
 ===Play Now!===

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 ==Creating Your Settlers==
 ===Difficulty===
 {{Main|Difficulty}}

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 ==Creating Your Settlers==
 ===Difficulty===
-{{Main|Settings#Difficulty|l1=Difficulty}}
+{{Main|Difficulty}}
-After confirming the embark location, you will have the ability to modify the difficulty settings for your fortress. The two categories, "Enemies" and "Economy" are presets that affect values in Custom settings. The "Enemies" setting generally affects how easily attacks against your fortress can occur. Setting Enemies to "Off" prevents [[siege]]s, [[megabeast]] attacks, [[werebeast]] attacks, and [[Creature#agitated|agitated wildlife]], although particularly hostile [[undead|wildlife]] and [[evil|environments]] will be unaffected. Setting it to "Hard" allows these attacks to occur with roughly half the [[population]] and half the [[wealth]] of a fortress set to "Normal". The "Economy" setting primarily affects how much [[Zones#Quality_and_value|value]] is required to increase the quality of zones and how much [[wealth]] and export is needed to unlock [[Noble#Triggers|landholders]] and improve [[Fortress#Nomenclature|fortress titles]].  For Hard, the value required for a zone (e.g. to satisfy a petition for a guild hall) is triple the normal difficulty.  These settings can also be changed after embark.
+The enemies settings affects how attacks against your fortress can occur. The "Off" preset prevents [[siege]]s, [[megabeast]] attacks, [[werebeast]] attacks, and [[Creature#agitated|agitated wildlife]], although on site hostile [[undead|wildlife]] and [[evil|environments]] will be unaffected. "Hard" allows these attacks to occur at roughly half the [[population]] and [[wealth]] of a fortress set to "Normal".
 ===Play Now!===

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 {{Main|Settings#Difficulty|l1=Difficulty}}
-After confirming the embark location, you will have the ability to modify the difficulty settings for your fortress. The two categories, "Enemies" and "Economy" are presets that affect values in Custom settings. The "Enemies" setting generally affects how easily attacks against your fortress can occur. Setting Enemies to "Off" prevents [[siege]]s, [[megabeast]] attacks, [[werebeast]] attacks, and [[Creature#agitated|agitated wildlife]], although particularly hostile [[undead|wildlife]] and [[evil|environments]] will be unaffected. Setting it to "Hard" allows these attacks to occur with roughly half the [[population]] and half the [[wealth]] of a fortress set to "Normal". The "Economy" setting primarily affects how much [[Zones#Quality_and_value|value]] is required to increase the quality of zones and how much [[wealth]] and export is needed to unlock [[Noble#Triggers|landholders]] and improve [[Fortress#Nomenclature|fortress titles]]. These settings can also be changed after embark.
+After confirming the embark location, you will have the ability to modify the difficulty settings for your fortress. The two categories, "Enemies" and "Economy" are presets that affect values in Custom settings. The "Enemies" setting generally affects how easily attacks against your fortress can occur. Setting Enemies to "Off" prevents [[siege]]s, [[megabeast]] attacks, [[werebeast]] attacks, and [[Creature#agitated|agitated wildlife]], although particularly hostile [[undead|wildlife]] and [[evil|environments]] will be unaffected. Setting it to "Hard" allows these attacks to occur with roughly half the [[population]] and half the [[wealth]] of a fortress set to "Normal". The "Economy" setting primarily affects how much [[Zones#Quality_and_value|value]] is required to increase the quality of zones and how much [[wealth]] and export is needed to unlock [[Noble#Triggers|landholders]] and improve [[Fortress#Nomenclature|fortress titles]].  For Hard, the value required for a zone (e.g. to satisfy a petition for a guild hall) is triple the normal difficulty.  These settings can also be changed after embark.
 ===Play Now!===

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 }}
-The main considerations to keep in mind when choosing a site are: the presence of aquifers, the availability of wood, ores, and soil, the climate, and your neighbors. There is just ONE BIG RULE: when your home civilization is too small or inaccessible, after the second winter you won't get any more [[Immigration|immigrants]], which can be [[Fun|extremely fun]]. To avoid this situation, select a home civilization with ''at least'' two dwarven sites on the map on the same land mass as your embark location.
+The main considerations to keep in mind when choosing a site are: the presence of aquifers, availability of wood, ores, and soil, the climate, and your neighbors. There is just ONE BIG RULE: when your home civilization is too small or inaccessible, after the second winter you won't get any more [[Immigration|immigrants]], which can be [[Fun|extremely fun]]. To avoid this situation, select a home civilization with ''at least'' two dwarven sites on the map on the same land mass as your embark location.
 The Choose Fortress Location screen has two different zoom levels: Region and Local. In the region view, you can [[Site finder|search for an embark location]], [[Reclaim fortress mode|reclaim or unretire a site]], and choose your origin civilization. Each tile on the region view encompasses a 16×16 grid of local view tiles. In the local view, you can select your embark location and view the elevation and grade of the terrain. Additionally, you will see the location of other sites in red, or white (magenta in ASCII mode) for the currently selected dwarven civilization if that menu is open.
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 Once you select embark, the embark area is shown at the mouse cursor. It can be resized by clicking the arrows in the top-left corner. The size of the embark location directly affects how much data about a map the game will have to store in your computer's memory and the size of your save files. This may [[Frames per second|slow your game down]], and have an effect on the save and load times for your map. As such, smaller maps are recommended, especially for less powerful computers, though 1×1 is not since it is too restricting. Each embark tile on the local view is 48×48 tiles large once you embark.
-Before you confirm your embark you will be presented with any notable dangers present in that location. Once you confirm, you'll setup your settlers and equipment.
+Before you confirm your embark, you will be presented with any notable dangers present in that location. Once you confirm, you'll set up your settlers and equipment.
 ===Your Civilization===
-Selecting '''Choose origin civilization''' will show all dwarven civilizations in the world. When you select a civilization in the region view, it shows the civilization's population, the number of sites, your [[monarch]] and scrolls the map to highlight which sites belong to that civilization. Zooming to the local view will show you exactly which tiles are claimed by that civilization. Civilization choice will affect who is at war with you and what goods are available for trade and at embark. If your civilization is dying or dead (low population, low number of sites), you will receive few [[immigration]] waves and may eventually stop getting [[Trading#Caravans|trade caravans]]. If this is the case, it is recommended you change to a still-existent civilization unless you want the challenge of having no support from the Mountainhome.
+Selecting '''Choose origin civilization''' will show all dwarven civilizations in the world. When you select a civilization in the region view, it shows the civilization's population, the number of sites, your [[monarch]] and scrolls the map to highlight which sites belong to that civilization. Zooming to the local view will show you exactly which tiles are claimed by that civilization. Civilization choice will affect who is at war with you and what goods are available for trade and at embark. If your civilization is dying or dead (low population, low number of sites), you will receive few [[immigration]] waves and may eventually stop getting [[Trading#Caravans|trade caravans]]. If this is the case, it is recommended you change to a still-existent civilization, unless you want the challenge of having no support from the Mountainhome.
 ===Biomes===

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 {{Quality|Masterwork}}
 {{av}}
 [[File:embark_prev.jpg|301px|right]]'''Embark''' is the time at the very beginning of [[Fortress mode]] before actual gameplay begins (but after [[World generation|generating a world]]), when you and your initial [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dwarfs 7 dwarves]:
 # Choose a site.

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 '''Flowing Water (and its inverse)''' - Flowing water (river or stream) is a must-have for the infinite power it supplies for working machinery, and because underground water supplies are too dangerous to tap into. There is no guarantee of infinite water underground, you could embark on a map with completely dry caverns. However, rainier climates will always have murky pools, which, with careful management, can be refilled from the rain. Infinite power for working machinery can be created using a limited amount of water in a perpetual motion machine, although, being limited in quantity, murky pools simply do not have the capacity to permanently flood your fortress, while a single mistake with an infinite source can easily do so.
-'''FPS''' - often overlooked, this is perhaps the most consequential decision you will make during embark. FPS drops slowly as fortresses get more people, and create more stuff (the game has to simulate all of these people and the stuff they are making). Having a site that takes little resources to simulate can go a long way to mitigating this problem. The major FPS-eaters to look out for are trees (deciduous trees especially, as they shed their leaves annually), and flowing and/or falling water (the latter being worse on FPS). See the article on [[Maximizing framerate]] for considerations. Of all the things you can do to help with FPS, picking a new site is not one of them. Planning for this early on will save you a lot of headaches if you manage to keep a fort alive for more than a decade.
+'''FPS''' - often overlooked, this is perhaps the most consequential decision you will make during embark. FPS drops slowly as fortresses get more people, and create more stuff (the game has to simulate all of these people and the stuff they are making). Having a site that takes little resources to simulate can go a long way to mitigating this problem. The major FPS-eaters to look out for are trees (deciduous trees especially, as they shed their leaves annually), and flowing and/or falling water (the latter being worse on FPS). See the article on [[Maximizing framerate]] for considerations. Of all the things you can ignore to help with FPS, picking a new site is not one of them. Planning for this early on will save you a lot of headaches if you manage to keep a fort alive for more than a decade.
 ===Preparation Strategies===

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 }}
-The main considerations to keep in mind when choosing a site are: the presence of aquifers, the availability of wood, ores, and soil, the climate, and your neighbors. There is just ONE BIG RULE: when your home civilization is too small, you will recognize after the second winter that you won't get any more [[Immigration|immigrants]], which can be [[Fun|extremely fun]]. To avoid this situation, select a home civilization with ''at least'' two dwarven sites on the map.
+The main considerations to keep in mind when choosing a site are: the presence of aquifers, the availability of wood, ores, and soil, the climate, and your neighbors. There is just ONE BIG RULE: when your home civilization is too small or inaccessible, after the second winter you won't get any more [[Immigration|immigrants]], which can be [[Fun|extremely fun]]. To avoid this situation, select a home civilization with ''at least'' two dwarven sites on the map on the same land mass as your embark location.
-The Choose Fortress Location screen has two different zoom levels: Region and Local. In the region view, you can [[Site finder|search for an embark location]], [[Reclaim fortress mode|reclaim or unretire a site]], and choose your origin civilization. Each tile on the region view encompasses a 16×16 grid of local view tiles. In the local view, you can select your embark location and view the elevation and grade of the terrain. Additionally, you will see the location of other sites in red.
+The Choose Fortress Location screen has two different zoom levels: Region and Local. In the region view, you can [[Site finder|search for an embark location]], [[Reclaim fortress mode|reclaim or unretire a site]], and choose your origin civilization. Each tile on the region view encompasses a 16×16 grid of local view tiles. In the local view, you can select your embark location and view the elevation and grade of the terrain. Additionally, you will see the location of other sites in red, or white (magenta in ASCII mode) for the currently selected dwarven civilization if that menu is open.
 {{Dual image
@@ Line 26: / Line 26: @@
 }}
-Once you select embark, the embark area is shown at the mouse cursor. It can also be resized by clicking the arrows in the top-left corner. The size of the embark location directly affects how much data about a map the game will have to store in your computer's memory and the size of your save files. This may correspondingly make pathfinding more resource-intensive, generally [[Frames per second|slow your game down]], and have a dramatic effect on the save and load times for your map. As such, smaller maps are recommended, especially for less powerful computers. Remember that each tile on your embark screen is 48×48 tiles large.
+Once you select embark, the embark area is shown at the mouse cursor. It can be resized by clicking the arrows in the top-left corner. The size of the embark location directly affects how much data about a map the game will have to store in your computer's memory and the size of your save files. This may [[Frames per second|slow your game down]], and have an effect on the save and load times for your map. As such, smaller maps are recommended, especially for less powerful computers, though 1×1 is not since it is too restricting. Each embark tile on the local view is 48×48 tiles large once you embark.
 Before you confirm your embark you will be presented with any notable dangers present in that location. Once you confirm, you'll setup your settlers and equipment.

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 {{Main|Skill}}
-At embark, all seven settlers begin without ranks in any skill except [[performance]] skills. Each dwarf can be assigned 10 additional ranks to be allocated however you please among the entire Dwarven skill list &ndash; including military &ndash; with the restriction that no skill can be increased more than 5 ranks. Therefore, you can trade off specialisation against versatility: each dwarf may be 'proficient' in two skills, or minimally skilled (rank 1, 'Novice') across 10 skills, or anything in between. Not all ranks need be allocated. The current skill rank is shown to the left of the skill (e.g. Novice). Older versions used to have a point system to determine the cost of the skill picks in embark points, but there is no cost as of v50, so all 1504 embark points are allocated to items and animals.
+At embark, all seven settlers begin without ranks in any skill except [[performance]] skills. Each dwarf can be assigned 10 additional ranks to be allocated however you please among the entire Dwarven skill list &ndash; including military &ndash; with the restriction that no skill can be increased more than 5 ranks. Therefore, you can trade off specialisation against versatility: each dwarf may be 'proficient' in two skills, or minimally skilled (rank 1, 'Novice') across 10 skills, or anything in between. Not all ranks need be allocated. The current skill rank is shown to the left of the skill (e.g. Novice). Skills do not cost embark points, so all 1504 embark points can be allocated to items and animals.
 The value of a rank is subject to further scrutiny given the early-game value, or lack thereof, of certain skills as well as the relative ease or difficulty of training ranks in a given skill. Many skills are performed just as well by a Novice (skill level 1) or even a Dabbler (level 0) as they are by a Legendary (level 15+). A Novice Furnace Operator won't produce Coke as fast as a Legendary Furnace Operator, but they will produce it fast enough to keep their neighbor smelting hematite until the cows come home. Additionally, embarking with Novice or higher skill will automatically enable the corresponding labor, avoiding manual labor assignments upon arrival.