40d:Starting build design

These are personal builds suggested by various players. Their style may not be your style - consider the reasoning offered, your embark site, and your own playstyle - mix and match, adopt, adapt or reject as you please.

See starting builds for a general discussion of this topic.

A basic build

The first order of business is simply to survive. Here is a simple, somewhat paranoid, way to do this.

Skills

• 2 miner/X (digging stone can be slow - this gets you into the ground asap)
• 1 mason/mechanic
• 1 carpenter/woodcutter
• 1 grower/brewer/cook. He's responsible for making prepared meals and drinks.
• either an herbalist/grower, or a fisherdwarf/X, or a hunter/X. The first gets you lots of brewable plants on maps with plants, the second gets you food and bones on maps with water (in maps with dangerous fish such as carp fishing is suicidal so be careful), and the third gets you meat and bones on maps with animals. Herbalism is usually the safest of the three.
• 1 spare dwarf. You might make him the leader and broker; if so, give him at least novice appraiser skill so you know what stuff is worth. You might make him responsible for making trade goods, or turn him into your first soldier, or you might just give him some skills you want to experiment with.

Items You want picks, food, and drink. Everything else is optional. The suggestions below assume you spent the maximum possible on skills. We'll pack lots just to be safe.

• 2 picks - 1 per miner
• 1 battle axe - so you can chop wood
• 1 Anvil - so you can make weapons, trade crafts, and such
• 20 units of drink: Anything but dwarven wine, which you'll get through brewing asap.
• 30 plump helmets - They're good to eat and produce 5 units of booze for each one brewed at a still.
• 5 turtles - they get you bones and shells
• 20 plump helmet spawn - for planting.
• 2 dogs - to guard against thieves and help kill intruders.
• (optional) other kinds of seeds and rock nuts
• (optional) 1 of many different kinds of meats for extra barrels
• (optional) some cheap (5 point) leather to make quivers and bags and such

If the map is treeless, remove the battle axe and spend the freed points on more plump helmets and logs (you're going to run out however many you bring...).

If you're willing to wait a year or two to do any metalworking and you're sure traders will come, remove the anvil and spend the freed points on such things as skills, food and drink, wood, leather, raw materials, or weapons.

Metalbashing/Glassworking

Heavy metalbashing and glassworking requires a site with 1) abundant fuel and 2) raw materials - ores and sand. Magma is ideal but large coal seams or a forest will also suffice. A site with sedimentary and flux should mean nearly unlimited steel. Any site with sand (not "loamy sand" or the like) will permit glassworking. Your biggest choice when setting up is whether to optimize for a fast start or long-term success.

Skills

• A Carpenter/Woodcutter/Leader: A bunch of nobles' skills, including at least novice Negotiator and Appraiser. This dwarf should have good inter-personal personality.
• A Mason/Mechanic/Building designer: Adding more points to Mason gets construction materials and furniture faster. More points to Mechanic allows faster trap-setting. Adding Appraiser and/or Negotiator skills gives you a back-up leader or broker. A boost to Wrestling gets you better on-call defense.
• A Farmer/Herbalist: This dwarf will gather the plant material you need to brew drinks. Leftover skill raises should be invested in a valuable, hard to raise trade skill such as Blacksmith, Metal Crafter, or perhaps Glassmaker or Clothier.
• A Farmer/Brewer/(Cook): This dwarf is responsible for keeping your community fed and liquored up - the cook is optional. Leftover skill raises should be invested as for the Farmer/Herbalist.
• A Craftsdwarf: Points into whatever hard-to-raise skills you most want. Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, Bowyer, Glassmaker, and even Siege Engineer, Clothier, or Gem Setter can all be good choices depending on your setup. If you plan to bash metal, remember to spend a few points on Furnace Operator and (if needed) Wood Burning.
• 2 Miners/Soldiers: Points into both mining and military skills. The miners first get legendary and then become extremely powerful fighters. Remember that it's much easier to increase Mining skill than most of the military skills (especially Armor User), but also that you'll want capable miners immediately.

With this setup, you have several ways to make the trade goods you'll need to buy what you lack. Metal goblets, stone mugs, handwear, footwear, mechanisms, bone or wood crossbows, prepared meals, or bone and shell crafts are all solid choices.

Food and drink for the first few seasons are assured by first cooking all the meat to free up barrels, then brewing your plump helmets (and any gathered plants) to make booze.

Core Items (all starts)

• 2 picks
• 6 or 11 of each of dwarven ale, dwarven beer, and dwarven rum. With abundant brewable plants and lots of wood you don't actually need any starting booze, but it's nice to have a backup.
• at least 11 plump helmets. Bring a lot more if you anticipate problems with gathering brewable plants.
• at least 6 turtles. Not only are they good eating, they ensure you have the shells and bones needed to satisfy strange moods. 11 give 2 barrels.
• 1 of every kind of meat that costs 2 or 4, as each type of meat will be packed in its own free barrel and cooking the meat will release that barrel for use. If you don't like this feature, bring more turtles or plump helmets instead.
• Unless the map is glacial, or you intend only outdoor agriculture, bring plenty of seeds as well. A minimum of 15 plump helmet spawn are essential for a quick start to underground agriculture; rock nuts, sweet pod seeds, pig tail seeds, and cave wheat seeds will diversify your meals and drinks and let you set up for clothes-making. Seeds are packed in bags.
• (optional) some cheap (5 point) leather to make quivers and bags and such

& Items (fast start)

• 1 Anvil
• no battle axe - you'll save points by making it yourself.
• only a few logs (just enough to get started with), unless the map has no trees

See Make Your Own Weapons for more details on what to bring and how to make the battle axes you need to chop wood.

& Items (slow start) Warning: Going without an anvil will slow you down until you get one in trade (which can take 6 or 7 seasons) and might even cost you a failed strange mood.

• no Anvil
• no battle axes
• with the points you save by not bringing an anvil, ores or bars of metals, and (if needed) coal (for fuel and coke) and/or flux.
• lots of logs - at least 25 on a heavily forested map. Note that you could get a free barrel (normal cost 10/) for every 5 units of alcohol (cost 2/) or 10 food (or part thereof), but the barrels are not empty until that alcohol or food is consumed.

A "moderate start" would split the differences.

Everyone Mines

One build that is actually very easy to use is to take no mining skills and 7 )or more) copper picks. Then, choose a site with a type of soil, which is extremely easy to mine. Assign all of your dwarves except your woodcutter to mining, and dig out some big storage areas to begin with in the sand. By the time you have a basic fort laid out (less than a season) they will all have plenty of skill ups and attribute gains, and will be able to go through regular rock quite quickly. Then you can turn them off mining, and turn any immigrants on mining and have them do the same. This allows you to rapidly increase dwarf attributes, so they can later learn some other skill which aligns well with their attribute bonuses. Also, it makes them more dwarfy!

Do it yourself

This is based on taking only the minimum needed to get things started, plus some hard-to-find items in case they are needed later. Read the Make your own weapons article for more info and possible variations.

The skill mix leans toward military and metal bashing, but has room for something else.

Skills

• Ambush 1, Axedwarf 1, Appraise 1, Judge of Intent 1, Building designer 1, Armor User 5 - Leader, Outdoors, Security
• Miner 5/Siege Engineer 5
• Mason 5/Stone Crafter 5
• Armorsmith 5/Cook 5
• Mechanic 5/Brewer 5
• Weaponsmith 5/Leather worker 4/Armor User 1 (Leather stays smaller than weaponsmith for moods)
• Grower 5/____ 5 (skilled profession of your choice - Gems, Glass, Bowyer, Clothier, you name it)

This mix tries to put one moodable skill with one non-moodable. The Mason/StoneCrafter gets pulled in two directions sometimes, but Mason stays higher than StoneCraft for moods, and the latter has a high chance for an immigrant mood to create a Legendary in another dwarf, at which point this Mason is free to focus on that full time.

The one Miner dives into soil first, only mining stone as needed, and is Legendary by mid-summer, ready to haul and build siege engines while other dwarfs take their turns training up to about Proficient Miner (again, to not interfere with chosen moodable skills). The Leader/Outdoors dwarf does untrained Wood Cutting and Plant Gathering, and all Animal Training so the 4 wardogs stay with him until assigned or restrained. Someone covers Carpenter and untrained, and several part-time Wood Burners, Furnace Operators and Butchers/Tanners cover those areas for the first year until immigrants arrive to specialize the support workforce.

(Note that no axe is brought, but the skill mix provides the Ambusher dwarf with one free set of leather armor, crossbow and about 30+ steel bolts (that any dwarf can then use). If danger is expected immediately (a terrifying biome, for instance), the 300 additional points for an axe will not allow this Item mix as presented below.)

Items

• Tools:

• Anvil
• 1 copper pick (to get digging with no delay)

• Alcohol:

• 16 alcohol A (4 barrels)
• 16 alcohol B (4 barrels)
• 11 alcohol C (3 barrels)
• 6 Dwarven wine (2 barrels) (more can be quickly brewed from Plump helmets, below)

• Seeds:

• 3 Plump Helmet seeds (solid starting crop; you'll have more seeds after brewing the PH's below)
• 6 Quarry bush seeds (the best food producer)
• 3 x 3 crop seeds for the rest (enough to get started)
• 2 Dimple cup seeds (not a food crop, just enough to get started)

• Food:

• 11 Plump helmets (2 barrels)
• 11 Turtle (2 barrels)
• 2 Cave lobster (for rare shells)
• 1 each fish or meat that costs less than 8 pts (availability will vary depending on civilization)

• Raw Materials:

• 4 wood (plus 3 from wagon, enough to get started)
• 4 bauxite stone
• 8 bituminous coal
• 1 copper ore (copper nuggets or malachite)
• 6 tetrahedrite ore (for silver potential)
• 3 cassiterite (tin) ore (for bronze)
• 2 bismuthinite ore (to make bismuth bronze)
• 3 galena ore (for silver potential)
• 2 sphalerite ore (for zinc, to make brass)

• Misc:

• 3 cheap leather (to be made into bags)
• 1 cheap leather bag (for immediate use)

• Animals:

• 4 dogs (outdoor dwarf will train)
• 2 cats (for breeding, to produce leather, bones, meat)

The 3 alcohols (A, B and C) are non-wine (you'll brew more of that yourself, as your 11 Plump Helmets will make 55 wine), the final mix based on any dwarves' preferences for alcohol. If you wish to change the mix, that's fine - 49 total, 13 barrels (including wine), in lots of 1, 6, 11, 16, or 21 each.

It's possible that "too many" cheap food/fish may be available and you will not be able to afford them all - you're looking for at least 30 food, 35-40 is better, and any more are for the cheap barrels.

On a low-wood map, a few more wood and less ore. If one or more ores are unavailable, buy more food, wood or other ores.

When you embark, first make 2-3 charcoal, smelt the copper ore and one cassiterite together to make 2 bronze bars (1st charcoal) - use one bar for an axe (2nd charcoal), the other for a second axe or pick if desired (3rd charcoal, optional). (Forbid the tetrahedrite - smelting it into bronze will lose any chance for the silver, and that's why you pay more for it!)

Later, smelt the tetrahedrite and galena into bars - odds are very good that you'll get at least two bars of silver for lowest-damage practice weapons, plus the copper (for quick chains) & lead (for grates). The silver weapons will be made by non-weaponsmiths for lowest quality - you don't want high quality, that's dangerous! Forbid or stash the unusual ores (and shells) for later moods & mandates.

Build a kennel and have the outdoors dwarf do the training for wardogs asap, or as need/opportunity arises.

With the low number of starting seeds, a skilled Grower is mandatory to get the crops up to speed, but that's advised for any fortress that is going to have an agriculture. The rest of the skills are easily tweaked to suit.

Chopping wood is dangerous!

This can be adapted to most any other build. Buy wood - a LOT of wood. Don't worry about an axe (at first), don't worry about chopping wood, or hauling it from the scary outdoors to inside your nice safe fortress. 100 wood only costs 300 pts, will last for years, and that's just the price of one of your two axes.

(War)dogs as (early) military

Rather than worry about risking your dwarfs, take 2 dozen or more dogs or wardogs - or a mix. While a pair of wardogs is hardly a match for a goblin ambush, a dozen will tear them apart and send them running while your dwarfs do something more important, like drink, or just keep breathing. The breeding stock (and casualties) provide a great supply of leather, bones and meat, and the fights can tend to be epic. Once you have full-time soldiers, a pair of wardogs each make a great boost to their combat effectiveness.

Training dogs into wardogs is fast enough even for no-skill dwarf, maybe 2 per week, and they'll tend to follow the trainer around until officially assigned to a permanent owner. Have your outdoors/military dwarfs do the training, obviously, or any who have a preference for dogs "for their loyalty", to give them an additional happy thought.

Challenge Builds

If you want a challenge try some Challenges.