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v0.31:Starting build
| This article is about an older version of DF. |
A starting build is a personal strategy for choosing the initial supplies, equipment, and Template:Ls of your initial seven dwarves when starting a new game in Template:L. These skills and items which you assign to your dwarves will have a large impact on life in your new fortress, especially in its first year.
This page attempts to give advice on some of the many gameplay elements which influence the flow of your game based on your goals. These include: choosing a fortress site, the starting build itself, as well as challenge builds aimed at providing new or unusual challenges to advanced players. This page is not an explanation of the mechanics of doing so, see Template:L for an explanation of the interface itself.
But one thing should be made clear - there is no "best" build, no "perfect" or "clearly superior" final mix of skills and items, if only because there isn't any one goal of play. The goals you have for a fortress will dictate which sets of items and skills are best suited to achieving that goal - in your opinion. And then there is the environment, where your dwarves will arrive, the creatures, the resources available, and so forth. Finally, some people do things solely because it is hard, and that makes it more fun for them.
Items are tied to starting skills, and starting skills are tied to the expected environment for your chosen embark, and all are tied to your preferences for playing the game - not all sites require (or invite) the same approach, and no two players would take the same approach to the same environment.
This page attempts to provide a discussion about how and why you make the choices on what you bring along.
Components of a Starting Build
There are two main components of a starting build: skills and items.
Skills for your initial dwarves determine how quickly they will work early on, what industries you are guaranteed to be able to start with skilled workers later, how well you can defend your dwarves early on, and what the quality of various goods they produce will be, and possibly many other considerations. This page considers in detail how you might go about choosing skills for your starting dwarves, and examines the multiple competing perspectives from which you can make that decision.
The items that your dwarves bring with you can be tailored a number of ways. There are trade-offs to cheaper and more expensive alternatives, and reasons why you might choose either. This section explores the nature of these trade-offs and the reasons for making a decision. It also looks at optimizing goods brought in more general contexts.
Starting builds can and should vary based upon a number of other variables. Template:L will give you a fortress that supplies different raw materials and thus require different skill sets to utilize, not to mention different threats from native wildlife based on Template:L, Template:L, and Template:L. Which dwarven civilization you come from will restrict the materials with which you can start. Making choices about these variables is not part of a starting build. What you choose for skills and items because of these choices is part of your starting build, and so some general guidelines about different environments is given last.
This page does not cover the interface for accomplishing these tasks. Please see the Template:L page.
Skill Optimization
With only 7 dwarves, you can't take every Template:L, so you have to balance what you do take. At this starting phase, each dwarf can only be assigned a maximum total of 10 skill levels, with no single skill starting higher than "5". Actual skill distribution is thus constrained to be something between 1 level in each of 10 skills, or 5 levels in each of two skills, or something in between. Because dwarves can Template:L any and all skills once your fortress starts, these initial choices do not dictate what the dwarves can do, opening up incredible latitude to choose skills for reasons other than survival.
- (* Note that an unskilled dwarf starts with all Skills at Level 0. Adding +5 Levels is then Level 5. This is true regardless of how many "points" a level costs when first buying skills at embark.)
A brief list of considerations governing skill choice:
- Maximizing starting skill ranks vs. generalizing and having more skills covered at lower levels.
- Balancing multiple skills for a single dwarf, so they aren't constantly needed for two different tasks at critical periods
- Military vs economic needs
- Your goals vs "basic survival needs" to keep your fortress healthy and happy.
- Speed that a skill can be trained in game
- Demand for a skill during a game
- Whether quality or speed are significant considerations for tasks/final product
- Balancing the desire to create Template:L (with high-value products) with the need to maintain Template:L (with low-value but commonly used products, like Template:Ls, which normally are made from Template:L).
- most importantly - your playstyle - what you think is "fun"!
Breadth vs. Depth
A dwarf with only 2 starting skills at 5 ranks each is pretty good at 2 tasks, but untrained at anything else. A dwarf with nothing higher than level 1 is passable at many tasks, but not good at anything. Each dwarf in your party is going to be somewhere along this continuum, and you'll need to choose where.
Level in a skill dictates how fast a dwarf completes a task (most of the time), and how well he completes it (if applicable). On one extreme, Template:L has no time variance for slaughtering a tame animal, and has no quality associated with the outcome. On the other extreme, Template:L tasks can take a long time for an untrained worker to complete and their high material value means the quality multiplier has a large impact on the end value.
Dwarves who complete tasks faster can do more total Template:Ls within a given timeframe. The rate at which speed increases with level varies with skill, so some skills will benefit more than others.
Dwarves who make items of higher quality will contribute more to fortress wealth and may have a large impact on fortress happiness if their work is readily available to be seen by other dwarves. Items which typically contribute to happiness are low value but common public items, like beds and tables. Items which contribute the most to fortress wealth often cannot be displayed, but make useful trade goods or equipment for your military.
A dwarf highly skilled in few areas will work faster at those tasks and produce higher quality work than his more generalized counterpart. However, he will do worse at any other task he is set to.
Aside from the obvious trade off, there is another reason to prefer depth - dwarves can obviously only complete so many total jobs within a given timespan. If a dwarf is busy doing one thing, he can't simultaneously be doing something else. So a dwarf who is highly skilled in a few skills may not actually experience any disadvantage thereby if he is kept doing those things in which he specializes. The generalist dwarf, on the other hand, may be able to do many more different tasks adequately, but he can still only do one type of task at a time. A dwarf with one highly used skill (such as Mechanics or Mining) can feasibly spend all his time using only his primary skill and thus has no need to generalize. In effect, the generalist is wasting more skill points whenever he does jobs than the specialist, so long as the specialist tends to do jobs he has levels in. Specializing your initial skill investment is therefore superior if you specialize the division of labor in your fortress.
Of course, you can still only bring 7 dwarves with 10 total levels of skills each, so covering everything you want to do in 14 skills may be hard, if not impossible. A generalist or two can cover more bases that have little quality need or are otherwise fast even without a high level. The generalists real problem arises from the fact that any dwarf can do any task, and having 1 level isn't much better than having no levels. Which isn't to say there isn't a situation where a 1/1/1/1/1/5 dwarf is the right solution (indeed, the typical recommended leader/broker takes 1/1/1/1/1 in appraiser/judge of intent/negotiator/+2 social skills because none of these skills have a time or quality component), but most less-specialized dwarves are more likely to fall in the 5/3/2 or 4/3/3 end of the spectrum solely because there is a minimum investment necessary to be noticeably better than not having any levels at all.
Design Constraints: Which skills do I need, really?
The only thing that you absolutely must do in the first year is get your food supplies into a food stockpile, preferably inside, otherwise your food will rot on the ground and your dwarves will starve. Anything else you want to do can be accommodated by sufficient investment in initial food supplies and/or skills. This means the options for possible starting builds are vast because virtually any set of starting skills for your dwarves is viable (and that's before you even think about equipment, which adds more variables). So the short answer is: none.
That said, there are some skills which will be used, to one extent or another, by virtually every fortress - but that doesn't mean you need or even want to invest points in them to start. You could even manipulate the fortress (see Template:L) to completely avoid one or more of the following, but these are the skills you will find it exceptionally hard to avoid creating jobs for:
- Template:L - to dig your fortress, and gain stone for projects. Only possible to avoid using if you're secretly an elf.
- Inexperienced Template:Ls work very slowly and are less likely to recover mined gems or valuable ores. Mining can be leveled up quite quickly by mining Template:L, but taking two dwarves with at least some points in mining is recommended in many cases.
- Template:L - Template:Ls can only be produced from Template:L (rare Template:Ls aside). This skill can also be used to make Template:Ls without having to have an Template:L, use any metal Template:Ls, or use any Template:L.
- Carpentry is used, but opinions differ - on one hand, wood items are just not worth that much Template:L-wise (10's of dwarfbucks vs 100's for stone furniture or 1000's for armor or prepared foods, for instance), so the difference in monetary value between high-quality and no-quality is minor for wood products. However, high-quality Template:Ls are one of the easiest ways to help make and keep your dwarves Template:L (since every dwarf will encounter a bed regularly), so some players swear by it.
- Template:L - to build walls and stairs, and fashion dwarven furniture from stone. Possible to work around, but incredibly hard and annoying to do.
- Template:L - your farmers' work echoes throughout so many other tasks, it's stunning
- While its possible to feed your fortress on nothing but caravan goods, you'll never come by enough alcohol that way, so you'll eventually need to grow crops for brewing, and dwarves will literally go crazy if forced to drink nothing but water for long periods. Thus you'll want to plan for farming eventually - not that you need to bring a highly skilled Template:L, but it'll certainly be very helpful. Likewise, a skilled Template:L produces higher quality Template:L (though the quality is hidden!), which improves your dwarves' mood, as does a skilled Template:L with the foods they prepare. However, most food can be eaten raw, and so long as they are not starving there is life.
- Template:L - all dwarves "need alcohol to get through the working day"
- Template:L - if you want traps, and most people will. Also needed for most machinery.
- Template:L - mandatory for some buildings and constructions, but skill only improves speed a tad and increases structure Template:L
- Template:L - most importantly Template:L - a minimum of Broker skills are highly recommended to start with at the Novice (1 pt) level - it'll make your life much easier (especially Novice level of Template:L, at least, as it greatly facilitates trading).
- Template:L - Lets you be able to see the exact amount of things you have much faster than training one, and is necessary to view the stocks screen.
The very fact that you will use these skills often makes many of them desirable to choose as starting skills for your dwarves. Of the above, Mining, Masonry, Growing, Brewing, Cooking, and Mechanics are generally worth considering as "highly desirable". However, any skill can be used untrained, and/or get trained on the job - it just means a slower process and/or average lower quality product than if done by a dwarf with a higher Template:L.
The difference between these skills and other skills is that other skills are optional as to whether they'll get used or not. You need to deliberately want to use them. These skills are essential to basic aspects of the game, and avoiding one requires a deliberate choice not to use it (and likely a lot of effort spent to avoid doing so). Ie, a fortress could make its wealth by smithing fine weapons, weaving quality cloth, encrusting precious stones onto furniture, or crafting quality trinkets. Or all of those. But it doesn't have a compelling reason to do any one in particular. A fortress that never designates a tile for mining, however, requires exceptional effort to achieve.
But that you can avoid even something as basic as mining *for the lifetime of your fortress* means there is no universal design constraint on which skills to start with. Ultimately the answer to "What skills do I need?" is "Whichever you want". Choosing a mixture of these commonly used skills and your desired specialized skills will make starting up your fortress easier and more efficient, but you don't need to start with any of them. Choosing to avoid some skills may force you to use some others, but nothing compels you to invest in any skill in particular.
What considerations could inform my skill selection?
You will often want some optional skills, often vastly more than something as useful and desirable as even masonry. For example, any player intending to do more than dabble in the metal industry may well want to start with multiple dwarves each highly skilled in at least one metal industry skill, especially those that produce goods with Template:L.
The following may influence your choices of skills:
- Some skills are harder to gain experience in than others - requiring valuable resources or taking an extended period of time, and thus inconvenient to train from the ground up. Investing in some of these extensively in your initial dwarves can make those industries much less painful to start. For example, metal-related skills generally eat metal bars, and thus the less time you spend training metal workers up to a decent level, the faster they'll be churning out high-quality items for you, and the fewer bars they'll waste becoming skilled. On the other hand, despite its importance, skills like mining train relatively quickly and barring extenuating circumstances (expected need to accomplish particular digging projects in the first month or you'll get mauled by a Giant for example) there's little need to actually invest your starting skills in it - they can learn on the job.
- Keep in mind that some skills are used to make Template:Ls, and successfully making an artifact can give the dwarf a lot of experience in the used skill (depending on the sort of artifact mood received). It can be worth investing in some skills solely to bias your artifact skill pool in the hopes of getting a legendary dwarf in an industry you want to really get working on a year or two in. (See Template:Ls for more info.)
- If you plan on settling in a dangerous area, consider including at least some military skills, if not a dedicated Template:L, or several. The nature of the environment should dictate the military skills chosen (for example, marksdwarves will be an ineffective counter to expected roving hordes of Template:L wildlife).
- Migrants can and will arrive with a wide selection of decently trained skills. While it is a gamble, chances are pretty decent that migrants will arrive with a highly trained skill that is also highly desirable and would usurp the job of one of the seven starting ones. The first few migration waves are likely to give you a much better talent pool than what you can assign at embark.
- Skills rust if not used and they can eventually de-level. Consider that skills which you will use years after embark are going to be rusty or even deleveled.
- The dwarf with the most social skills will end up being the Template:L, who will then become the Template:L and start making Template:Ls. Thus you should avoid giving the most social skills to dwarfs who have Template:L for things like Template:L.
Combining Skills
Every dwarf is going to have 2 or more Template:L. This means that even once you know which skills you want, you're going to need to pair them up before assigning them. Not all skill combinations are equally functional.
Some skills are highly time-consuming, either because the skill is in frequent demand (eg, Template:L) or because it takes a long time to do an individual job (eg, Template:L). If a dwarf is spending most of their time using that skill, they aren't making much use of their other skill. Pairing two time-consuming skills together therefore tends to be a bad idea, as one or both jobs are not going to get the attention they need or deserve. Similarly, pairing a skill with time-critical jobs with a time-consuming skill also tends to be a bad idea. If your Template:L is also mining, he may not stop to plant crops one season. Or he might neglect to harvest your crops in a timely fashion and they could rot on the ground (if you only let your growers harvest). Arranging your skill combinations to avoid these situations is generally beneficial. For example, Masons, miners, growers, and any craft that your fortress will base their economy off of (glass, stonecrafts, armour, etc) will take a lot of time, so plan accordingly.
Instead, pairing relatively time-intensive tasks with less time-intensive tasks will let your dwarf accomplish all such tasks adequately. Once you get a metal industry rolling, an armorer/weaponsmith will need to make a lot fewer weapons to outfit your soldiers than he will armor components. Thus he can usefully do both jobs without hurting your productivity overly much. Similarly, a mason might also be your architect, since building designer is a very infrequently used skill.
Working at different jobs levels up specific Template:Ls. One could level up a miner until he becomes mighty and ultra-tough - and then turn him into a soldier, or retire him to haul stone. If you plan on doing so, it may not be a good idea to give this guy a second critical job that will demand a lot of time away from their focus.
Since tasks will take place in specific areas, another approach is to combine tasks into dwarves who will take care of a specific industry, or spend all their time in one generally narrow part of the fortress - the forges, or the kitchens, or outdoors, for instance. So combining Farming with cooking, rather than mining, for example, and turn on only Haul Food, not Haul Stone. Metalworkers spending their time in the forge can easily handle more than one type of metalworking skill, and are also well-situated to be furnace operators.
Similarly, you can also make the craftsmen of your finished products also responsible for the production of intermediate products from raw ingredients. This way when they run out of materials to make into finished goods they can immediately switch over to working raw products into intermediate products so they'll have more to work with later. This works better in some industries than in others. A single butcher/tanner/cook trying to process multiple animals simultaneously will likely result in rotten food, carcases, or skins. But a weaponsmith who doubles as a furnace operator can usefully ensure he has material to work with when you want him to. Later on, however, a highly skilled craftsdwarf is often better suited at sitting in their Template:L and having others deliver raw materials to them than going out and obtaining their own raw materials themselves, but in the early game dwarf-time is limited, and a single dwarf who can work an entire production chain can do so relatively efficiently and let your other dwarves be used elsewhere.
There is no requirement that a dwarves job combination needs to look 'right' or logical. A weaponsmith will most probably not spend nearly 100% of their time creating weapons - what they do with the other part of their time may have nothing at all to do with forges or smithing. Jobs which require little time in general, or little time early even if time-intensive later, may well be paired with any time-intensive task solely to provide the dwarf with something to usefully and skillfully do with most of their time, and freed from that duty as needed for the other tasks.
Another constraint you can impose on your skill combinations is to try to limit dwarves to Template:L skill and one non-moodable skill (or a moodable and a less desired moodable skill at lower level), so any mood will improve the desired one. For example, pairing craft skills with farming skills gives you dwarves that will perform useful food production or raw good processing services while also getting their mood in a valuable finished goods skill. Example: Clothier/Grower.
Combining Skills for Moods
Template:Ls will create a Legendary skill of the "moodable" skill with the highest level, and moods take hold of dwarves with different professions at different rates. Some skills are "moodable" where others are not. Another consideration is to place desired moodable skills with non-moodable, to ensure that both the professions and highest skills stay as preferred. Usually this involves one "craft" skill and one "farmer" type skill, such as Armor/Cook, or Weapon/Brewer. This can take some manipulation, and is not of primary concern to many players.
Matching skills to a dwarf's personal profile
Once you have your optimal skill mix for all 7 starting dwarves, you can, if you wish, take the time to view each of your individual dwarves and match skills to their Template:Ls. This can be very advantageous: if you have a dwarf who likes Template:L, Template:L, Template:Ls, Template:L parts, or something else equally interesting, they're an ideal candidate for matching skills (specifically for these examples, Template:L, Template:L, Template:L, or Template:L).
Likewise, if they have any obviously relevant Template:L strengths or weaknesses, those should be factored in. Some are obscure or ambiguous, but some ("Is constantly active and energetic") are a clear sign.
Item Optimization
The starting items are what is needed for your dwarves to survive until they are self-sufficient, or at least until the first yearly Template:Ls will keep them afloat. The first won't show up until Autumn, so that's more than 2 seasons your dwarves are on their own.
- (* A single dwarf eats about 2x/season, and drinks about 4x/season. With 7 dwarves that's ~approximately~ 14 meals per season and 28 alcohol per season, or ~28 meals and ~56 alcohol until the end of Summer. The Caravan is due sometime in Autumn, usually early Autumn, in the second week or so, but the first won't have enough to keep you going until whenever the next one arrives. Hopefully you'll have some food and brewing industry going by the first, or soon after.)
Similarly, most of the finished products are expensive to buy pre-embark, and so a minimum is recommended - maybe a pick or two for immediate mining and basic defense, maybe a (cheap?) axe* or two for better defense and cutting wood, thread, cloth or a rope for a Template:L, maybe a few leather to make bags, and call it good.
- (* "Wooden practice axes" cost only 17P, and cut down wood just fine. They will be significantly weaker than metal axes in combat, but still far superior to Template:L, and you can Template:L quickly enough.)
You can produce any and all of those from scratch if you are willing to wait - and your Template:L don't kill you first. Raw materials are much cheaper, in the form of Template:Ls, Template:L, Template:L and so forth, but whether you want to take the time at the start of the game is the question. The trade-off is always a balance of cost savings vs. time savings when you first strike the earth. Everything else depends on your strategy and on how tough or leisurely a challenge you want the game to be.
Some basics are recommended for all builds. Unless you plan to Template:L, you definitely need to bring one Template:L for each Template:L, and if you plan to gather wood, you need an Template:L, which will become a weapon in wartime. Also a minimum of about 25-30* Template:L and about 55-60* Template:L, which should get 7 dwarves through to the first Template:L in Fall. Everything else depends on your strategy and on how tough or leisurely a challenge you want the game to be.
Note: Many builds recommend that you bring many different cheap foods, in quantities ending in a "1" (1, 11, 21, etc.), and alcohols in amounts ending in a "1" or "6". This is to maximize the number of free Template:L you start with; dry foodstuffs fit 10/barrel, and (pre-embark) alcohol fits 5/barrel. More barrels will let you build a larger stockpile for your first winter and conserves the Template:L you need to cut and shape in the early game for beds and other necessities. (Seeds are 100/bag, and you don't need near that many of any one type, so 6 bags max with this approach. Even if you don't plan on growing much Template:L, starting with 1 seed and getting the free bag, and planting that one seed later and dumping the result could be worth it.) Also note that multiple types of meat taken from the same animal (warthog meat and warthog tripe, for example) will be packed into a single barrel on embark, instead of separate barrels (as of version 31.04).
Items for moods
When a dwarf is taken by a Template:L, he often needs obscure material or he will go insane and die, possibly with severe consequences to an entire fortress. Bringing along some of the harder-to-find ores (Template:L, Template:L, Template:L, Template:L), and putting those aside, forbidding their use "just in case", is spending a few points on an insurance policy. Many players also choose to bring a few items like pig tail cloth and cave spider silk just in case.
Free Equipment
Dwarves who start with the ambusher skill may get some leather Template:L, a crossbow and some bolts for free.
Site considerations
Each fortress Template:L offers particular challenges and opportunities, and can make different demands on your starting build. Your starting build may need to be adjusted depending on the Template:L your fort occupies, the specific vision you have of your fortress, and what it will take to Template:L where you're going!
The differences include what Template:Ls, Template:Ls and likely Template:Ls are present in your chosen embark site.
General Surroundings
Simply put, if your Template:L are Template:L or Template:L, your dwarves have a higher risk of suddenly facing personal combat before they are safely behind their defenses. Consider bringing extra weaponry, in the form of axes, picks or crossbows (see Template:L). Hand in hand with those, consider skill mixes that include Template:L, Template:L (the skill used to wield a pick), Template:L, or Template:L (a solid unarmed-combat skill).
The same is true if you are embarking near an exposed magma vent or an open chasm - these features can be seen on the embark map, but it's impossible to tell if they are "open" to the surface or not, until you are there in person.
Be sure to include some source of Template:L on the map, preferably running Template:L. Water is (almost) essential for any fortress. In Cold and Freezing climates streams and Template:Ls will often be frozen year-round and your dwarves may quickly die of exposure, in Hot climates Template:Ls will dry up, and in Dry ones rain will only rarely re-fill them, if ever. Choose Temperate or tropical zones for an easier game.
Aquifers
If an Template:L is present in the first soil or stone layers (visible on the pre-embark menu), it may bar all access to Template:L and Template:L until you find a way through the water barrier. Consider bringing some stone for building, and ore for your first basic needs. This may be critical to getting your fortress running smoothly.
Mountains
Mountains often have abundant Template:Ls, but at the loss of trees and plants. In previous versions lacking Template:Ls, this was a serious drawback. In DF2010, brave pioneers can dig down into the caverns to find essentials like water, mud, and plants. However, players should be aware that above-ground crops will not grow in mountain biomes, no matter how muddy you may make the surface.
Depending on the exact layers, it's common to find exposed Template:Ls of useful Template:Ls that can be immediately mined for Template:L weapons and tools.
Wooded/Plains
Flatlands with at least some trees and gatherable plants can also make for highly successful fortresses. Advantages over mountain zones include abundant trees and plants and (unless frozen) more abundant water. There are even (rare) magma vents. More water also means a high likelihood of an Template:L being present. Make sure to check on embark.
The greatest disadvantage is the potential lack of exposed Template:L to mine. The first level(s) below the surface is often Template:L of some type, which offers no building materials. However, soil is mined much more quickly than stone (x3-x4 faster), and expansive accommodations (rooms) can be achieved quickly even by untrained miners. You will find stone, you just have to go down a bit for it - but that's what dwarves do, isn't it?
Template:L a Template:L from No Skill to Proficient takes less than a month (~20 days with hauling disabled) in soil, and to Legendary in just under a season after. v0.31.12 From embark, this means you should have legendary miners in early summer if you dig only in soil. Times increase slightly for each additional miner used.
Oceanside
With many features in common with some of the above locations, Template:Les are often a mix of ease intermingled with bouts of extreme difficulty. Minerals and trees are often abundant, as well as farmland and sand, but there is often no drinking water unless the biome has a flowing Template:L of some sort.
By definition, the settlement will fall between (at least) two Template:Ls (one land, one water), potentially hazardous if the player expects a peaceful oceanside meadow, without realizing the Template:L ocean is full of amphibious zombie Template:Ls.
Desert, Glaciers, and Barren
Treeless (or near-treeless) Template:Ls are challenging sites for a fortress: you get most of the disadvantages of a flatland site without having access to nearly as many trees and plants. However, near-lifeless zones such as Template:Ls are wonderful for players with slower computers, as there's little to burden the CPU but your dwarves and livestock. Template:Ls and barren areas often have sand; with a sufficient source of energy (preferably magma), you can build almost anything out of unlimited glass.
Hunters should be replaced with fisherdwarves and a fish cleaner (although the latter can be easily trained). Depending how much water vs. land, more starting wood and ores might be helpful. Swimming is rarely useful in Fortress mode, even at the beach, and can be trained.
Sample starting builds
See Template:L