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v0.31:Starting build

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This article is about an older version of DF.

Your First Fortress?

If you are a new player looking for a solid basis to survive the first couple of months or years, check out the aptly named guide on Template:L. It includes a basic starting build aimed at being fail-safe.
If you're trying to plan the future, try Template:L?
If you're looking for specific, personalized examples of starting builds, see Template:L


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.

But one thing should be made clear - there is no "best" build, no "perfect" or "clearly superior" final mix of skills and items. There are too many variables to connect, not the least of which is... you! Your play style, what you, as an individual player, consider preferable for the proper mix of fun and challenge. And then there is the environment, where your dwarves will arrive, the creatures, the resources available, and so forth.

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.

So while suggestions can be made, and new ideas presented for your consideration, ultimately the final "best" mix for you will have to come from your experience, which will begin to grow during your first game. Without understanding "everything", some decisions will just have to be guesswork - and even later you never know "everything".


Components of a Starting Build

A starting build must be seen as a whole - the embark location affects the needed supplies, and influences what skills may be most needed or useful. Along with this is player preferences - if you wish an economy based on Template:Ls, Template:L, or Template:L, each of those have very different requirements. Likewise, if you want to play a military game, fighting off sieges with huge battles, that's a very different mix (and different site requirements) than if you want a calm location to build your perfect Template:L.

Skills

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". With 7 starting dwarves, you could no skills at all, or take 70 skills all at level 1, or 14 skills all at level 5* (2 per dwarf), the highest allowed at embark, or (most likely) something close in between the last two, but closer to that last.

(* 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.)

Once play starts, dwarves can learn any and all skills - these choices only determine what sort of "head start" they have, what they are good at when they first hit the ground. See Template:L for a discussion of increasing skills during game play.

The considerations are several:

  • 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"!

While there are some arguable "no-brainer" choices (or are for each player, according to their playstyle), the final few selections are often a coin toss, or close to. And there is often more than one way to skin a cat - in fact, while many players recommend never starting with more than one cat, starting with many cats (breeding them for leather, bones and meat) and a skilled Template:L and/or Template:L is one way to go with (part of) a starting build. Until you have some personal experience, the various suggestions and advice may mean little, but will have more meaning after your first fortress inevitably fails - Template:L.

So don't over-think it at first - you'll make a good guess, dive in, and learn far more than we can explain here.

Items

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 dwarf eats about 2 meals a season, and drinks a little more than 4 drinks in that same time. If you add your expected Template:Ls, multiply that by the number of seasons, you can estimate how much food and booze will be needed to get you safely through to the first Template:L - barring Template:L. In your starting build, you can bring all of that, or your Template:Ls, Template:L, Template:Ls, Template:Ls and Template:Ls can provide some or most of it.

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 DIY 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.

Your civilization

On the map menu, if you hit Tab twice, you will see a list of possible Template:Ls that your dwarves can start from, if there is more than one. Each can have access to different starting equipment and material to offer you - some will be significantly better or worse supplied, and some may be lacking one key item you desire, while another will lack something else equally as critical to your plan. Unfortunately you will only find out when selecting your items, after selecting a Template:L. To chose another Civilization requires a start-over. Another important difference is whether your civilization is at Template:L with one of the neighbours; This results in early attacks on your fort and, obviously, no trade Template:Ls from them.

If you don't like the civilization you chose, or wish to compare what each has to offer, you must either finish the embark, "abandon" the fortress and then re-embark in the same location (using a saved copy of the game world!), or use Ctl+Alt+Del (or the equiv for your OS), shut down the game and restart it from scratch, then Start again, reload the game world, and find the same embark site - this is not difficult if you made careful notes, but is still a pain, no doubt.

Every such re-start gives you a different mix of dwarves with different names, Template:L, Template:L and Template:Ls, but the civilizations are part of the map and stay constant. The default civilization chosen for you will vary, however.

Saving a starting mix

Once you have the mix of items and skills that you like, you can hit s and save it to a template with a custom name. In a later game, you can pick that profile when you embark. If your selected civilization does not have some of the desired items in your template, this is announced clearly, and a different civilization can be tried as described above, or you can continue and change your mix.

If you match skills to the Template:Ls and Template:L of your dwarves, it may be an idea not to include any skills in such a template, as they will simply be applied in the original order to the current dwarves as they appear on the list.

If you find additional items that you wish to add (perhaps another type of cheap meat, or an ore not previously available), you can edit those in by hitting s, overwriting your old template.

(You can also go into the .txt file, located at data/init/embark_profiles, and edit in the SKILLS or ITEMS as you want - the syntax is fairly straightforward.)


"Play Now!"

This option gives you an automatic, low-powered and generalized starting mix with no thinking involved. If you select this option, you are immediately advanced to the game map with no chance to alter your starting skills or items.

When you pick this option, you currentlyv0.31.01 start with:

dwarves:

& six dwarves with Novice (+1 skill level) in each of the following skills...

And one "Leader", with Novice in:
plus Adequate in:
Template:L, Template:L, Template:L, Template:L, Template:L.
(Note that that last dwarf has far more "levels" in starting skills (by twice!) for a single dwarf than are allowed by "Planning Carefully", below!)


Items

  • 2 Copper picks
  • 2 Copper battle axes
  • 1 Iron anvil
  • 60 units alcohol (20 each of 3 random types1, 12 free barrels)
  • 5 each Template:Ls2 (& 6 bags)
  • 15 units of meat (one random type, 10 + 5 units in 2 barrels3)
  • 15 units of fish (one random type, 10 + 5 units in 2 barrels3)
  • 15 units of plump helmets (10 + 5 units in 2 barrels3)
  • 5 pig tail fiber thread
  • 5 pig tail fiber cloth
  • 5 pig tail fiber bag
  • 3 pig tail fiber ropes
  • 3 wooden4 buckets
  • 3 wooden4 splints
  • 3 wooden4 crutch
  • 2 dogs (random sex)
  • 2 cats (random sex)
  • 1 random cow/ox/mule/horse (random sex)
Notes:
1. There are only 4 different Template:Ls possible at this stage, so if two or three of the same are randomly chosen, it's quite possible to start with 40 or 60 of the same type. (A wider variety is usually better.)
2. The six underground crops are: dimple cup, cave wheat, plump helmet, sweet pods, pig tail, quarry bush.
3. A barrel can hold up to 10 dry items (or 5 wet). One of these barrels is only half full.
4. All wooden items will be of 1 type of wood.

As a challenge for an experienced player, this is not an uncommon choice. But even as a starting player you can do much better if you choose the "Prepare for the journey carefully" option and do just that - prepare carefully, as described below...

"Prepare for the Journey Carefully"

Good advice. This option allows you complete control over your starting mix of skills and beginning items. By default, your dwarves start with no skills, and you are offered the following items, which are very similar to the "Play Now" mix, but all are optional and can be sold back and changed according to your preferences. Each item costs a number of "points" - you will buy both your starting items and the starting Template:L for your dwarves with one pool of combined points, 1274 total.

(This choice also allows you to select/create the Template:L yourself, rather than have it randomly generated.)

The point costs for the default items are listed below.

Default Items Cost
(in "points")		 Comments
2 Copper picks 88 (44 each) for mining
2 Copper battle axes 136 (68 each) weapons and woodcutting
1 Iron anvil 100 required for any
metal working
20 alcohol, random1 40 (2 each) 4 free barrels
20 alcohol, random1 40 (2 each) 4 free barrels
20 alcohol, random1 40 (2 each) 4 free barrels
5 of each underground seed2 30 6*5 (1 each) 6 free bags
15 meat of one random (cheap) type 30 (2 each) 2 free barrels3
15 fish of one random (cheap) type 30 (2 each) 2 free barrels3
15 Plump helmets 60 (4 each) 2 free barrels3
5 pig tail fiber thread 60 (12 each)
5 pig tail fiber cloth 70 (14 each)
5 pig tail fiber bag 100 (20 each)
3 pig tail fiber ropes 60 (20 each)
3 wooden4 buckets 30 (10 each) medical
3 wooden4 splints 30 (10 each) medical
3 wooden4 crutch 30 (10 each) medical
No dogs, no cats
1. There are only 4 different Template:Ls possible at this stage, so if two or three of the same are randomly chosen, it's quite possible to start with 40 or 60 of the same type. (A wider variety is usually better.)
2. The six underground crops are: dimple cup, cave wheat, plump helmet, sweet pods, pig tail, and quarry bush.
3. A barrel can hold up to 10 dry items (or 5 wet). One of these barrels is only half full.
4. All wooden items will be of 1 type of wood.

With the above items, your point pool starts at 300 (visible in the lower right corner). This is not close to enough points to buy full skills for all your dwarves, but you can sell back any or all of the above items that you choose and recover the points, spending them as you prefer. There is no quick and easy solution to this, but the possible options are infinite*. Returning all equipment is worth 1274 points total, but unused points are of no use after embark, once the actual gameplay starts, so spend now or waste them.

(* Note that an anvil is needed to do any metalworking, and in turn cannot be created without another anvil. Selling your anvil back means you will not do any metalworking at least until the Autumn Template:L, and then only if they bring one - which they 'usually' do, but not always. Next dwarven caravan is a year after that, and so on.)
Using the menu

Use Tab to switch between selecting Skills and Items. Use the 4 directional keys or number pad to navigate to highlight the different choices/columns, and + or - to choose more or less of the highlighted item or skill. When viewing items, hit n to go to a menu for any "new" items, that are not currently listed, including any you removed by reducing the number to 0; select the item, hit Enter, then increase the number desired as above (+ or -) in the main menu.

If you cannot buy additional skill levels, you are out of points and must return some items for additional points. Higher-priced items will automatically be removed from viewable new items if you do not have enough points for those selections, showing only what you can afford with your current points.

Skills

At this stage, pre-embark, skills cost a number of starting points, equaling monetary value. Later, during fortress mode, all skills will be trained by practice, and "cost" is no longer a concern. All dwarves start with "No Skill" and the first additional skill level (Novice) costs 5 points. To buy the next level would cost 6, and so on. To buy up Proficient (the max allowed to start with), costs 5+6+7+8+9, or 35 points.

A dwarf can start with up to 10 additional levels, regardless whether that's 10 skills at Novice, or 2 skills at Proficient. So, if you are going to buy the maximum skills allowed (highly recommended), that can cost from between 50 to 70 points each, but is usually around 400-450+ for all 7 dwarves.

Each Template:L can (over time) learn any or all Template:L. Dwarves with little experience in a skill will work slowly and ineffectively, while dwarves with higher skill work faster and/or produce a significantly higher quality product. Some skills are not used often, and/or produce no "quality" in the final product, or produce qualities that have little impact on the game - for these it's questionable whether investing in high starting levels is worthwhile, but that's often a judgment call.

  • For example inexperienced Template:L will gather stacks of only one or two Template:L, and often nothing at all, and inexperienced Template:L will often plant stacks of only one or two plants. This results in a small overall output which takes many Template:L to store in, less effective Template:L preparation in the Template:L, and more space needed for Template:L.
  • Inexperienced Template:L 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.
  • In nearly all Template:Ls, inexperienced dwarves who create items will only rarely produce high-quality goods, and take a long time doing so. Skilled dwarves work quickly and produce high-quality items far more reliably.

Dwarves improve their skills on a learning-by-doing-basis. Dwarves who have specific labors will attain Dabbling status as soon as they complete one job of that type. (Certain jobs, such as building workshops, won't make your dwarves more experienced. But most will.) As the number of jobs they do increases, their skill will increase as well. Overall, "leveling up" the dwarves' skills quickly is a good game goal to set. Doing so may result in your dwarves efficiently creating a magnificent fortress filled to the brim with valuable items and Template:L. (Or it might Template:L.)

Using and seeing high-quality items gives dwarves happy Template:Ls. This tends to decrease the incidences of Template:Ls, increasing a fortress's longevity.


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 challenge) 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.
Template:L - Template:Ls can only be produced from Template:L (rare Template:Ls aside)
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
Template:L - all dwarves "need alcohol to get through the working day"
Template:L - to control the inevitable catsplosion. Killing your processor is not a good idea.
Template:L - if you want traps, and most people will. Also needed for most machinery, now more essential than ever since irrigating is no longer optional.
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 - for Template:L
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.

Note! - Some new skills in 01.30.01 are unclear as to their use/need - Observer, Fighter, Leader and so on.

Of the above, Masonry, Growing, Brewing, Cooking, and Mechanics are generally worth considering as "highly desirable" starting skills for your dwarves. 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. Mining is important but also fast to train, so one or two unskilled miners is usually ample. You will almost certainly have animals to butcher, but skill in Template:L produces nothing of "quality" (meat is meat) and speed is usually not a consideration for the typical demand (butchering unwanted offspring, like kittens). 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).

Of course, even near-certainty that you will use these skills doesn't mean you have to start with dwarves already skilled in them. Remember, 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 skill level. All of the above skills can be used untrained if you so choose, but you will use them.

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.

What considerations could inform my skill selection?

Every skill not listed in the preceeding section is only used if you want it to be, and the benefits of experience in skills vary considerably. Skills you choose have to be balanced against your play-style, the environment (danger, ores, other resources), the relative value of the final product, and what you must give up to gain those skills. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. Keep in mind that some skills are used to make Template:Ls, and successfully making an artifact will give the dwarf a lot of experience in the used skill. 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.)
  3. 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.
  4. 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).

Generalist vs Specialist

Any dwarf can have any labor designated, and they will perform that task and learn or improve that skill, even if they have no skill related to that labor when they start. So you don't need an example of every skill. A skilled dwarf will produce a better Template:L product, and/or do it faster, but if that's rarely used, "faster" doesn't mean as much. Many jobs have no real "product", and so no quality modifiers - plant gathering, wood cutting, wood burning, smelting, animal trainer, etc. etc. merely produce "stuff", not "quality stuff", or may not be used very often, and/or not be used much after the first year of the fortress. There are as many opinions about balancing generalists with specialists as there are players.

Some skills are also trained up fairly quickly or cheaply, especially where the task consumes no (valuable) materials, or doesn't matter in the final product - mining, furnace operator, wood cutting, butcher, tanner, glass making and (especially) Template:L skills being only a few examples.


Combining Skills

Some Template:L are highly time-consuming, and 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. There are many parts to a suit of armour, so armoursmithing will take more time than weaponsmithing - once you have one weapon per soldier, he's done. 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.

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. Woodcutter/Herbalist/Mason/Axedwarf (for outdoor walls/projects) might be another combination - the possibilities are endless.

Some combinations follow naturally in sequence to each other, but also can conflict with each other. One animal is butchered, then the leather is tanned, and the meat is cooked. But if you have 5 animals, several will rot before one dwarf can process all of those. 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.

Many builds recommend combinations such as:

  • Outdoors: Woodcutter/Plant Gatherer. Add Template:L for added security.
  • Mason+____ : In many fortresses, the Mason is a very busy dwarf. He could be a spare miner, have abilities that are only rarely needed, or do tasks that can be accomplished quickly like Template:L.
  • Farmer/Cook, Farmer/Brewer. Basic two-person food team.
  • Farmer/Herbalist, Farmer/Brewer/Cook. One bold dwarf to farm and venture outside looking for wild plants, the other to keep busy in the Template:L, kitchen, and indoor farms.
  • Boss: Novice Template:L/Novice Template:L/Novice Template:L. This guy will be your Template:L and Template:L; you can make him Template:L too (the default), at least to start with. Combine this with a single time-intensive task such as Template:L and optionally turn off all hauling tasks right at the start of the game. Or keep him a generalist, or combine with one of the other options.
  • Weaponsmith/Leatherworker: If they're not arming your military, they're making leather armor for them.
  • Template:L, depending on your strategy - e.g. Template:L maker, Template:L or Template:L, sometimes combined with related tasks from that industry (Template:L, Template:L). Typically an item hauler in the initial months of your fortress, this dwarf may become one of your most valuable dwarves later.

Not all combinations have to "look right" together. 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.

  • Grower/GemCutter (or Grower/x-Craft): When gems are found, he's there, otherwise he's outstanding in his fields.
  • Mechanic/Brewer: usually produces the mechanized defenses, but does moonshining when it's called for.
  • Miner/______: This dwarf will quickly become legendary in mining, and then retire to pursue something else full time. On call for important veins of high-value ore.
  • Brewer/Appraiser/Leatherworker: several typically low-demand skills
  • StoneCrafter/Herbalist - after quickly finding above-ground plants for seeds for the first season, they never go back unless something goes wrong.
  • (x-Craft)/Armor User: Plan for the future - armor using is slow to train in if this dwarf is ever going to join the military.

You can max out one skill and have several lower-level skills additionally, or just several skills that are not maxed out - the combinations are (almost) infinite.

Combinations like these often have one Template:L skill and one non-moodable (or a less desired moodable skill at lower level), so any mood will improve the desired one.

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.


Items

An experienced player can start out with no skills for their starting dwarves, 1 copper nugget and an anvil - and nothing else - and have Template:L. So what is "needed" is up to what you think is "fun" vs. "too hard", etc. etc. etc.

Some basics are recommended for all builds. Unless you plan to DIY, you definitely need to bring one Template:L (for each Template:L?) and one Template:L (unless you don't plan to gather wood at first), which can also become a weapon for defense.

Also a minimum of about 40-80+1 Template:L and about 80-160+1 Template:L, which should get 7 dwarves plus "some" migrants2 through to the first Template:L3 in Fall. It's impossible to predict how many migrants will show up, and what part of Fall the first caravan will arrive, and how much it will bring3 - it's always safer to bring more than enough and see how things go - losing a fortress to slow starvation before the first caravan is a painful process.

  • Bottom line: Try to have some crops and a brewing industry (and maybe some fishing and/or hunting) going before the end of Summer, or soon after.

Notes:

1. A single dwarf eats about 2x/season, and drinks maybe a little more than 4 drinks in that same time. For 7 dwarves alone, that's ~15 food and 30 booze/season. The caravan might show up just after 2 seasons, or at the end of 3. Minimum estimates are for 7 dwarves and no migrants for 2.5 seasons, max are for 6 migrants/season and a very late caravan.
2. If you get ~3 Template:Ls in early Summer, and again in early Autumn (you could get less, but you could also get more!), and the caravan doesn't arrive until the very end of Autumn, then at the outside that's a total of almost 70* food (15+23+30*) and around 145* alcohol (30+48+67*) before help arrives.
3. An "average" first caravan may typically bring around 200-300 food and a 10-30 booze, plus seeds that could be cooked in emergency - if you can afford all that. But that can vary, so don't count on it all, and Spring is often a time of a large influx (1-2 dozen?) of migrants.)
If there are elves in your world, the next caravan should arrive sometime in Spring (but bring less food). Likewise, humans (if you have any) arrive in Summer, and the next Dwarven caravan again in Autumn. The only way to tell what civilizations may show was on the Template:L menu, before you got to the starting build section.)
Free barrels & bags

It's recommended that you consider bringing alcohols in amounts ending in a "1" or "6", and only 1 of each different "animal"-type foods. 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, so that extra "1" gives 1 unit and 1 barrel (and there is no charge for barrels with food/booze in them). More barrels will let you build a larger stockpile for your first winter and focuses any time/effort for Template:L you need to cut and shape in the early game for beds and other necessities.

For purposes of "different types of meat", any and all different "cuts" from one animal are considered the same - so cow meat, cow tripe, cow brains and cow sweetbread are 4 "cow-type meats", and will only get you these 4 items in 1 barrel. Choose only 1 "cut" from each type of animal to maximize this exploit.

(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 or Template:L, starting with 1 seed and getting the free bag, and planting that one see later and storing/dumping the resulting crop could be worth it. However, Template:L comes 1 bag/unit, so bringing sand and making some quick Template:L items provides cheap bags.)

Items for moods

When a dwarf is taken by a Template:L, they often need obscure material or they 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 shells (Template:L, Template:L), and putting those aside, forbidding their use "just in case", is spending a few points on an insurance policy. Bringing along a few bits of cloth thread is a good idea. 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.


Different starting cultures

Before actually hitting "embark", you often have the option to choose one of several starting dwarven cultures (one of the options shown when you Tab through the various sub-screens). Different cultures will have different meats, fish, stones and etc to offer, and occasionally even different types of armour. The only way to know which is "best" is to remember exactly where on the 3 maps your embark site is, select one culture, embark and see what they have to offer, then hit Esc and "abandon game", and try it again with a different culture and compare. A real pain, sometimes. (Make a note about your exact starting location, don't trust it to memory.)

Site considerations

Each fortress Template:L offers particular challenges and opportunities, and can make different demands on your starting build. The starting builds below should 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 stone Template:Ls are present in your chosen embark site, as viewable on the starting menu.

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, may be critical.

Mountains

Mountains often have abundant Template:Ls, but at the loss of trees and plants. Template:L and rare Template:Ls lure settlers here, but Template:Ls and Template:L dwellers are potent threats. You'll want to include a sufficient amount non-mountainous areas in your embark area to obtain lumber and food - or, failing this, to pack a lot of extra food and logs.

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, guaranteed agriculture both on the surface and underground, and (unless frozen) more abundant water. There are even (rare) magma vents. More water also means a high likelyhood 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. Fewer elevations means fewer exploitable z-levels. The first level(s) below the surface is often Template:L of some type, which offers no building materials or ores. 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 <NEED NEW TIME> in soil, and to Legendary in less than <DITTO>.

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) biomes 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 those with slower machines, 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


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