40d:Important advice

Here are a few things to keep in mind when playing Dwarf Fortress.

Above all, one must remember that losing is fun! Be prepared to lose a few fortresses before you get the hang of things – it can be easy to accidentally kill the entire fortress while playing around with the different mechanics. But remember: losing means that next time, you'll remember how you lost! In a big way, Dwarf Fortress uses the principle of learning from one's mistakes.

Advice

• Keep in mind that Dwarf Fortress doesn't have a "win" condition: It just has a long series of "lose" conditions.

• Learn the controls. There's lots of them, and learning them may seem daunting at first, but once you get the basics down (like how to check the status of your dwarves or the hotkeys for building certain structures), you'll find yourself playing much more efficiently. Efficient Gameplay offers some time-saving tips.

• Save often! Although it can be a hassle to have to quit out and get back in, it's a lot better than having to build that long hallway of stone-fall traps, plant the whole bag of plump helmet seeds, and make that shipment of steel battleaxes for the caravan next year, all over again.
  • In this vein, there is a seasonal auto-save feature which you can turn on by editing your /data/init/init.txt file.

• If a dwarf drinks only water, the rate at which he gets tasks done decreases. If the fortress has no alcohol for years, things will slow down quite a bit.

• If your game is running slowly, see Maximizing framerate for advice.

• If you cannot find your answer on this wiki, check out the forums at Bay12games.com

Tips and Tricks

• To find a dead dwarf, go under status (z), then select stock>>corpses. Hit tab, and use z to zoom to the particular dwarf to find a hint on where and how he died.

• Usually the closest available material is used for ambiguous tasks such as a floodgate, but not always. To prevent frustration, you can make a custom stockpile (e.g. for bauxite) next to your workshop and close the dwarf in. Don't forget theres a z-axis, so make sure there aren't unwanted materials above/below your workshop. (A good start for magma maps is to build the workshop next to the wagon, and get your magma-proof grate/floodgate/mechanisms painlessly)

• Dwarves get trapped easily. They like building things, digging, etc. from certain directions so make sure there is a way out. For more assumptions see digging.