Bay 12 Games Forum

Murdercastle.

No ambiguities there.

I paid about 120 euros for my semester ticket. Non-students would have to pay a lot more to receive the same level of mobility from the predators of the Deutsche Bahn and the local public transportation company. But no, the state does not pay for your train rides by a stretch.

It used to be university itself was virtually free in Germany. Now it depends on the state, and whether you can exploit any of the exemption clauses (for instance, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, where I study, you don't have to pay tuition beyond 99 € for administration expenses if you have two siblings). There is no distinction between German and foreign students in this matter that I'm aware of. The tuition fee is 500 € per semester if you have to pay.

My most recent embark was this:

1. Miner/Bone Carver/Judge of Intent/Appraiser/Organizer/Negotiator 5/1/1/1/1/1. My expedition leader. He's usually my first legendary miner, so he's the guy for all the ore. He also does the trading and negotiating, and the organizing until I get someone else to do it, and in the leftover time he produces training bolts.
2. Miner/Stone Crafter/Record Keeper 5/4/1. Mines, especially in the beginning, and then starts his stonecrafting business, which he will interrupt for occasional record keeping only early on, on medium precision. Later I get a dedicated Record Keeper.
3. Weaponsmith/Carpenter/Woodcutter 5/4/1. Immediately on startup he starts chopping trees. When his workshop space is mined out, he starts making beds and barrels until he runs out of wood, chops more, etc. Once I have a dedicated metal industry, he'll also produce my weapons, unless I get a legendary weaponsmith from a mood, and an immigrant carpenter will take over.
4. Armorsmith/Grower/Fish Cleaner 5/4/1. Doesn't have much to do early on; he'll build my farm plots and haul wood to the wood stockpiles near the fortress digging site, and then clean fish from my fisherdwarf. Much later his growing and fish cleaning duties will get delegated to a several immigrants and he'll work at this main trade of armoring.
5. Grower/Brewer/Cook 4/4/2. My main farmer. He'll be my best planter later, as well as my best brewer. Cooking is left at a low level because an immigrant will take that over later anyway.
6. Mason/Herbalist/Building Designer/Animal Trainer 5/3/1/1. In the beginning, he will gather as much as he can and train my two war dogs. Then he'll start churning out furniture and never, ever stop. Except for the rare building assignments of course. Training immigrants in herbalism is very easy, and some Animal Trainer dude will show up.
7. Siege Engineer/Fisherdwarf/Mechanic 5/3/2. Fish, make mechanics, fish, make mechanics. Much later he will make my siege engines as his main job.

Rock salt, Ilmenite and an image in Steel... Sounds like one hell of a heavy turban.

Every dwarf I don't find tasks for becomes a member of my military. No exceptions.

Maybe you should keep them stocked for a while in case one of your dwarves enters a macabre mood?

Depends slightly on the map. I always put a lot of though into this.

Many people don't assign second skills at all to their masons. Not me. I have to fill all skill slots to avoid unspeakable agony for myself on embark.

On maps with no aquifer and decent amounts of wood I'll go with this or similar variants (at least next time, I'm constantly experimenting):

My Craftsdwarf: 5 Miner/4 Stone Crafter/1 Bone Carver (Mining is done mostly in the beginning, setting up the starting fortress, and later if necessary; other times he's going to be my prime producer of dwarfbux to trade with)

My Bossdwarf: 5 Miner/1 Appraiser/1 Judge of Intent/1 Organizer/1 Record Keeper/1 Negotiator (as recommended by wiki, though I occasionally consider giving Record Keeper to some other dwarf to give him another rarely used Novice Skill)

I like to carve out large parts of my fortress right in the beginning instead of smaller lodgings, so I don't want to wait for lower-skilled minerdwarfs to take bloody ages. Thus, two Proficient Miners.

My Masondwarf: 5 Mason/1 Building Designer/1 Animal Trainer/3 Herbalist (Building Designer because he'll build most buildings that need this himself anyway, I can get a dedicated Building Designer later. Animal Training because he can do that with the starting dogs before he even has access to stone; same for Herbalist; if I need some herbalism done later I let immigrants do it. It's hard to find decent skills for this guy, but that's what I go with usually.)

My Armorsmith: 5 Armorsmith/4 Planter/1 Fish Cleaner (This guy will be occupied mostly with his planting and fish cleaning tasks, BUT once the metal industry kicks in, he's going to be the best Armorsmith I can get my hands on! Especially if I don't have magma I'm not in the mood to train immigrant guys to become this good, and I also can't rely on strange moods to give me legendaries.)

My Weaponsmith: 5 Weaponsmith/4 Carpenter/1 Woodcutter (Yeah yeah, hear me out. Carpentry is not usually as much of a fulltime job as being a Mason is, and a Novice Woodcutter is all I need. This guy will have periods of downtime, and in these he can make more kickass weapons than any immigrant. When immigrants come into play, I'd much rather have immigrant carpenters churning out subquality beds than immigrant weaponsmiths churning out subquality weapons. If wood is very sparse, even less reason to have a full-time Carpenter!)

My Provisiondwarf: 5 Grower/3 Brewer/2 Cook (Once immigrants help him he can become a dedicated Brewer or Cook as needed.)

My Fisherwithhiddentalentsdwarf: 3 Mechanic/2 Fisherdwarf/1 Metalsmith/4 Skill points I'd like to discuss (He's going to have stuff to do right from the beginning - Fish, fish fish, and give one of the other dwarfs something to do. I don't go for traps, so 3 Mechanic is all I need. You'll never need more than a Novice Metalsmith even if you do plan on having an early metal industry, considering quality levels don't mean jack shit for metalsmith items.)

The point people have made about bags is actually a very good one, so I might try to include this in the skill lineup of my last dwarf - though I think Tresher/Weaver/Clothier is more sensible than going for leather bags, as wild animals can easily chew through a hunterdwarf. Better to lose expendable immigrants hunting much later. On maps with magma and sand I will include Glassmaker too - Glassmaking will actually serve to relieve my Mason from some of his stress.

It will take a while to pump enough magma up there to fill a decent moat. Which is all the better. Say hello to your ten incarnations of Recruit Urist McLegendarypumpoperator!