I think dwarf 4 is pretty useless with those low skills. A proficient armor/weaponsmith would be much more useful. The novice herbalism skill on dwarf 5 isn't that useful either, cooking, brewing and planting is already more than a single dwarf can accomplish, novice herbalism doesn't produce much either.
You might start the tutorial with enabling professions on dwarfs that did not get the according skill in the setup. At least it's pretty much the first thing I do when starting a game. And it's important information for beginners that every dwarf can do everything in the end.
- You could remove the plump helmets from the items. They're more expensive than the same amount of plump helmet seeds plus any food item. - Unless you want to introduce brewing before the first harvest.
- Instead of the wooden axe you could bring more wood. The carpenter could start with making an axe instead. Or don't be cheaty and take either a metal axe or get copper, charcoal and a stone and let somebody smith an axe right away
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- If I read the items correctly you are taking bags with you. You won't need any right at the start of the game. Some leather would be cheaper, the leatherbags would be just as good. Or, as already mentioned, take turkeys instead of leather and food.
- Having some sand will be nice. Not just merely to get cheap bags but to be able to get some glass ceiling on maps without sand.
- I think you should get rid of the ducks. You already have chicken for eggs. Butchering ducks produces just a skull, so any big bird would be more useful. Maybe also take some geese instead of the chicken, they grow faster than turkeys and produce meat and leather when butchered, they're pretty useful in every respect.
- I would take more wood instead of splints and crutches. You will have to introduce the production of those anyway when talking about hospitals.
Same goes for the bucket. You will have a carpenter churning out products before you have set up a well or have time to milk creatures.
- You have lots of food. Remember, dwarfs will only eat twice a season, and your hunter and farmer will soon produce something.
- I understand that you want to introduce animal cloth production but it's not that useful in my opinion. You will have to shear, spin and weave to get cloth and can do this just once in a while, people will probably forget to do this. Pigtails will probably be much easier to handle for beginners.
My supplies should last me, until the first trader arrives. *crossfingers* That's why I hesitate to take a farmer, brewer or cook. I hesitate to take an anvil, because its going to take me two years to set up smelting, and some hallways down there. Depending on how deep the first metal is, of course. I've never had much luck with shallow metals, have you? Are there even shallow metals, I know it says there are, but have you actually seen some lately? If there are, and you plan on going for them in that kind of region, by all means take an anvil. I just don't, they are salty. Course it sometimes costs me a migrant or two, to a mood death. But that could happen in any trade, without the necessary artifact crafting supplies.
You just posted while I was writing, so I'll add what I think.
Producing food is ridiculously easy in the current game, back in the 2d version you could starve, now you will have to fuck up royally to achieve that. Having one dwarf produce food and drink will be more than sufficient for the first years, and you will need at least one anyway later on, why not start with him instead of risking hunger?
In respect to smithing: taking metal nuggets or bars will always be cheaper than taking finished metal goods. If you need a military dwarf right from the start you will want at least iron or bronze armour and a metal weapon for him. I usually take copper, tin and bismuth bars and some charcoal with me. That will produce a bronze axe, chainmail, helm and greaves. Bars and charcoal cost 90 starting points, the anvil 100 and you will need one stone. I doubt you can get the equipment cheaper, and it will be of lower quality. Taking some copper nuggets, cassiterite and bismuth is really cheap. With some wood this will produce more weapons for a second military dwarf. In evil regions or when at war with other factions I will want to conscript and equip one of the spring migrants. Waiting for the first caravan to get equipment might already doom the fortress.
And finding metal is not *that* hard. Just dig down to the first cavern layer, that doesn't take much effort, you will usually find some metal in the walls there.
But I agree that currently metal is very scarce. However you can increase metal frequency in the world setup.
With 2010 the price of anvils was dropped a lot, it made sense before to not take one, considering the price, not so much now.
edit: Also by choosing a smith at the beginning I can make sure he likes adamantine or steel or some type of armour I will produce in huge quantities, increasing the quality of those items.
I still disagree, your setting yourself up for fail sauce, in taking socials. They depend too much on attributes in the current version, and those points could have larger payoffs in other areas, observation for example. After all you must observe before you design. Its nice to see those vermin, ripping you off blind, and where they tend to hangout. When the hunter isn't hunting, he can still be very VERY efficient, in standing there looking around, and identifying vermin. Your kitty's will pounce better.
Interesting, I never spend a thought on the observer skill. However it will be midly useful at best, a chained puppy outside the gates will be good enought to 'spot' thiefs and ambush parties. I never really had problems with vermin (unless they're demon rats that rip my cats to shreds).
Ya don't need to spend points on an xbow if you take sneak/ambush. Unless ya just want it for the early metal. Be cheaper just setting another dwarf to sneak/ambush than buying that xbow, wouldn't it? Doesn't ambush also provide lotsa freebie leather armor? I could be mistaken. Boy I put that I took 9 blocks in my previous post and nobody mentioned how insane that was. LOL! Do you all have me ignored? *rolleyes*
I agree with this. Taking a higher ambush skill will be more useful, removing the crossbow, bolts and quiver will free quite some points. And marksdwarfship is trained incredibly fast while hunting.
