As a newcomer myself, I'll throw in what seems to work for me (untill I decide to kill all my dwarves and do things a little differently
).
Farming can only be done on certain types of ground but what I started doing was building the farms on the grass, surrounding it with walls and then build stairs down to my fortress. This way, you have your farming with a bit of protection (the walls).
I usually have a further second entrance for trade carts and the likes, this either digs into a ground level mountain for about 3x20 spaces (3 wide, 20 long), then turns and does the same and at the end I have stairs going down or, I just dig three downstairs and then dig as stated above I then usually build up/down stairs for about 3 z levels, and then make out my fort proper. I usually start with another 3 width corridors in various directions (depending on my mood) to get the basic pathing done.
I'd like to point out that I usually have the fortress start far from the farming area but the paths go somewhat near the farm but underground (this is so when I have my foodstock pile built, it can be built near the farm but 3 z levels underneath with the rest of my rooms).
After that, I make some rooms from the corridor, depending on how much stone/wood is there. If I have a lot of wood, I make a larger room, plant a carpetener's workshop, then surround it with a stockpile for wood.
After that, I do the same with a manson's shop and a stone stockpile.
After that, I dig out another two rooms and put them somewhat larger (say... 10x15) and have one for finished goods stockpiling and the second, I use a custom stockpile for everything apart from "wood, stone, finished goods, furniture and food".
Then the dinning room and meeting hall. As stated above, I will have a food stockpile somewhat near where the farm is but 3 z levels lower in my fortress; this allows me to have my food underground, by a dinning hall and with easy access for my brewer but also, it's safer than having a wide open farm.
Now, once I have mined the room for the food, I plant a brewing workshop in there, then surround it with a food stockpile.
The bedrooms are mined out next, in the same 3-tile-wide fashion and about 15 tiles long.
I have them mined out like so:
wwBB
wwBB
wwwB
mmxxxxxxx
mmxxxxxxx
mmxxxxxxx
wwwB
wwBB
wwBB
Basically, the w = wall/rock (unmined), B = mined spaced used for a bedroom, m = the main path and x = the path I dug out to connect the bedrooms.
Hopefull you'll understand it.
If not, I basically have a 3 tile wide long corridor, with side rooms for bedrooms.
You can add various workshops too but next I would focus on the goods side since the buildings are up and running.
Firstly, I make a table and chair, then 3 beds. Then, 3 more tables and 4 chairs and 4 beds, 6 barrels and a bunch of doors (usually 10 at least).
I make these all in the capertener's workshop but if there is little wood, a manson's workshop will be fine.
With the first table and chair, I move them to my dinning room and make that my meeting hall and dinning room.
I then destroy the wagon.
Since I'm making furniture, I usually dig out a room with a stockpile for furniture.
Once I have the first three beds in the bedrooms, I make the dinning room have both the 3 tables and 3 chairs so there are four of each. I dig a little 3 x 3 room for the expadition leader and put his chair in there.
Then after the doors are built, I begining placing them on the dinning hall, bedrooms and office for the leader. This allows me to full maximize the activity area/dinning room (since once there are doors on the exits, you cna increase the area to fill the whole room without going outside the room).
After that, having the barrels, I make booze. Then it's a case of getting a total of seven beds, assigning one to each dwarf, make some chests and do the same (place the chests in the bedroom).
That's my general starting build and works fine for me. Oh, add a mechanic's workshop, build mechanisims, make cage traps. I suppose after that you can start exploritory minning (minning for minerals and rocks and the magma sea which is very deep down).
After that... have fun if you get invaded and try not to kill your dwarves unless it's on purpose.
