Bay 12 Games Forum

Personally, I worry far more about the starting 7's traits and preferences than I do about their skills & equipment. Skills can all be trained through use, and once you get going you'll have more luxuries than you know what to do with, so most of my care is devoted to planning for what my starting 7 will be doing in 20 years, rather than in the next 6 months. So, this is how I roll . . .

Set up a "geological survey team" of Proficient Miners, 7 picks, and who cares about the rest. Embark. Look around, write the names & rough quantity of what stones/ores are available on the surface, then take a few "core samples" about a dozen levels down, scattered over the map. Write down those minerals too. Savescum.

Dwarf 1: The most important dwarf, "he" will be the expedition leader, mayor, military commander, and eventually duke. He must have a good name (my dwarves will not follow a Squirtedpainted or a Swallowedboot, they need a Towerstones, or a Skullhammer, or an Empiretrumpets). He must have preferences for materials likely to be readily available on-site (see: core samples) and/or reasonably useful to make. He must be at least a fairly good-looking (e.g., if he's female, he can't have clean-shaven hair) and have at least a fairly leader-like set of traits (intelligence, willpower, having good people skills, and self-control are the main ones). He is the only dwarf with a significant amount of starting skills: 1 rank in each of the 10 main social skills, nearly ensuring that he will never lose a mayoral election.
Dwarf 2: "She" will be the sheriff, captain of the guard, and eventually duchess consort. She must be the opposite gender of Dwarf 1, no more than 10 years away from Dwarf 1 in age, and have tastes and preferences that seem to mesh with Dwarf 1's. She should be at least reasonably attractive to Dwarf 1's aesthetic sensibilities (e.g., if she's male, she can't be short and scrawny with a very short beard). After they marry, the duke and duchess will do essentially nothing--which is good, in this case. The duke will socialize all day & thus make his grip on the mayoral office ever tighter, and ideally, the captain of the guard should never have any duties at all.
Dwarf 3: Chief medical dwarf. Unless I'm embarking in an evil or savage biome, all medical skills are going to be wasted--and even then, all they save is time.
Dwarf 4: Broker. 1 rank of Appraiser is all you need.
Dwarf 5: Bookkeeper. No skills.
Dwarf 6: Manager. No skills.
Dwarf 7: Architect. I like knowing that my structures were planned by one Legendary Building Designer, rather than 5 Adept ones.

After that, I throw all my embark points into livestock & supplies. Work-wise, I'll decide what roles each dwarf is going to play, and just enable those labors when I arrive. Dwarves 1 & 2 are definitely NOT assigned any "specialist" labors, like weaponsmithing or gem setting, although they may get "skilled" labors like masonry. (A fort should never have more than 1 weaponsmith or gemsetter, but you may want dozens of masons.) I might make all of the starting 7 miners, take them to Legendary status, and then put them into 2 military squads. It's kind of cheating to have a Miner Military, but if it's limited to just my starting 7, I think I'm justified in giving my officers extra protection.

Items: Mating pair of cats, and also some starting sheep OR turkeys OR dogs. Sheep are if I want wool, turkeys are if I'm concerned with overpopulation, and dogs are if it's an evil biome & I don't want to leave anything exposed to the weather. I make sure to bring about 25% more animals than I'll need for breeding stock, because some will be weak & scrawny and I'll need leather for bags. 3 to 5 units of magma-safe stone (influenced by Dwarf 1's preferences) and enough metal ores for however many picks/axes I want (usually 3 picks & 2 axes, unless I need to dig in right away), because I hate wooden axes. 10 plump helmet spawn, 5 of each other type of useful seeds. I may want to take some extra wood/stone/fuel. The rest of it goes to food: 2 parts booze to 1 part solid food.

Quote from: JAFANZ on January 04, 2013, 11:24:37 pm

AIUI Wagon's are currently considered creatures to allow them to travel with trade caravans. (i.e. not creature = not move)

I think this is it - I've heard of people who have played as wagons. Not too sure how well that went for them, since wagons aren't exactly able to grasp stuff, but I'm fairly sure it's been done.

DO IT DO IT DO IT

Zombified yak hair cancels Attack dwarves: Only a flippin' piece of hair.

Urist McStarving: "Well, guys, since our entire food stockpile got burned to ashes, I see that we have two choices: Either we eat some of these goblins that we just killed, or we wait for each other to starve and eat whoever dies first. I don't know about you, but I say we eat the goblins."

As far as I know, all building destroyers (not just GCS) have a range of 2 tiles, meaning they can reach over a 1-tile-wide moat and batter down a door on the other side of it. I can't imagine a troll sticking his arm through an arrow slit & breaking the floodgate on the other side--but that doesn't mean it can't happen, so you might want to protect your floodgate with an empty tile between it & the fortification.

Also--you say you have 2 war dogs. I remember being there once myself. Trained up some dogs, the only entrance to the fort is through a small room, A snatcher! Hide the children! "Great," I thought, "a goblin thief trapped in an enclosed area with 10 fully trained war dogs. This ought to be good." Couple of minutes later, the thief walks out, leaving 10 dead war dogs behind. Her left hand was cut open. That was it.

I have 50 dwarves, around 5 million ☼ produced, and both imports & exports are about 1.7 million ☼. My former expedition leader is now the duke of what's technically a village. I get ambushes all the time, but never a siege.

Ask the goblin liason to send regular shipments of iron, copper, bronze, and silver. As you have plenty of flux stone (marble) and fuel/carbon, the production of steel will not be an issue for you.

Kogan Koganulab, Miner: "Well, you see, boss, it's dangerous mining where you want us to go . . . you never know when you might open up a cavern, and then who knows WHAT might be on the other side, waiting to grab you.  So I'm thinking that we miners should all wear armor when we're digging."
Rith Dastotral, Woodcutter: "The hunters and we all feel the same way. I mean, if Sarvesh the jeweler gets to wear steel gauntlets while cutting gems, why can't we wear helmets when we're out foraging beyond the castle walls?"

Uvash Sibrekfath, Cook: "Sorry, we're all out of that ☼peacock meat roast☼ that we advertised . . . there was such a rush, we didn't expect that many customers. All we've got left for you now is some raw plump helmets."
Ezum Ingizilral, Mechanic: "Ahh, big deal. Food is food."

Id Bembulavuz, Engraver: "Just thought I'd double-check everything with you, boss, before I started carving that mural that's going all the way around the throne room. After all, I only get the one chance to do this right, and I'd hate to engrave the wrong thing in the wrong place."

Nish Erithbekar, Animal Trainer: "A goblin ambush? Ha. My highly trained war dogs will make short work of them."