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[abunazih]

Hello all.  I've been playing for a couple weeks and have a few questions.  I'm on my second fortress - up to 52 dwarves so far.  I abandoned my first after a siege overwhelmed my meager defenses.  I was wanting to start again to address some efficiency issues anyway.

1.) Can you mine every z-level, or should there be a level left un-touched in between to avoid cave-ins?
2.) Is there more that should be done to supply drinking water other than assigning a zone to some fresh water?
3.) Right now my only persistent industry for export is jewel encrusted stone crafts.  I know that this is not sustainable, but it subject to the availability of gems.  Any recommendations on which direction to move towards now?
4.) I can't seem to get a hospital to a  usable state...  I place a few beds and tables in a room and set the zone as hospital.  Additionally, I assign the only diagnostician as the "Chief Medical Dwarf".  Is there anything further that I need to be doing?  What about supplies? 
5.) I'm hesitant to dig too deeply right now as I don't want to open the pandora's box that is discovering a cavern system.  However, I can't imagine a metal industry is sustainable without finding magma since I'd be limited to the coal I would have to produce from trees.  Is this an accurate assumption?
6.) Any tips on getting a melee squad trained?  Most of the topics I see associated with training a military have to do with ranged weapons.  Believe it or not, I have my marksdwarf squad building their skills up without any issues.  However, I have recently tried to create a melee squad that doesn't seem to be training.  Is there anything that I need in their barracks (a counter-part to the archery targets I built for the other squad)?
7.) What ratio of military to civilians do others use?  Right now I have 52 dwarves with two squads of five for the military...
*edit* 8.) I forgot one: What is the maximum size of a mined "room" without having it cave in? 

Whew... once I started asking the questions more and more came out.  I think that about sums up my current situation. 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions, answers, insights, or comments that make me chuckle!
Abunazih

[Mushroo]

1) Cave-ins are very rare. As long as 1 tile of stone is connected to another tile of stone it will not cave in. You can completely mine out entire levels no problem. Basically the only risky places for mining are in the caverns and on hill/mountain sides above ground (the wiki has more info).
2) Building a well is nice.
3) I like food industry personally, textiles are also very lucrative.
4) Make sure your Chief Medical Dwarf has the necessary labors enabled, and no others. If Hauling is enabled for example he will move socks around rather than treat injured dwarves! Also check your CMD's personality traits for things like "compassionate" or "enjoys helping others." If he/she "rarely goes out of his way to help others" then get a new CMD! For supplies you'll want cloth, thread, soap, splints, and crutches. Access to fresh water is also a must (a well in the hospital is ideal).
5) Accurate.
6) For best results you want at least one soldier in the squad with high skill in the weapon and the teacher skill, he will share his knowledge with the others. Also training missions are very effective. Beat up some groundhogs or something.
7) 10 is a good start, personally I never go over 20 no matter how big the fort...

[Darkmere]

There are no cave-ins, except with an unsupported tile (unsupported = not connected orthogonally to a construction or natural material. Bridges don't support constructions or other tiles.).

Wells must be constructed over more than 7-deep water to avoid the stagnant water complaint. A smoothed or constructed cistern with refilling method is ideal.

Food and cloth are decent, leather and bonecrafts also work to a degree. Also look into pottery or glassmaking if your embark has clay or sand, respectively.

Stocks can be kept inside the hospital zone by building coffers/chests or bags there. Some people report problems with overfilling (triple the set amount of cloth, for example), so I just build the containers one at a time. 6-10 should be plenty. Don't forget soap.

Caverns aren't that big of a deal, if you assign everyone masonry and wall off the stairwells. Might be worse if you've waited a few years, vomit blobs and steel beetles could be lurking.

Archers will practice at archery ranges when idle (not on an assigned training schedule). Melee dwarfs will only do individual combat drills unless they are assigned an active schedule with training orders. on the ( m ) ilitary -> ( a )lert screen, make sure there's a green A next to your melee squad's name when you have the active/training alert selected.

Military size is mostly personal preference. I've gotten by with a squad of 5, but that's using a combined-arms defense of simple traps and soldiers. My current fort has 7 elite melee, 10 reservists training melee, 8 elite crossbowdwarfs for patrolling the inner keep/manning guard posts into the carverns, etc. Keep in mind injuries/deaths do happen, plan squads accordingly.

[Conan]

For the military question:

1) Make armor stands, weapon racks, and/or chests.
2) Build the furniture somewhere where you want the units to train. Preferably away from a ledge since sometimes they dodge off them.
3) {q} over the building and press {r}, etc. etc.
4) Once you got the barracks, {q} over it again and look to the right sidebar. Somewhere there should be a list of the squads available.
5) Press +/- to select the squad you want to train there and then while selected, press {t}.
6) Go to the {m}ilitary screen and go to {a}lerts.
7) Select the alert "Active/Training" and then select the squad you want to have training. Press enter once, you should see a green {A} next to the squad name.
Watch your squad train.

[Rurik]

I have a newbie question myself and I thought I could make use of this thread instead of starting another one, as my question is one of the newbiest of them all: How do I look what creatures are on the map? I have just embarked and I thought the right way is z -> Animals, but that only shows my two buffalos. However there is a rat not far away from my wagon and I can't see him in that list. Isn't there somewhere a list that shows the animals currently on the map? How do I find it?

I have tried this game before once or twice last autumn, but I've never been determined to conquer the learning curve. This time I am however. It only makes me feel stupid not being able to solve such simple things via Wiki and having to ask...

//Edit: Never mind, it was 'u'. The key just wasn't seen among others.

I guess this makes a wonderful first post for me on this forum.

[Dsarker]

Hit U. That will bring up the unit list. Scroll through it. Wild animals (near the bottom) are what you are looking for.

Edit: ninja'd

[Triaxx2]

Don't worry about it. We all feel stupid after making our first post. It's the nature of the Game.

[Rurik]

Another newbie question, so it seems appropriate to use this thread instead of starting a new one. A goblin snatcher has been caught in one of my cage traps. I understand that it's possible to remove all his equipment while still keeping him caged. How is this done? [k], [v] and [q] don't show any of his stuff that can be forbidden or reclaimed.

[VonCede]

When prisoner cage is in animal stockpile (not built), make a garbage dump zone {i}->define zone (one tile is enough) -> {g}.

Then mass dump everything from that animal stockpile with {d}->{b}->{d}.

Before dwarfs rush for jobs, cancel dump order from each cage that contains prisoner with {k}-> select cage ->{d}.

[Rurik]

I don't understand. When I do that, they simply leave the cage in the stockpile. When I don't cancel the dump order for each cage with prisoner, they simply haul it to the garbage dump. No matter what I do, they don't touch the goblins items and I can't even see what the goblin is wearing from anywhere.

A moment ago the screen paused and announced the arrival of a cyclops. To my surprise, he got stuck in the cage trap also. So now I have two caged goblins and a cage cyclops... though the unit screen shows him as a caged guest.

[greycat]

All the goblin's stuff is forbidden by default.  Before you can dump it, you have to unforbid it.  You can either do this through the stocks screen, or far more conveniently, by using (d)(b)(c) to mass-reclaim the entire spot where the cage has been built.

Once the stuff is claimed (not forbidden), you can dump it.  Again, (d)(b)(d) is the most convenient way to tag all the stuff for mass-dumping.  Then use (k)(d) to UN-dump the cage, so they don't grab that too.

It gets trickier if you want to dump only the weapon and shield but not the armor (e.g. to let the goblin survive a longer term of newbie-training).  In that case, the only realistic way to go about it is to use the stocks screen.  You'll need some way to figure out which weapon and shield you want to mark for dumping.  One way to do this is to use (d)(b)(h) to mark the goblin, cage, and equipment as hidden.  This will very clearly show up on the stocks screen (since presumably no other weapons or armor have been hidden...).  So you hide the lot, then go to stocks, mark the hidden weapon and shield for dumping, then use another (d)(b)(something) command to un-hide everything.

[Nameless Archon]

So you hide the lot, then go to stocks, mark the hidden weapon and shield for dumping, then use another (d)(b)(something) command to un-hide everything.

IIRC, UN-hiding is (d)(b)(H), while hiding is (d)(b)(h). In this case, capitalization matters.