Dwarf Fortress Wiki - User contributions [en]

v0.31 Talk:Known bugs and issues

2010-04-09T13:28:44Z

Granite26: /* Acid Rain Bug */

It's been a long while since I used this wiki... where can I report a crash bug other than the official site (which is down)? The details: Opened the new version of Dwarf Fortress fullscreen, and it froze up during the opening sequence, when the dwarf at the end is peering through the hole. [[User:Alfador|Alfador]] 15:19, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
* Further information: started it in non-fullscreen mode and it worked fine. Now seeing if the fullscreen crash happens again or if it was just the fact that I was posting a Livejournal comment in the background... or possibly a first-time initialization that I'll be unable to reproduce. :P [[User:Alfador|Alfador]] 15:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
* And it did NOT reproduce. Great. [[User:Alfador|Alfador]] 15:29, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
*http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/login_page.php is the new bug reporting tool. [[User:Enjia2000|Enjia2000]] 15:31, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
* Just putting this down here while the above site is non-responsive:
** World gen roads are off, sometimes they'll have floor above ramps, which prevent passage
** Vermin remains do not decay [[User:Todestool|Todestool]] 19:53, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

==Acid Rain Bug==
Rarely, it will rain, and any dwarves caught outside in that rain will start MELTING, and bleed to death very quickly. There are no messages before "______ has bled to death", so it seems like they just start melting and don't even care. This happens to animals and dwarves.
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/964/iwillsurvive.png
Unknown cause.
:I managed to catch one of my dwarves just before it died of blood loss. It looks like it only happens to their fingers?

:By rarely you mean 'not every time it rains'? I'm in a jungle, it's raining half the time, but I haven't seen these issues. Could it be a new 'feature'? Could it be a reaction between the water and something your dwarves are playing in? (Do your other dwarves have contaminents listed on their hands, and does soaking them by other means cause issues?) Just some thoughts [[User:Granite26|Granite26]] 13:16, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

==Labor Menu Bug==
Sometimes only four categories will show up under {{k|v}},{{k|p}},{{k|l}}. If this occurs the game is very unplayable since dwarves cannot be assigned most labors. I have seen this bug myself but am so far unable to reliably reproduce it. With the bug I saw the following list. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 20:55, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

*Mining
*Healthcare
*Hauling
*Other Jobs

The correct list should be.

*Mining
*Woodworking
*Stoneworking
*Hunting/Related
*Healthcare
*Farming/Related
*Fishing/Related
*Metalsmithing
*Jewelry
*Crafts
*Engineering
*Hauling
*Other Jobs

Most of these menus also have sub-menus now as well. I am unsure if it is relevant but when I only saw four labor groups I also saw absolutely nothing in the nobles menu. If anyone can figure out how to reproduce this one please speak up. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 20:55, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Couple things. In legends, there's a skin monster who's called the [adjective] of , skin monster. Need to fill that in.
Also, undiscovered items can be seen in the stocks menu.

== Clarifications ==
* When you see the Pets twice on the embark menu, I believe this is due to the fact the game is showing the difference between male and female. Therefore you can purchase 1male dog and 4 female dogs if you wish. This may be the same reason that fish show up twice but I cannot determine if this is the case or not. [[User:Kataklistika|Kataklistika]] 06:09, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

*Added a note that animal bones work for the "body parts" request from fey dwarves. Seems to be a summary of material types and not quite as shocking as it sounds, and suggest this to be changed to "not a bug" if there are no further problems. --[[User:Ashmore|Ashmore]] 19:54, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

== Minor points and addition ==

Hi!

So, we are not supposed to edit the article directly, or how are we to interpret the screening.
:Feel free to add new bugs to the main page with "(confirm)" after it. Confirmations could (should?) be kept to the talk page, but people seem to be filling in the main page instead, which works. This page will need some reformatting eventually anyway. --[[User:Squirrelloid|Squirrelloid]] 08:01, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, there are a few things I feel need to be added/corrected:

Farming on soil is only broken for underground farming. Surface farming gets an unnecessary warning but works fine.

Vermin remains do not decay because they are made of chitin or bone which do not rot. Footkerchief explained that in some thread (sorry, I forgot to mark that).

Skeletons can be turned into bones and skulls at the butcher shop. I have automatic butcher shop activated, and suddenly, my butcher dragged off a deer corpse that had decayed into the butcher shop and do the conversion. Unfortunately, I forgot to check what the job was called. I have not found a way to order that (nothing in the butcher shop menu seems to work). Animals slaughtered do not yield skeletons but bones and skulls as always.

I have also found butchering wild animals for meat to be impossible. At least deers and foxes not killed by a hunter have been left to rot without any butcher animal job spawned in the butchery and any manual butcher job gets a standard error message.

Deathworks

==Distance==
Not sure what's causing it but I have, under "distance" in the "selecting material" dialogue for constructing a wall, a distance of -66870. Yeah, negative. No idea what's causing it and it doesn't seem to be causing any problems, but it *is* a bug.
:have this problem right after cave in, some seconds later distances return to normal...

== Mantis ==

Since DF now uses mantis bugtracker, maybe it is better to put link to mantis ticket at each 'known' bug, so it would be possible to track progress and make sure it is actually known by Toady? - [[User:RusAnon|RusAnon]] 09:55, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

----

== Talk ==
*What's going on with this page guys? Is this a list of unconfirmed bugs, or should all this be on the actual known bugs page? If this is unconfirmed bugs, should the ones on the page be moved here? --[[User:StrongAxe|StrongAxe]] 12:09, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
*There are a lot of people editing this page who don't seem to understand the formatting or linking standards (how to create bullets, link to same namespace pages). --[[User:StrongAxe|StrongAxe]] 12:09, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

== Craftsdwarf's Workshop ==

I'm putting this here just to get it out there, please edit to be in the proper format and tuff. Obviously it all needs confirmation. I seem to be getting wooden swords from a craftsdwarf's workshop after adding create stone swords tasks. I didn't see if they were actually grabbing wood, or made wooden swords from stone. Also, setting a "create shell crafts" task causes the craftsdwarf to just sit in the workshop with a piece of shell, but not ever completing the job. If I have a repeating shell crafts and a repeating stone crafts, it looks like it still cycles through, but no shell crafts are ever created.

== Food Stockpiles ==

Has anybody noticed a bug with food stockpiles with barrels? I had a stockpile with lots of booze, plants, etc and then I changed it to have a maximum of ZERO barrels. The dwarfs proceeded to empty out all the barrels to empty places in the area, even the booze ones!

Also, my kitchen screen doesn't list any meat that I embark with. You cannot use them for cooking?--[[User:Kwieland|Kwieland]] 17:03, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
:Have you tried butchering it? Just curious. [[Special:Contributions/68.43.43.52|68.43.43.52]] 05:57, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

== Unknown Military Crash ==

I've got an odd issue here. I have a single squadron led by (and only populated by) the militia commander, and when I open the military screen, it works fine; however, when my immigrant wave comes and I bolster the ranks with some of the newcomers, the next time I try opening the Military screen, the program crashes. Any ideas? I'll keep testing in the meantime, and see if changing uniform / squad leadership / etc. will fix it. --[[User:Eddie|Eddie]] 16:20, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
EDIT-Found that deleting and remaking the squad fixed this. I haven't saved yet, if anyone wants my save to take a crack at figuring this bug out. --[[User:Eddie|Eddie]] 16:27, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

==Masterwork food Bug==

When [[cook]]s make [[masterwork]] [[food]] they suffer art defacement if someone eats it. Has ended 2 fortresses in [[tantrum]] spiral so far.--[[User:Mrdudeguy|Mrdudeguy]] 17:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:That's not actually what's happening - others have reported that it's actually due to trying to make food entirely from liquid components (e.g. cooking booze or dwarven syrup and nothing else) and the roasts (with their masterfully minced ingredients) spontaneously melting back into their components, often when a dwarf claims one of them for a meal. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 17:12, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

== Req for Comments - 'Buggy' template ==

I've created a template that shows a warning like so:
{{buggy}}
I would like to include this template in articles for features that are currently buggy. I would also like to create a section called 'Bugs' or something similar at the bottom of each article on a currently buggy feature. Example of an article I've done this with: [[Ambusher]].

The template has one parameter, 'bugsection', which is to be the section heading containing the bugs. In the case of the ambusher article, the section is called "Bugs", but this is inconsistent across the entire wiki, which is why I've included the parameter. [[User:Garanis|Garanis]] 03:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

: I also think the bugs section should contain references to specific bug tracker entries. This way, if a person comes to the wiki after finding a bug, they can see at a glance that it has already been reported, or they can add a note, or watch the bug in the tracker if they want. [[User:Garanis|Garanis]] 03:38, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

==Dead Dwarf keeps task and building locked==

I can't get on the forum now, so this'll have to do. I have a Mason's Workshop with a Construct Rock Table task that is both repeating and currently active. If I go to the (u) screen, there is no dwarf listed with this task. Going to (j)obs, there is a dwarf, one Dumat Tatloshakrul, a Mason. It turns out this dwarf is dead. [[User:Granite26|Granite26]] 13:28, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
:Although, it'd be cool if the partial corpse was crawling around trying to finish the job.

v0.31 Talk:Known bugs and issues

2010-04-09T13:28:25Z

Granite26: New bug

It's been a long while since I used this wiki... where can I report a crash bug other than the official site (which is down)? The details: Opened the new version of Dwarf Fortress fullscreen, and it froze up during the opening sequence, when the dwarf at the end is peering through the hole. [[User:Alfador|Alfador]] 15:19, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
* Further information: started it in non-fullscreen mode and it worked fine. Now seeing if the fullscreen crash happens again or if it was just the fact that I was posting a Livejournal comment in the background... or possibly a first-time initialization that I'll be unable to reproduce. :P [[User:Alfador|Alfador]] 15:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
* And it did NOT reproduce. Great. [[User:Alfador|Alfador]] 15:29, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
*http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/login_page.php is the new bug reporting tool. [[User:Enjia2000|Enjia2000]] 15:31, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
* Just putting this down here while the above site is non-responsive:
** World gen roads are off, sometimes they'll have floor above ramps, which prevent passage
** Vermin remains do not decay [[User:Todestool|Todestool]] 19:53, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

==Acid Rain Bug==
Rarely, it will rain, and any dwarves caught outside in that rain will start MELTING, and bleed to death very quickly. There are no messages before "______ has bled to death", so it seems like they just start melting and don't even care. This happens to animals and dwarves.
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/964/iwillsurvive.png
Unknown cause.
:I managed to catch one of my dwarves just before it died of blood loss. It looks like it only happens to their fingers?
:By rarely you mean 'not every time it rains'? I'm in a jungle, it's raining half the time, but I haven't seen these issues. Could it be a new 'feature'? Could it be a reaction between the water and something your dwarves are playing in? (Do your other dwarves have contaminents listed on their hands, and does soaking them by other means cause issues?) Just some thoughts [[User:Granite26|Granite26]] 13:16, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

==Labor Menu Bug==
Sometimes only four categories will show up under {{k|v}},{{k|p}},{{k|l}}. If this occurs the game is very unplayable since dwarves cannot be assigned most labors. I have seen this bug myself but am so far unable to reliably reproduce it. With the bug I saw the following list. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 20:55, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

*Mining
*Healthcare
*Hauling
*Other Jobs

The correct list should be.

*Mining
*Woodworking
*Stoneworking
*Hunting/Related
*Healthcare
*Farming/Related
*Fishing/Related
*Metalsmithing
*Jewelry
*Crafts
*Engineering
*Hauling
*Other Jobs

Most of these menus also have sub-menus now as well. I am unsure if it is relevant but when I only saw four labor groups I also saw absolutely nothing in the nobles menu. If anyone can figure out how to reproduce this one please speak up. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 20:55, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Couple things. In legends, there's a skin monster who's called the [adjective] of , skin monster. Need to fill that in.
Also, undiscovered items can be seen in the stocks menu.

== Clarifications ==
* When you see the Pets twice on the embark menu, I believe this is due to the fact the game is showing the difference between male and female. Therefore you can purchase 1male dog and 4 female dogs if you wish. This may be the same reason that fish show up twice but I cannot determine if this is the case or not. [[User:Kataklistika|Kataklistika]] 06:09, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

*Added a note that animal bones work for the "body parts" request from fey dwarves. Seems to be a summary of material types and not quite as shocking as it sounds, and suggest this to be changed to "not a bug" if there are no further problems. --[[User:Ashmore|Ashmore]] 19:54, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

== Minor points and addition ==

Hi!

So, we are not supposed to edit the article directly, or how are we to interpret the screening.
:Feel free to add new bugs to the main page with "(confirm)" after it. Confirmations could (should?) be kept to the talk page, but people seem to be filling in the main page instead, which works. This page will need some reformatting eventually anyway. --[[User:Squirrelloid|Squirrelloid]] 08:01, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, there are a few things I feel need to be added/corrected:

Farming on soil is only broken for underground farming. Surface farming gets an unnecessary warning but works fine.

Vermin remains do not decay because they are made of chitin or bone which do not rot. Footkerchief explained that in some thread (sorry, I forgot to mark that).

Skeletons can be turned into bones and skulls at the butcher shop. I have automatic butcher shop activated, and suddenly, my butcher dragged off a deer corpse that had decayed into the butcher shop and do the conversion. Unfortunately, I forgot to check what the job was called. I have not found a way to order that (nothing in the butcher shop menu seems to work). Animals slaughtered do not yield skeletons but bones and skulls as always.

I have also found butchering wild animals for meat to be impossible. At least deers and foxes not killed by a hunter have been left to rot without any butcher animal job spawned in the butchery and any manual butcher job gets a standard error message.

Deathworks

==Distance==
Not sure what's causing it but I have, under "distance" in the "selecting material" dialogue for constructing a wall, a distance of -66870. Yeah, negative. No idea what's causing it and it doesn't seem to be causing any problems, but it *is* a bug.
:have this problem right after cave in, some seconds later distances return to normal...

== Mantis ==

Since DF now uses mantis bugtracker, maybe it is better to put link to mantis ticket at each 'known' bug, so it would be possible to track progress and make sure it is actually known by Toady? - [[User:RusAnon|RusAnon]] 09:55, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

----

== Talk ==
*What's going on with this page guys? Is this a list of unconfirmed bugs, or should all this be on the actual known bugs page? If this is unconfirmed bugs, should the ones on the page be moved here? --[[User:StrongAxe|StrongAxe]] 12:09, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
*There are a lot of people editing this page who don't seem to understand the formatting or linking standards (how to create bullets, link to same namespace pages). --[[User:StrongAxe|StrongAxe]] 12:09, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

== Craftsdwarf's Workshop ==

I'm putting this here just to get it out there, please edit to be in the proper format and tuff. Obviously it all needs confirmation. I seem to be getting wooden swords from a craftsdwarf's workshop after adding create stone swords tasks. I didn't see if they were actually grabbing wood, or made wooden swords from stone. Also, setting a "create shell crafts" task causes the craftsdwarf to just sit in the workshop with a piece of shell, but not ever completing the job. If I have a repeating shell crafts and a repeating stone crafts, it looks like it still cycles through, but no shell crafts are ever created.

== Food Stockpiles ==

Has anybody noticed a bug with food stockpiles with barrels? I had a stockpile with lots of booze, plants, etc and then I changed it to have a maximum of ZERO barrels. The dwarfs proceeded to empty out all the barrels to empty places in the area, even the booze ones!

Also, my kitchen screen doesn't list any meat that I embark with. You cannot use them for cooking?--[[User:Kwieland|Kwieland]] 17:03, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
:Have you tried butchering it? Just curious. [[Special:Contributions/68.43.43.52|68.43.43.52]] 05:57, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

== Unknown Military Crash ==

I've got an odd issue here. I have a single squadron led by (and only populated by) the militia commander, and when I open the military screen, it works fine; however, when my immigrant wave comes and I bolster the ranks with some of the newcomers, the next time I try opening the Military screen, the program crashes. Any ideas? I'll keep testing in the meantime, and see if changing uniform / squad leadership / etc. will fix it. --[[User:Eddie|Eddie]] 16:20, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
EDIT-Found that deleting and remaking the squad fixed this. I haven't saved yet, if anyone wants my save to take a crack at figuring this bug out. --[[User:Eddie|Eddie]] 16:27, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

==Masterwork food Bug==

When [[cook]]s make [[masterwork]] [[food]] they suffer art defacement if someone eats it. Has ended 2 fortresses in [[tantrum]] spiral so far.--[[User:Mrdudeguy|Mrdudeguy]] 17:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:That's not actually what's happening - others have reported that it's actually due to trying to make food entirely from liquid components (e.g. cooking booze or dwarven syrup and nothing else) and the roasts (with their masterfully minced ingredients) spontaneously melting back into their components, often when a dwarf claims one of them for a meal. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 17:12, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

== Req for Comments - 'Buggy' template ==

I've created a template that shows a warning like so:
{{buggy}}
I would like to include this template in articles for features that are currently buggy. I would also like to create a section called 'Bugs' or something similar at the bottom of each article on a currently buggy feature. Example of an article I've done this with: [[Ambusher]].

The template has one parameter, 'bugsection', which is to be the section heading containing the bugs. In the case of the ambusher article, the section is called "Bugs", but this is inconsistent across the entire wiki, which is why I've included the parameter. [[User:Garanis|Garanis]] 03:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

: I also think the bugs section should contain references to specific bug tracker entries. This way, if a person comes to the wiki after finding a bug, they can see at a glance that it has already been reported, or they can add a note, or watch the bug in the tracker if they want. [[User:Garanis|Garanis]] 03:38, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

==Dead Dwarf keeps task and building locked==

I can't get on the forum now, so this'll have to do. I have a Mason's Workshop with a Construct Rock Table task that is both repeating and currently active. If I go to the (u) screen, there is no dwarf listed with this task. Going to (j)obs, there is a dwarf, one Dumat Tatloshakrul, a Mason. It turns out this dwarf is dead. [[User:Granite26|Granite26]] 13:28, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
:Although, it'd be cool if the partial corpse was crawling around trying to finish the job.

v0.31 Talk:Known bugs and issues

2010-04-09T13:16:57Z

Granite26: /* Acid Rain Bug */

It's been a long while since I used this wiki... where can I report a crash bug other than the official site (which is down)? The details: Opened the new version of Dwarf Fortress fullscreen, and it froze up during the opening sequence, when the dwarf at the end is peering through the hole. [[User:Alfador|Alfador]] 15:19, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
* Further information: started it in non-fullscreen mode and it worked fine. Now seeing if the fullscreen crash happens again or if it was just the fact that I was posting a Livejournal comment in the background... or possibly a first-time initialization that I'll be unable to reproduce. :P [[User:Alfador|Alfador]] 15:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
* And it did NOT reproduce. Great. [[User:Alfador|Alfador]] 15:29, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
*http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/login_page.php is the new bug reporting tool. [[User:Enjia2000|Enjia2000]] 15:31, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
* Just putting this down here while the above site is non-responsive:
** World gen roads are off, sometimes they'll have floor above ramps, which prevent passage
** Vermin remains do not decay [[User:Todestool|Todestool]] 19:53, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

==Acid Rain Bug==
Rarely, it will rain, and any dwarves caught outside in that rain will start MELTING, and bleed to death very quickly. There are no messages before "______ has bled to death", so it seems like they just start melting and don't even care. This happens to animals and dwarves.
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/964/iwillsurvive.png
Unknown cause.
:I managed to catch one of my dwarves just before it died of blood loss. It looks like it only happens to their fingers?
:By rarely you mean 'not every time it rains'? I'm in a jungle, it's raining half the time, but I haven't seen these issues. Could it be a new 'feature'? Could it be a reaction between the water and something your dwarves are playing in? (Do your other dwarves have contaminents listed on their hands, and does soaking them by other means cause issues?) Just some thoughts [[User:Granite26|Granite26]] 13:16, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

==Labor Menu Bug==
Sometimes only four categories will show up under {{k|v}},{{k|p}},{{k|l}}. If this occurs the game is very unplayable since dwarves cannot be assigned most labors. I have seen this bug myself but am so far unable to reliably reproduce it. With the bug I saw the following list. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 20:55, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

*Mining
*Healthcare
*Hauling
*Other Jobs

The correct list should be.

*Mining
*Woodworking
*Stoneworking
*Hunting/Related
*Healthcare
*Farming/Related
*Fishing/Related
*Metalsmithing
*Jewelry
*Crafts
*Engineering
*Hauling
*Other Jobs

Most of these menus also have sub-menus now as well. I am unsure if it is relevant but when I only saw four labor groups I also saw absolutely nothing in the nobles menu. If anyone can figure out how to reproduce this one please speak up. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 20:55, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Couple things. In legends, there's a skin monster who's called the [adjective] of , skin monster. Need to fill that in.
Also, undiscovered items can be seen in the stocks menu.

== Clarifications ==
* When you see the Pets twice on the embark menu, I believe this is due to the fact the game is showing the difference between male and female. Therefore you can purchase 1male dog and 4 female dogs if you wish. This may be the same reason that fish show up twice but I cannot determine if this is the case or not. [[User:Kataklistika|Kataklistika]] 06:09, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

*Added a note that animal bones work for the "body parts" request from fey dwarves. Seems to be a summary of material types and not quite as shocking as it sounds, and suggest this to be changed to "not a bug" if there are no further problems. --[[User:Ashmore|Ashmore]] 19:54, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

== Minor points and addition ==

Hi!

So, we are not supposed to edit the article directly, or how are we to interpret the screening.
:Feel free to add new bugs to the main page with "(confirm)" after it. Confirmations could (should?) be kept to the talk page, but people seem to be filling in the main page instead, which works. This page will need some reformatting eventually anyway. --[[User:Squirrelloid|Squirrelloid]] 08:01, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, there are a few things I feel need to be added/corrected:

Farming on soil is only broken for underground farming. Surface farming gets an unnecessary warning but works fine.

Vermin remains do not decay because they are made of chitin or bone which do not rot. Footkerchief explained that in some thread (sorry, I forgot to mark that).

Skeletons can be turned into bones and skulls at the butcher shop. I have automatic butcher shop activated, and suddenly, my butcher dragged off a deer corpse that had decayed into the butcher shop and do the conversion. Unfortunately, I forgot to check what the job was called. I have not found a way to order that (nothing in the butcher shop menu seems to work). Animals slaughtered do not yield skeletons but bones and skulls as always.

I have also found butchering wild animals for meat to be impossible. At least deers and foxes not killed by a hunter have been left to rot without any butcher animal job spawned in the butchery and any manual butcher job gets a standard error message.

Deathworks

==Distance==
Not sure what's causing it but I have, under "distance" in the "selecting material" dialogue for constructing a wall, a distance of -66870. Yeah, negative. No idea what's causing it and it doesn't seem to be causing any problems, but it *is* a bug.
:have this problem right after cave in, some seconds later distances return to normal...

== Mantis ==

Since DF now uses mantis bugtracker, maybe it is better to put link to mantis ticket at each 'known' bug, so it would be possible to track progress and make sure it is actually known by Toady? - [[User:RusAnon|RusAnon]] 09:55, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

----

== Talk ==
*What's going on with this page guys? Is this a list of unconfirmed bugs, or should all this be on the actual known bugs page? If this is unconfirmed bugs, should the ones on the page be moved here? --[[User:StrongAxe|StrongAxe]] 12:09, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
*There are a lot of people editing this page who don't seem to understand the formatting or linking standards (how to create bullets, link to same namespace pages). --[[User:StrongAxe|StrongAxe]] 12:09, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

== Craftsdwarf's Workshop ==

I'm putting this here just to get it out there, please edit to be in the proper format and tuff. Obviously it all needs confirmation. I seem to be getting wooden swords from a craftsdwarf's workshop after adding create stone swords tasks. I didn't see if they were actually grabbing wood, or made wooden swords from stone. Also, setting a "create shell crafts" task causes the craftsdwarf to just sit in the workshop with a piece of shell, but not ever completing the job. If I have a repeating shell crafts and a repeating stone crafts, it looks like it still cycles through, but no shell crafts are ever created.

== Food Stockpiles ==

Has anybody noticed a bug with food stockpiles with barrels? I had a stockpile with lots of booze, plants, etc and then I changed it to have a maximum of ZERO barrels. The dwarfs proceeded to empty out all the barrels to empty places in the area, even the booze ones!

Also, my kitchen screen doesn't list any meat that I embark with. You cannot use them for cooking?--[[User:Kwieland|Kwieland]] 17:03, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
:Have you tried butchering it? Just curious. [[Special:Contributions/68.43.43.52|68.43.43.52]] 05:57, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

== Unknown Military Crash ==

I've got an odd issue here. I have a single squadron led by (and only populated by) the militia commander, and when I open the military screen, it works fine; however, when my immigrant wave comes and I bolster the ranks with some of the newcomers, the next time I try opening the Military screen, the program crashes. Any ideas? I'll keep testing in the meantime, and see if changing uniform / squad leadership / etc. will fix it. --[[User:Eddie|Eddie]] 16:20, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
EDIT-Found that deleting and remaking the squad fixed this. I haven't saved yet, if anyone wants my save to take a crack at figuring this bug out. --[[User:Eddie|Eddie]] 16:27, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

==Masterwork food Bug==

When [[cook]]s make [[masterwork]] [[food]] they suffer art defacement if someone eats it. Has ended 2 fortresses in [[tantrum]] spiral so far.--[[User:Mrdudeguy|Mrdudeguy]] 17:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:That's not actually what's happening - others have reported that it's actually due to trying to make food entirely from liquid components (e.g. cooking booze or dwarven syrup and nothing else) and the roasts (with their masterfully minced ingredients) spontaneously melting back into their components, often when a dwarf claims one of them for a meal. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 17:12, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

== Req for Comments - 'Buggy' template ==

I've created a template that shows a warning like so:
{{buggy}}
I would like to include this template in articles for features that are currently buggy. I would also like to create a section called 'Bugs' or something similar at the bottom of each article on a currently buggy feature. Example of an article I've done this with: [[Ambusher]].

The template has one parameter, 'bugsection', which is to be the section heading containing the bugs. In the case of the ambusher article, the section is called "Bugs", but this is inconsistent across the entire wiki, which is why I've included the parameter. [[User:Garanis|Garanis]] 03:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

: I also think the bugs section should contain references to specific bug tracker entries. This way, if a person comes to the wiki after finding a bug, they can see at a glance that it has already been reported, or they can add a note, or watch the bug in the tracker if they want. [[User:Garanis|Garanis]] 03:38, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

40d Talk:The Non-Dwarf's Guide to Rock

2009-07-28T18:54:23Z

Granite26: /* Ore Uses */ Signing

Interesting color to help the newbies for things that have no other use.--[[User:Zchris13|Zchris13]] 01:27, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

=Color Column=
I think breaking out the color into a separate column (perhaps featuring a block of the actual color) would be very useful. Thoughts? --[[User:Aristoi|Aristoi]] 17:04, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
:That would be kinda awesome. Any chance someone could could do a breakdown of "How to find"? I've had 12 different embark sites, and I can't for the life of me find one with bauxite... [[User:Decius|Decius]] 17:34, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
:::Color columns: +1. Do it! You could also just copy/past the tiles from the original table on the [[stone]] page - that would be even better, more info. --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 22:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

[[Bauxite]] has a chance of being in any [[Sedimentary layer]].--[[User:Mrdudeguy|Mrdudeguy]] 19:26, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

=How to Find=
:Re "How to Find" - that would be a diff article, but maybe another we need. This is NOT intended as a guide to everything about the rocks! This is uses for rock - for newbies - so KISS is the rule. Important associations and significance when a new stone is discovered, ''not'' where to find them or why they are not so valuable. Other articles are expected to have "complete info", and newbies should get used to doing their own simple research if they are interested. Trying to include minor info will clutter this sort of presentation, which is fairly large as it stands. For now, click [[bauxite]], read that page, look at the relationships, click those links - figure it out.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 22:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

::This is also going to be irrelevant in later versions due to more rocks having realistic melting temperatures and therefore more magma safe.--[[User:Mrdudeguy|Mrdudeguy]] 22:54, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

::I didn't intend to ask for a complete guide, just enough that I could target my exploration efforts to where it could actually be. Is the standard way of finding things really "Exploratory mining throughout all areas of all biomes that could contain it"? (Or reveal.exe?) Even showing all features in the map, I don't know of a better way to find coal, much less adamantine. [[User:Decius|Decius]] 23:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

:::Added a basic "how to", not a complete guide. And yes, that's it - there's no magic to it. There is a bit of local knowledge re what layers/stones might contain what, and depending on what you're looking for (layers, features, large clusters, veins, small clusters) the exact choice of tactics for the exploratory mining varies, but yeah - you dig blind until you stumble upon what you're looking for. That's how "mining" works (in the absence of Reveal.)

:::Example: For coal: We know it's in sedimentary, we know it's a vein, and we know (from [[vein|veins & clusters]] that a vein covers about 3-4 tiles wide and rarely goes in a straight line. So a shaft-grid every 6 tiles is bound to stab into it or right next to it, either of which will reveal it. We also know that area blocks are 48x48. So once we find an area block with a sedimentary layer, we count and find its borders, and dig our starting shaft in 6 diagonal from one corner - and we find out how deep those sedimentary layers go. Then maybe 12 diagonal in from that, and then 12 and 12 more across the block, from one corner to the other. That's 4 shafts in a diagonal across the whole thing. 4 more form a "cross" on the other diagonal if we want. At most, that's 16 to pepper the whole thing at 12-tile intervals - just to start, to get a feel for "what's down there". If we find a large cluster of cheap stone in the middle, we ignore that whole central area and stick to the edges - no sense digging in the middle of a large cluster of microcline, at least not on that [[z-level]]. (And we know from that veins & clusters page that a "large cluster" is about 20x40 - nice big area to avoid.) From there, if we have to, we fill in with a 6-wide pattern to search where we want. If that doesn't find it, either we're incredibly unlucky, or it's not in that block and we move on to the next one.

:::And that's mining, RL and DF.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 00:29, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

::::And here I am, thinking you were keeping the arcane knowledge secret. I thought that there was some equivalent of exploratory and mining ''geology'' to be had. (E.G. x forms near boundary between Y and Z) RL geology has elements of "Figure out where it is" and "Look for it" too, but modern geology leans more toward "Figure out where it is" then "Dig shafts everywhere". [[User:Decius|Decius]] 01:25, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

:I won't say there isn't - just no one's noticed/deciphered it (or if they have they're not talking). Toady has some skill at both geology and simulation - what elements he's incorporated, and how that is presented in the game, I have no idea.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 01:48, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

==Column Size==
The sizes of the columns are rather excessive, especially Aluminum, bauxite, and magnetite. Also includes some unnecessary humor. Bad jokes.--[[User:Zchris13|Zchris13]] 18:05, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
:Edit - I missed [[Lamp]]'s earlier edits - just came here and saw your comments. After a series of edits, it's back to where it should be. I hope.
:Lamp - your changes were not consistent with the text of the rest of the article, nor the layout of other stones. There are 4 "value" categories for metals - low, mid, high, and highest (2, 10, 30 & 40). The diff between 30 & 40 is only 33% - significant enough for a rough distinction, and that's all this article is presenting - a new-comer's rough understanding. Adamantine is clearly explained as "not exactly a metal", w/ additional emphasis on its value. --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 22:26, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

==Purpose of Article?==
What was the original purpose of this article? I get this feeling that some of what is here, although useful, is not part of the original purpose. I might be wrong.--[[User:Zchris13|Zchris13]] 18:42, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
:As defined in the opening paragraph of this article (''always a good place to look, at least to start)'', if a new user strikes X type of rock, this article will tell them whether it's valuable or not. So, at a base level, it gives a''' basic idea of the uses of that rock''' - so you've struck microcline or platinum or rhyolite or obsidian, so what?. That has necessarily broadened a bit to add a ''minimum'' understanding of concepts like "material value" and "smelting", without which the comments might be largely meaningless.

:Since it's a wiki, some small latitude should be allowed - but we're not here to tell people where to find rock, nor what the obscure implications are between a layer and rocks within that and the gems within those - just "What does this rock mean?" at a basic level. What you need to know the first day you play.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 03:12, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

::In other words, what should be in the quick-start rules of the manual. It's hard to get new alpha testers when the bar to entry is too high. [[User:Decius|Decius]] 04:39, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

== note on consistency ==

Nice page, but a few things:

No time to edit myself, so I will just jot it down now.

Need consistency in ore ratings. Aluminum is "high" platinum is "highest" but they're the same value, no? Also see the iron ores. Oh and then Adamantine is "THE highest". In my opinion, Gold should be "high", Platinum and Aluminum "very high" and Adamantine "highest".

Just a pet peave, but please use proper spelling. "Altho" is not proper spelling.

Good work.
--[[User:Jpwrunyan|Jpwrunyan]] 22:49, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

== Mechanism Error? ==

In the extra note on bauxite, it states that mechanisms may only be made out of stone. This is not the case however, metal mechanisms can be forged in the trap comp section of a metal smith's forge. Not only that, raw adamantine(a rock) can be made into mechanism too. [[User:Althalus|Althalus]] 07:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

PS: it also would be a good idea to mention that adamantine must be made into strands and then into wafers, and it takes 3x as many wafers as it would bars.
...metal mechanisms can be forged in the trap comp section of a metal smith's forge...
:Since when? Mine lists only the 5 trap weapons. You using a mod? (''Adamantine'' mechs, yes, but that's advanced stuff imo. Could add for accuracy, I guess.)
:And don't look now, but "a rock" ''is'' stone. This is not a complete guide to everything about anything listed here - this is a ''basic'' guide about types of stone, for newer players. "Adamantine is really valuable" - nuff said as far as that's concerned. Any additional comment would only be incomplete and open more doors to more details. We're trying to avoid sprawl and redundancies. If they want more, they should go to that article, that's what the links are for.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 16:02, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I was pointing out that raw adamantine WAS a stone and it states bauxite is the magma safe rock. And if its a "basic" we should at least add that adamantine can be used to construct anything but beds.(others?) [[User:Althalus|Althalus]] 18:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
::Mmmmm - The way I see it, I don't think there's anything "basic" about adamantine. By the time they find that, hopefully, they'll be past this guide, and know to look it up. For example... how long were you playing before you actually had some raw adamantine staring you and your miners in the face? If you were on the wiki, did you assume it was "just like everything else", or did you look it up, then or long before? There are enough comments ("Adamantine is not exactly a metal", etc), to give them the clue. Imo. --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 16:15, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

=Ore Uses=
Wouldn't it be appropriate to list the ores uses? Specifically 'Weapons and Armor', 'Crafts', and 'Special'(for Adamantine)
[[User:Granite26|Granite26]] 18:54, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

40d Talk:The Non-Dwarf's Guide to Rock

2009-07-28T18:53:49Z

Granite26:

User talk:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-03-03T14:15:40Z

Granite26: /* Top 20 */

=Creating this page=
Philosophy: There are two goals. First is to organize common areas of discussion to aid researching what has been discussed on a topic. The second is to create a readily searchable list of common suggestions so that people can see what has been done before without having to play guess the verb with other forum goers. This still won't fix spell checking errors, though.
== Top 20 ==
Any ideas what the top 20 should be?

== Sidebar ==
Creating a sidebar to list major areas that are effectively 'broken' for now. Kind of a 'feel free to suggest improvements, but suggesting it be 'fixed' will look stupid.

== Full List ==
Intended to be a short list of the common suggestions that aren't neatly categorized.

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-03-02T19:02:53Z

Granite26: /* '''Other Common Suggestions:''' */

=Common Suggestions List=

This list is intended to serve as an overview for the various commonly discussed topics.

== '''Top 20 Common Suggestions:''' ==

This is a non-scientific list of the top 20 most common suggestions. Before making a new suggestion involving one of these, you should read the existing thread summaries first.

'''[[User:Granite26/GunpowderSuggestion | Guns & Gunpowder]]''' ''(Cannons, Explosives, Muskets, Arquebuses, Pyrotechnics, Rockets, Fireworks, Explosions, Pistols, Rifles, Flamethrowers)''

'''[[User:Granite26/MagicSuggestion |Magic & Sorcery]]''' ''(Alchemy, Ley Lines, Arcane etc)''

'''[[User:Granite26/MultiplayerSuggestion |Multiplayer]]''' (This is a relatively liberal list of keywords designed to be searched)

'''[[User:Granite26/PaperSuggestion |Paper]]''' ''(Books, Writing, Literature, Stories)''

'''[[User:Granite26/SparringSuggestion |Sparring]]''' ''(Less Deadly, Training Weapons,Training Dummies, Group Training, Katas)''

'''[[User:Granite26/TechnologySuggestion |Technology]]''' ''(Machines, Robots, Gollums, Mine Carts, Cranes, Steam Power, Electricity, Motors, Clockwork, Mechanism))''

'''[[User:Granite26/HaulingSuggestion |Hauling]]''' ''(Improved Hauling, Pathfinding, Wheelbarrows, Carts)''

'''[[User:Granite26/PhysicsSuggestion |Physics]]''' ''(Fire, Water, Flows, Fountains, Gravity, Radiation)''

'''[[User:Granite26/MiningSuggestion |Mining]]''' ''(Minerals, Architecture, Supports)''

'''[[User:Granite26/ChildCareSuggestion |Child Care & Education]]''' ''(Daycare, Nursery, Teachers, Training)''

'''[[User:Granite26/ProgramingSuggestion |Programing]]''' ''(Algorithms, Pathfinding, Multithreading, Open Source, Code, API)''

----
=='''Other Common Suggestions:'''==

This is a list of the simple suggestions that come up frequently. While there are many good discussions about the implimentation details, the suggestion itself is relatively simple. ''It can be a little less formal, and should use the standard thread summaries described in gunpowder. If there are multiple threads with the same idea carrying significant content, favoritism should be avoided List the threads afterwards as numbers or single words)''

'''Retiring Fortresses''' [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php *] ''(Founding Cities, Resuming World Generation, Non-Lose End Conditions)'' The ability to retire a fortress as a succesful city. Discussed here : [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 1] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 2] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 3] (For example, I don't think there are any real discussions about retiring a fortress other than 'good idea')

'''Alarms''' ''(Sensors, tripwires, alerts)'' Alarms that pause the game and alert you or your characters [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31216.0 1] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 2] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 3]

'''Requesting Immigrants''' ''(Keywords)'' The Ability the request specific immigrants from the mountainhome [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31216.0 1] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 2] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 3] (Another good example where you're for it or against it)

'''Associating Skills with Attributes''' [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php *] ''(Keywords)'' Skills only raising attributes used with the skill

'''Crossbreeding''' ''(Mules, Half elves, Centaurs)'' When a man falls in love with a random creature and they decide it's the right time for them...

[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php *] - Means the suggestion is on the Eternal Suggestion Voting Page (Is there a way to jump-to there? Make sure the topic name is the first keyword, maybe?)

==How to Search==
Short section of tips on how to find what you are looking for.

A: Spellcheck

B: Try 2-3 different phrasings

C: Try to generalize your suggestion. Crossbreed dwarves and fireimps may not have come up specifically, but crossbreeding has.
----

=='''Works in Progress'''==
''Some parts of DF are currently stubs and will see a great deal of future work in order to make them fully functional''
Ideally this would go on a little box on the right hand side of the screen and consist of short inarguable phrases. These are things that OF COURSE should go in, it's already planned and on the dev next screen, it's just in the game yet. The point here is to say 'this isn't done yet, and it's planned'. Not to stop people from talking about it, just to stop them from saying 'you know what would be great? If horses and carts really worked! Again, this should be short, about 7-20 entries.

Mounts

Multitile Creatures

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-03-02T19:02:02Z

Granite26: /* How to Search */

=Common Suggestions List=

This list is intended to serve as an overview for the various commonly discussed topics.

== '''Top 20 Common Suggestions:''' ==

This is a non-scientific list of the top 20 most common suggestions. Before making a new suggestion involving one of these, you should read the existing thread summaries first.

'''[[User:Granite26/GunpowderSuggestion | Guns & Gunpowder]]''' ''(Cannons, Explosives, Muskets, Arquebuses, Pyrotechnics, Rockets, Fireworks, Explosions, Pistols, Rifles, Flamethrowers)''

'''[[User:Granite26/MagicSuggestion |Magic & Sorcery]]''' ''(Alchemy, Ley Lines, Arcane etc)''

'''[[User:Granite26/MultiplayerSuggestion |Multiplayer]]''' (This is a relatively liberal list of keywords designed to be searched)

'''[[User:Granite26/PaperSuggestion |Paper]]''' ''(Books, Writing, Literature, Stories)''

'''[[User:Granite26/SparringSuggestion |Sparring]]''' ''(Less Deadly, Training Weapons,Training Dummies, Group Training, Katas)''

'''[[User:Granite26/TechnologySuggestion |Technology]]''' ''(Machines, Robots, Gollums, Mine Carts, Cranes, Steam Power, Electricity, Motors, Clockwork, Mechanism))''

'''[[User:Granite26/HaulingSuggestion |Hauling]]''' ''(Improved Hauling, Pathfinding, Wheelbarrows, Carts)''

'''[[User:Granite26/PhysicsSuggestion |Physics]]''' ''(Fire, Water, Flows, Fountains, Gravity, Radiation)''

'''[[User:Granite26/MiningSuggestion |Mining]]''' ''(Minerals, Architecture, Supports)''

'''[[User:Granite26/ChildCareSuggestion |Child Care & Education]]''' ''(Daycare, Nursery, Teachers, Training)''

'''[[User:Granite26/ProgramingSuggestion |Programing]]''' ''(Algorithms, Pathfinding, Multithreading, Open Source, Code, API)''

----
=='''Other Common Suggestions:'''==

This is a list of the simple suggestions that come up frequently. While there are many good discussions about the implimentation details, the suggestion itself is relatively simple. ''It can be a little less formal, and should use the standard thread summaries described in gunpowder. If there are multiple threads with the same idea carrying significant content, favoritism should be avoided List the threads afterwards as numbers or single words)''

'''Retiring Fortresses''' [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php *] ''(Founding Cities, Resuming World Generation, Non-Lose End Conditions)'' The ability to retire a fortress as a succesful city. Discussed here : [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 1] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 2] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 3] (For example, I don't think there are any real discussions about retiring a fortress other than 'good idea')

'''Alarms''' ''(Sensors, tripwires, alerts)'' Alarms that pause the game and alert you or your characters [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31216.0 1] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 2] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 3]

'''Requesting Immigrants''' ''(Keywords)'' The Ability the request specific immigrants from the mountainhome [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31216.0 1] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 2] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 3] (Another good example where you're for it or against it)

'''Associating Skills with Attributes''' [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php *] ''(Keywords)'' Skills only raising attributes used with the skill

'''Crossbreeding''' ''(Mules, Half elves, Centaurs) When a man falls in love with a random creature and they decide it's the right time for them...

[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php *] - Means the suggestion is on the Eternal Suggestion Voting Page (Is there a way to jump-to there? Make sure the topic name is the first keyword, maybe?)
==How to Search==
Short section of tips on how to find what you are looking for.

A: Spellcheck

B: Try 2-3 different phrasings

C: Try to generalize your suggestion. Crossbreed dwarves and fireimps may not have come up specifically, but crossbreeding has.
----

=='''Works in Progress'''==
''Some parts of DF are currently stubs and will see a great deal of future work in order to make them fully functional''
Ideally this would go on a little box on the right hand side of the screen and consist of short inarguable phrases. These are things that OF COURSE should go in, it's already planned and on the dev next screen, it's just in the game yet. The point here is to say 'this isn't done yet, and it's planned'. Not to stop people from talking about it, just to stop them from saying 'you know what would be great? If horses and carts really worked! Again, this should be short, about 7-20 entries.

Mounts

Multitile Creatures

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-03-02T19:01:36Z

Granite26: /* '''Top 20 Common Suggestions:''' */

=Common Suggestions List=

This list is intended to serve as an overview for the various commonly discussed topics.

== '''Top 20 Common Suggestions:''' ==

This is a non-scientific list of the top 20 most common suggestions. Before making a new suggestion involving one of these, you should read the existing thread summaries first.

'''[[User:Granite26/GunpowderSuggestion | Guns & Gunpowder]]''' ''(Cannons, Explosives, Muskets, Arquebuses, Pyrotechnics, Rockets, Fireworks, Explosions, Pistols, Rifles, Flamethrowers)''

'''[[User:Granite26/MagicSuggestion |Magic & Sorcery]]''' ''(Alchemy, Ley Lines, Arcane etc)''

'''[[User:Granite26/MultiplayerSuggestion |Multiplayer]]''' (This is a relatively liberal list of keywords designed to be searched)

'''[[User:Granite26/PaperSuggestion |Paper]]''' ''(Books, Writing, Literature, Stories)''

'''[[User:Granite26/SparringSuggestion |Sparring]]''' ''(Less Deadly, Training Weapons,Training Dummies, Group Training, Katas)''

'''[[User:Granite26/TechnologySuggestion |Technology]]''' ''(Machines, Robots, Gollums, Mine Carts, Cranes, Steam Power, Electricity, Motors, Clockwork, Mechanism))''

'''[[User:Granite26/HaulingSuggestion |Hauling]]''' ''(Improved Hauling, Pathfinding, Wheelbarrows, Carts)''

'''[[User:Granite26/PhysicsSuggestion |Physics]]''' ''(Fire, Water, Flows, Fountains, Gravity, Radiation)''

'''[[User:Granite26/MiningSuggestion |Mining]]''' ''(Minerals, Architecture, Supports)''

'''[[User:Granite26/ChildCareSuggestion |Child Care & Education]]''' ''(Daycare, Nursery, Teachers, Training)''

'''[[User:Granite26/ProgramingSuggestion |Programing]]''' ''(Algorithms, Pathfinding, Multithreading, Open Source, Code, API)''

----
=='''Other Common Suggestions:'''==

This is a list of the simple suggestions that come up frequently. While there are many good discussions about the implimentation details, the suggestion itself is relatively simple. ''It can be a little less formal, and should use the standard thread summaries described in gunpowder. If there are multiple threads with the same idea carrying significant content, favoritism should be avoided List the threads afterwards as numbers or single words)''

'''Retiring Fortresses''' [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php *] ''(Founding Cities, Resuming World Generation, Non-Lose End Conditions)'' The ability to retire a fortress as a succesful city. Discussed here : [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 1] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 2] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 3] (For example, I don't think there are any real discussions about retiring a fortress other than 'good idea')

'''Alarms''' ''(Sensors, tripwires, alerts)'' Alarms that pause the game and alert you or your characters [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31216.0 1] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 2] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 3]

'''Requesting Immigrants''' ''(Keywords)'' The Ability the request specific immigrants from the mountainhome [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31216.0 1] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 2] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 3] (Another good example where you're for it or against it)

'''Associating Skills with Attributes''' [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php *] ''(Keywords)'' Skills only raising attributes used with the skill

'''Crossbreeding''' ''(Mules, Half elves, Centaurs) When a man falls in love with a random creature and they decide it's the right time for them...

[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php *] - Means the suggestion is on the Eternal Suggestion Voting Page (Is there a way to jump-to there? Make sure the topic name is the first keyword, maybe?)
==How to Search==
Short section of tips on how to find what you are looking for.

A: Spellcheck
B: Try 2-3 different phrasings
C: Try to generalize your suggestion. Crossbreed dwarves and fireimps may not have come up specifically, but crossbreeding has.
----

'''Works in Progress'''
''Some parts of DF are currently stubs and will see a great deal of future work in order to make them fully functional''
Ideally this would go on a little box on the right hand side of the screen and consist of short inarguable phrases. These are things that OF COURSE should go in, it's already planned and on the dev next screen, it's just in the game yet. The point here is to say 'this isn't done yet, and it's planned'. Not to stop people from talking about it, just to stop them from saying 'you know what would be great? If horses and carts really worked! Again, this should be short, about 7-20 entries.

Mounts

Multitile Creatures

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-03-02T18:53:29Z

Granite26:

=Common Suggestions List=

This list is intended to serve as an overview for the various commonly discussed topics.

== '''Top 20 Common Suggestions:''' ==

This is a non-scientific list of the top 20 most common suggestions. Before making a new suggestion involving one of these, you should read the existing thread summaries first.

'''[[User:Granite26/GunpowderSuggestion | Guns & Gunpowder]]''' ''(Cannons, Explosives, Muskets, Arquebuses, Pyrotechnics, Rockets, Fireworks, Explosions, Pistols, Rifles, Flamethrowers)''

'''[[Magic & Sorcery]]''' ''(Alchemy, Ley Lines, Arcane etc)''

'''[[Multiplayer]]''' (This is a relatively liberal list of keywords designed to be searched)

'''[[Paper]]''' ''(Books, Writing, Literature, Stories)''

'''[[Sparring]]''' ''(Less Deadly, Training Weapons,Training Dummies, Group Training, Katas)''

'''[[Technology]]''' ''(Machines, Robots, Gollums, Mine Carts, Cranes, Steam Power, Electricity, Motors, Clockwork, Mechanism))''

'''[[Hauling]]''' ''(Improved Hauling, Pathfinding, Wheelbarrows, Carts)''

'''[[Physics]]''' ''(Fire, Water, Flows, Fountains, Gravity, Radiation)''

'''[[Mining]]''' ''(Minerals, Architecture, Supports)''

'''[[Child Care & Education]]''' ''(Daycare, Nursery, Teachers, Training)''

'''[[Programing]]''' ''(Algorithms, Pathfinding, Multithreading, Open Source, Code, API)''

----
'''Other Common Suggestions:'''

This is a list of the simple suggestions that come up frequently. While there are many good discussions about the implimentation details, the suggestion itself is relatively simple. ''It can be a little less formal, and should use the standard thread summaries described in gunpowder. If there are multiple threads with the same idea carrying significant content, favoritism should be avoided List the threads afterwards as numbers or single words)''

'''Retiring Fortresses''' [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php *] ''(Founding Cities, Resuming World Generation, Non-Lose End Conditions)'' The ability to retire a fortress as a succesful city. Discussed here : [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 1] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 2] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 3] (For example, I don't think there are any real discussions about retiring a fortress other than 'good idea')

'''Alarms''' ''(Keywords)'' Alarms that pause the game and alert you or your characters [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31216.0 1] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 2] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 3]

'''Requesting Immigrants''' ''(Keywords)'' The Ability the request specific immigrants from the mountainhome [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31216.0 1] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 2] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0 3] (Another good example where you're for it or against it)

'''Associating Skills with Attributes''' [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php *] ''(Keywords)'' Skills only raising attributes used with the skill

[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php *] - Means the suggestion is on the Eternal Suggestion Voting Page (Is there a way to jump-to there? Make sure the topic name is the first keyword, maybe?)

----

'''Works in Progress'''
''Some parts of DF are currently stubs and will see a great deal of future work in order to make them fully functional''
Ideally this would go on a little box on the right hand side of the screen and consist of short inarguable phrases. These are things that OF COURSE should go in, it's already planned and on the dev next screen, it's just in the game yet. The point here is to say 'this isn't done yet, and it's planned'. Not to stop people from talking about it, just to stop them from saying 'you know what would be great? If horses and carts really worked! Again, this should be short, about 7-20 entries.

Mounts

Multitile Creatures

User talk:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-03-02T18:12:26Z

Granite26: New page: =Creating this page= Philosophy: There are two goals. First is to organize common areas of discussion to aid researching what has been discussed on a topic. The second is to create a re...

=Creating this page=
Philosophy: There are two goals. First is to organize common areas of discussion to aid researching what has been discussed on a topic. The second is to create a readily searchable list of common suggestions so that people can see what has been done before without having to play guess the verb with other forum goers. This still won't fix spell checking errors, though.
== Top 20 ==
Any ideas what the top 20 should be?

== Sidebar == Creating a sidebar to list major areas that are effectively 'broken' for now. Kind of a 'feel free to suggest improvements, but suggesting it be 'fixed' will look stupid.

== Full List ==
Intended to be a short list of the common suggestions that aren't neatly categorized.

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-02-26T23:12:08Z

Granite26: /* '''Top 20 Common Suggestions:''' */

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-02-26T23:07:06Z

Granite26: /* '''Top 20 Common Suggestions:''' */

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-02-25T21:19:39Z

Granite26: /* Common Suggestions List */

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-02-25T21:17:57Z

Granite26: /* '''Top 20 Common Suggestions:''' */

User:Granite26/GunpowderSuggestion

2009-02-25T21:17:04Z

Granite26: New page: == Gunpowder Example Page: == Gunpowder existed in the pre 1400AD time period. Adding guns, cannons and other gunpowder explosives are common discussions. (Thread descriptions should be...

== Gunpowder Example Page: ==

Gunpowder existed in the pre 1400AD time period. Adding guns, cannons and other gunpowder explosives are common discussions.

(Thread descriptions should be kept to three lines max. The goal is not to capture the content, but to serve as a summary)

[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31040.0 Cannons]: This thread discusses the technological issues with building cannons

[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31040.0 Guns]: This thread discusses the history of firearms in European armies

[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31040.0 Pyrotechnics]: This thread is a discussion of non-standard uses for explosives

Other Threads: ([http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31040.0 Titles] [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31040.0 if] they are short, otherwise short 1-3 word descriptors)

(Ideally, the other threads category is just for short, repeat threads that died quickly, or threads that have not been processed yet.)

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-02-25T21:16:39Z

Granite26: /* Gunpowder Example Page: */

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-02-25T15:41:01Z

Granite26:

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-02-25T15:17:40Z

Granite26:

'''Top 20 Common Suggestions:'''

This is a non-scientific list of the top 20 most common suggestions. Before making a new suggestion involving one of these, you should read the existing thread summaries first.

'''[[Guns & Gunpowder]]''' ''(Cannons, Explosives, Muskets, Arquebuses, Pyrotechnics, Rockets, Fireworks, Explosions, Pistols)'' (This should be a link to the Gunpowder suggestion list.)

'''[[Magic & Sorcery]]''' ''(Alchemy, Ley Lines, Arcane etc)'' (This should be a link to the Magic suggestion list.)

'''[[Multiplayer]]''' (This is a relatively liberal list of

'''[[Retiring Fortresses]]'''

----
'''Other Common Suggestions:'''

This is a list of the simple suggestions that come up frequently. It can be a little less formal, and should use the standard thread summaries described in gunpowder. If there are multiple threads with the same idea carrying significant content, favoratism should be avoided (don't like

----
Gunpowder Example Page: (This should really be a separate page)

(Thread descriptions should be kept to three lines max. The goal is not to capture the content, but to serve as a summary)

[Cannons]: This thread discusses the technological issues with building cannons

[Guns]: This thread discusses the history of firearms in European armies

[Pyrotechnics]: This thread is a discussion of non-standard uses for explosives

Other Threads: ([Titles] [if] they are short, otherwise short descriptors)

(Ideally, the other threads category is just for short, repeat threads that died quickly, or threads that have not been processed yet.)

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-02-25T15:14:58Z

Granite26:

'''Top 20 Common Suggestions:'''

This is a non-scientific list of the top 20 most common suggestions. Before making a new suggestion involving one of these, you should read the existing thread summaries first.

[['''Guns & Gunpowder''']] ''(Cannons, Explosives, Muskets, Arquebuses, Pyrotechnics, Rockets, Fireworks, Explosions, Pistols)'' (This should be a link to the Gunpowder suggestion list.)

[['''Magic & Sorcery''']] ''(Alchemy, Ley Lines, Arcane etc)'' (This should be a link to the Magic suggestion list.)

[['''Multiplayer''']] (This is a relatively liberal list of

[['''Retiring Fortresses''']]

----
'''Other Common Suggestions:'''

This is a list of the simple suggestions that come up frequently. It can be a little less formal, and should use the standard thread summaries described in gunpowder. If there are multiple threads with the same idea carrying significant content, favoratism should be avoided (don't like

----
Gunpowder Example Page: (This should really be a separate page)

(Thread descriptions should be kept to three lines max. The goal is not to capture the content, but to serve as a summary)

[Cannons]: This thread discusses the technological issues with building cannons

[Guns]: This thread discusses the history of firearms in European armies

[Pyrotechnics]: This thread is a discussion of non-standard uses for explosives

Other Threads: ([Titles] [if] they are short, otherwise short descriptors)

(Ideally, the other threads category is just for short, repeat threads that died quickly, or threads that have not been processed yet.)

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-02-25T15:14:31Z

Granite26:

'''Top 20 Common Suggestions:'''

This is a non-scientific list of the top 20 most common suggestions. Before making a new suggestion involving one of these, you should read the existing thread summaries first.

[['''Guns & Gunpowder''']] ''(Cannons, Explosives, Muskets, Arquebuses, Pyrotechnics, Rockets, Fireworks, Explosions, Pistols)'' (This should be a link to the Gunpowder suggestion list.)

[['''Magic & Sorcery''']] ''(Alchemy, Ley Lines, Arcane etc)'' (This should be a link to the Magic suggestion list.)

[['''Multiplayer''']] (This is a relatively liberal list of

[['''Retiring Fortresses''']]

----
'''Other Common Suggestions:'''

This is a list of the simple suggestions that come up frequently. It can be a little less formal, and should use the standard thread summaries described in gunpowder. If there are multiple threads with the same idea carrying significant content, favoratism should be avoided (don't like

----
Gunpowder Example Page: (This should really be a separate page)

(Thread descriptions should be kept to three lines max. The goal is not to capture the content, but to serve as a summary)

[Cannons]: This thread discusses the technological issues with building cannons
[Guns]: This thread discusses the history of firearms in European armies
[Pyrotechnics]: This thread is a discussion of non-standard uses for explosives

Other Threads: ([Titles] [if] they are short, otherwise short descriptors)

(Ideally, the other threads category is just for short, repeat threads that died quickly, or threads that have not been processed yet.)

User:Granite26/Suggestions

2009-02-25T15:13:51Z

Granite26: Suggestion Format Sample

'''Top 20 Common Suggestions:'''

This is a non-scientific list of the top 20 most common suggestions. Before making a new suggestion involving one of these, you should read the existing thread summaries first.

[['''Guns & Gunpowder''']] ''(Cannons, Explosives, Muskets, Arquebuses, Pyrotechnics, Rockets, Fireworks, Explosions, Pistols)'' (This should be a link to the Gunpowder suggestion list.)

[['''Magic & Sorcery''']] ''(Alchemy, Ley Lines, Arcane etc)'' (This should be a link to the Magic suggestion list.)

[['''Multiplayer''']] (This is a relatively liberal list of

[['''Retiring Fortresses''']]

----
'''Other Common Suggestions'''
This is a list of the simple suggestions that come up frequently. It can be a little less formal, and should use the standard thread summaries described in gunpowder. If there are multiple threads with the same idea carrying significant content, favoratism should be avoided (don't like

----
Gunpowder Example Page: (This should really be a separate page)

(Thread descriptions should be kept to three lines max. The goal is not to capture the content, but to serve as a summary)

[Cannons]: This thread discusses the technological issues with building cannons
[Guns]: This thread discusses the history of firearms in European armies
[Pyrotechnics]: This thread is a discussion of non-standard uses for explosives

Other Threads: ([Titles] [if] they are short, otherwise short descriptors)

(Ideally, the other threads category is just for short, repeat threads that died quickly, or threads that have not been processed yet.)

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-12-03T20:10:50Z

Granite26: /* 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins. */

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

===[[Init.txt]]===

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
</blockquote>

===[[Key_bindings|Interface.txt]]===

Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of keyboard mappings. Better not change anything here just yet! If you are using a laptop or other special keyboard, you may need to make changes though. There's a good explanation [[Key_bindings|here]].

===[[Advanced_world_generation|World_Gen.txt]]===
Finally, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of [[fuel]]
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making [[steel]]
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that [[layer]]. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and [[Temperature]] are there. [[Temperate]] means that the map will [[ice|freeze]] in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

==Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press {{k|space}} to leave the intro screen and then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and {{k|space}} is the key that pauses and unpauses the game. Dwarf Fortress is either running it's simulation or accepting commands from you. Anytime you wish to enter in new commands, the game will be paused.

First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be good for some nice red furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|F1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}} {{k|\/}} {{k|→}} {{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing {{k|u}} brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press {{k|Pg Dn}} to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. {{k|d}} brings up the designate menu, and I press {{k|t}} to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press {{k|Space}} to back out of the designate menu, then {{k|k}} to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press {{k|d}} to designate, and then press {{k|p}} to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

{{k|d}} takes me back into the designate screen and a second {{k|d}} selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use {{k|x}} to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press {{k|Space}} to back out to the main menu, and then press {{k|p}} to designate a pile. {{k|w}} selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. {{k|h}} brings up the hotkey menu. Press {{k|F2}} to select the second slot, and then {{k|z}} to mark it. {{k|n}} will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember {{k|F1}} will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use {{k|k}} and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing {{k|v}} (any command will pause the game.) {{k|v}} is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select {{k|u}} to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-12-03T20:05:49Z

Granite26: /* 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins. */

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

===[[Init.txt]]===

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
</blockquote>

===[[Key_bindings|Interface.txt]]===

Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of keyboard mappings. Better not change anything here just yet! If you are using a laptop or other special keyboard, you may need to make changes though. There's a good explanation [[Key_bindings|here]].

===[[Advanced_world_generation|World_Gen.txt]]===
Finally, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of [[fuel]]
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making [[steel]]
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that [[layer]]. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and [[Temperature]] are there. [[Temperate]] means that the map will [[ice|freeze]] in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

==Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press {{k|space}} to leave the intro screen and then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and {{k|space}} is the key that pauses and unpauses the game. Dwarf Fortress is either running it's simulation or accepting commands from you. Anytime you wish to enter in new commands, the game will be paused.

First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be good for some nice red furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|F1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}} {{k|\/}} {{k|→}} {{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-12-03T20:05:22Z

Granite26: /* 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins. */

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

===[[Init.txt]]===

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
</blockquote>

===[[Key_bindings|Interface.txt]]===

Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of keyboard mappings. Better not change anything here just yet! If you are using a laptop or other special keyboard, you may need to make changes though. There's a good explanation [[Key_bindings|here]].

===[[Advanced_world_generation|World_Gen.txt]]===
Finally, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of [[fuel]]
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making [[steel]]
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that [[layer]]. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and [[Temperature]] are there. [[Temperate]] means that the map will [[ice|freeze]] in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

==Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press {{k|space}} to leave the intro screen and then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and {{k|space}} is the key that pauses and unpauses the game. Dwarf Fortress is either running it's simulation or accepting commands from you. Anytime you wish to enter in new commands, the game will be paused.

First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be good for some nice red furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|F1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}} {{k|↓}} {{k|→}} {{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-12-03T20:05:01Z

Granite26: /* 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins. */

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

===[[Init.txt]]===

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
</blockquote>

===[[Key_bindings|Interface.txt]]===

Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of keyboard mappings. Better not change anything here just yet! If you are using a laptop or other special keyboard, you may need to make changes though. There's a good explanation [[Key_bindings|here]].

===[[Advanced_world_generation|World_Gen.txt]]===
Finally, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of [[fuel]]
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making [[steel]]
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that [[layer]]. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and [[Temperature]] are there. [[Temperate]] means that the map will [[ice|freeze]] in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

==Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press {{k|space}} to leave the intro screen and then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and {{k|space}} is the key that pauses and unpauses the game. Dwarf Fortress is either running it's simulation or accepting commands from you. Anytime you wish to enter in new commands, the game will be paused.

First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be good for some nice red furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|F1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}} {{k|p}} {{k|→}} {{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-12-03T19:16:23Z

Granite26: /* 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins. */

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

===[[Init.txt]]===

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
</blockquote>

===[[Key_bindings|Interface.txt]]===

Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of keyboard mappings. Better not change anything here just yet! If you are using a laptop or other special keyboard, you may need to make changes though. There's a good explanation [[Key_bindings|here]].

===[[Advanced_world_generation|World_Gen.txt]]===
Finally, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of [[fuel]]
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making [[steel]]
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that [[layer]]. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and [[Temperature]] are there. [[Temperate]] means that the map will [[ice|freeze]] in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

==Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press {{k|space}} to leave the intro screen and then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and {{k|space}} is the key that pauses and unpauses the game. Dwarf Fortress is either running it's simulation or accepting commands from you. Anytime you wish to enter in new commands, the game will be paused.

First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be good for some nice red furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|F1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}} {{k|↓}} {{k|→}} {{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-29T13:54:57Z

Granite26: /* Selecting a Region */

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

===[[Init.txt]]===

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
</blockquote>

===[[Key_bindings|Interface.txt]]===

Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of keyboard mappings. Better not change anything here just yet! If you are using a laptop or other special keyboard, you may need to make changes though. There's a good explanation [[Key_bindings|here]].

===[[Advanced_world_generation|World_Gen.txt]]===
Finally, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of [[fuel]]
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making [[steel]]
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that [[layer]]. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and [[Temperature]] are there. [[Temperate]] means that the map will [[ice|freeze]] in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

==Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press space to start the game, then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and space is the key that controls this. First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be for some nice furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|f1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}}{{k|↓}}{{k|→}}{{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-29T13:49:03Z

Granite26: /* World_Gen.txt */

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

===[[Init.txt]]===

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
</blockquote>

===[[Key_bindings|Interface.txt]]===

Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of keyboard mappings. Better not change anything here just yet! If you are using a laptop or other special keyboard, you may need to make changes though. There's a good explanation [[Key_bindings|here]].

===[[Advanced_world_generation|World_Gen.txt]]===
Finally, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of fuel
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making steel
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that layer. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and Temperature are there. Temperate means that the map will freeze in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

==Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press space to start the game, then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and space is the key that controls this. First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be for some nice furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|f1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}}{{k|↓}}{{k|→}}{{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-29T13:46:53Z

Granite26: /* Interface.txt */

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

===[[Init.txt]]===

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
</blockquote>

===[[Key_bindings|Interface.txt]]===

Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of keyboard mappings. Better not change anything here just yet! If you are using a laptop or other special keyboard, you may need to make changes though. There's a good explanation [[Key_bindings|here]].

===World_Gen.txt===
Finally, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of fuel
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making steel
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that layer. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and Temperature are there. Temperate means that the map will freeze in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

==Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press space to start the game, then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and space is the key that controls this. First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be for some nice furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|f1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}}{{k|↓}}{{k|→}}{{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-29T13:44:25Z

Granite26: /* Init.txt */

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

===[[Init.txt]]===

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
</blockquote>

===Interface.txt===

Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of keyboard mappings. Better not change anything here just yet! If you are using a laptop or other special keyboard, you may need to make changes though. There's a good tutorial here.

===World_Gen.txt===
Finally, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of fuel
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making steel
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that layer. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and Temperature are there. Temperate means that the map will freeze in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

==Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press space to start the game, then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and space is the key that controls this. First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be for some nice furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|f1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}}{{k|↓}}{{k|→}}{{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-29T13:43:48Z

Granite26: /* A: Init.txt */

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

===[[Init.txt]]===

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]

===Interface.txt===

Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of keyboard mappings. Better not change anything here just yet! If you are using a laptop or other special keyboard, you may need to make changes though. There's a good tutorial here.

===World_Gen.txt===
Finally, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of fuel
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making steel
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that layer. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and Temperature are there. Temperate means that the map will freeze in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

==Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press space to start the game, then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and space is the key that controls this. First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be for some nice furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|f1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}}{{k|↓}}{{k|→}}{{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-29T03:07:44Z

Granite26: /* Install the game */

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

===A: [[Init.txt]]===

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]

===Interface.txt===

Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of keyboard mappings. Better not change anything here just yet! If you are using a laptop or other special keyboard, you may need to make changes though. There's a good tutorial here.

===World_Gen.txt===
Finally, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of fuel
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making steel
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that layer. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and Temperature are there. Temperate means that the map will freeze in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

==Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press space to start the game, then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and space is the key that controls this. First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be for some nice furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|f1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}}{{k|↓}}{{k|→}}{{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-29T03:04:40Z

Granite26: /* New Tutorial in Progress */

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

<pre> A: [[Init.txt]] </pre>

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of commands. Better not change anything here just yet! Also, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of fuel
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making steel
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that layer. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and Temperature are there. Temperate means that the map will freeze in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

==Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press space to start the game, then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and space is the key that controls this. First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be for some nice furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|f1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}}{{k|↓}}{{k|→}}{{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-28T16:00:55Z

Granite26: /* 3. Prepare for the journey carefully. */

=New Tutorial in Progress=
==When finished, this tutorial will include images, links to downloadable save states so people can play along at home, and full wikilinks to other articles as applicapble.==

==It isn't finished yet, so please refrain from changes for a few days==

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

<pre> A: [[Init.txt]] </pre>

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of commands. Better not change anything here just yet! Also, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of fuel
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making steel
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that layer. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and Temperature are there. Temperate means that the map will freeze in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

==Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press space to start the game, then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and space is the key that controls this. First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be for some nice furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|f1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}}{{k|↓}}{{k|→}}{{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-28T16:00:05Z

Granite26: /* 3. Selecting a Region */

=New Tutorial in Progress=
==When finished, this tutorial will include images, links to downloadable save states so people can play along at home, and full wikilinks to other articles as applicapble.==

==It isn't finished yet, so please refrain from changes for a few days==

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

<pre> A: [[Init.txt]] </pre>

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of commands. Better not change anything here just yet! Also, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

==Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of fuel
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making steel
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that layer. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and Temperature are there. Temperate means that the map will freeze in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

== 3. Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press space to start the game, then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and space is the key that controls this. First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be for some nice furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|f1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}}{{k|↓}}{{k|→}}{{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-28T15:59:51Z

Granite26: /* 2. Starting the Game */

=New Tutorial in Progress=
==When finished, this tutorial will include images, links to downloadable save states so people can play along at home, and full wikilinks to other articles as applicapble.==

==It isn't finished yet, so please refrain from changes for a few days==

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

<pre> A: [[Init.txt]] </pre>

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of commands. Better not change anything here just yet! Also, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

==Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

== 3. Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of fuel
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making steel
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that layer. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and Temperature are there. Temperate means that the map will freeze in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

== 3. Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press space to start the game, then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and space is the key that controls this. First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be for some nice furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|f1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}}{{k|↓}}{{k|→}}{{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-28T15:58:49Z

Granite26: /* New Tutorial in Progress */

=New Tutorial in Progress=
==When finished, this tutorial will include images, links to downloadable save states so people can play along at home, and full wikilinks to other articles as applicapble.==

==It isn't finished yet, so please refrain from changes for a few days==

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

=DF Tutorial Fort: =

==Install the game ==

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

<pre> A: [[Init.txt]] </pre>

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of commands. Better not change anything here just yet! Also, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

== 2. Starting the Game ==

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

== 3. Selecting a Region ==

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of fuel
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making steel
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that layer. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and Temperature are there. Temperate means that the map will freeze in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

== 3. Prepare for the journey carefully. ==

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.==

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press space to start the game, then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and space is the key that controls this. First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be for some nice furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|f1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}}{{k|↓}}{{k|→}}{{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

== 5: The Early Years==

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

=== 5a: Defenses 101===

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

=== 5b: Sustainable Fort===

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

====5b1 Dwarf Stats.====
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

==6 Exstatic dwarfs==

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-28T15:56:20Z

Granite26: /* New Tutorial in Progress */

=New Tutorial in Progress=
==When finished, this tutorial will include images, links to downloadable save states so people can play along at home, and full wikilinks to other articles as applicapble.==

==It isn't finished yet, so please refrain from changes for a few days==

This tutorial is intended to be a 'play along' tutorial. By following the steps described and starting with the same embark site, you can build a basic beginner fort. Additionally, saves will be provided at various points along the way so that new players can open them up and explore what was made using the descriptions in the tutorial.

==DF Tutorial Fort: ==

===Install the game ===

Get the game from here www.bay12games.com. I'm going to be using df_28_181_40d.zip. Extract the files and drive to the directory.

I want to check my init settings, so I'm going to go to \Dwarf Fortress\data\init
and pull up the files one by one. The first step will be to create backups ({{k|ctl}}{{k|v}}, {{k|ctl}}{{k|c}})

<pre> A: [[Init.txt]] </pre>

The first thing I'm changing is the windowed stuff. I like the bigger images
This is the size and font for windowed mode. Changing to 800x600 and the 800x600 font might make you happier.
<blockquote>
[WINDOWEDX:1200]
[WINDOWEDY:900]
[FONT:curses_800x600.bmp]
</blockquote>

My monitor is set for 1280 x 960, so my grid size can stand to grow a little, and this gives me a much bigger view area.

Changing the grid also helps
<blockquote>
[GRID:120:60]
</blockquote>

For now, I'm going to turn the FPS counter on. I'll probably turn it off later, but for now I'm curious what effect various things will have on it.

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.
<blockquote>
[FPS:YES]
</blockquote>
Because this is a tutorial of an in-development game, I'm going to turn on the backups seasonally. I'm also going to have the system put the backup in a separate file.
Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game. AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY. This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability. You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times. Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.
<blockquote>
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:NO]
</blockquote>
Next, I'll set up the pause on load. This will help anybody else loading up the maps.
Set this to YES to make Dwarf Fortress start paused whenever you load an active game.
<blockquote>
[PAUSE_ON_LOAD:YES]
</blockquote>
The main section of init options is next. This is the part where you turn off any features of the game you don't like. Weather, gravity, money, and freezing cold or burning hot can all be turned off. I wish real life were this easy.
Use these options to remove features from the game. Permitted values are YES and NO. Removal might speed the game up in the case of temperature and weather.
<blockquote>
[TEMPERATURE:YES]
[WEATHER:YES]
[ECONOMY:YES]
[INVADERS:YES]
[CAVEINS:YES]
[ARTIFACTS:YES]
[ZERO_RENT:NO]
</blockquote>
For personal preference, I don't give pets coffins. Additionally, obscured engravings save me a step. For the final preference change, I've turned on flow numbers. It will show how deep the water is. This isn't as pretty, but it's a lot easier to read screenshots.
Change this to YES to disallow pets from coffin burial as the default option.
<blockquote>
[COFFIN_NO_PETS_DEFAULT:YES]
</blockquote>
If you'd like your engravings to start off looking the same (you can toggle them on individual later), set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]
</blockquote>
Set this to YES to display fluids as numbers indicating depth.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]
</blockquote>
The population_cap, baby_child_cap are important settings, but I like the defaults.

The final change I'm making is to show all the history in dwarf mode. This means I can see what the engravings are. Normally I play with this off, but again, it's a tutorial.
If you'd prefer to have it show the history behind every engraving you view in dwarf mode, etc., then set this to YES.
<blockquote>
[SHOW_ALL_HISTORY_IN_DWARF_MODE:YES]
Ok, a quick look at the interface.txt shows a bunch of commands. Better not change anything here just yet! Also, the generic worldgen parameters in the world_gen.txt look fine. I've seen some excellent mods that need non-standard worlds, for example, the Fallout mod wants few oceans and a blasted wastedland. This isn't something we'll need to mess with now, though.

=== 2. Starting the Game ===

The first step is to run the executable, and watch the awesome ascii art animation. I'll be playing in windowed mode, not fullscreen (need to type afterall).

The first thing to do when playing DF is to create a new world. So, I'll select Design New World With Parameters. In the design screen, I will arrow down to select Medium, and then press {{k|e}} to enter in my seeds. Normally I'd do this randomly, but for you guys playing at home, here's what I'm using:
<blockquote>
[TITLE:NEW]
[SEED:1749346575]
[HISTORY_SEED:3061036161]
[NAME_SEED:1528795001]
</blockquote>
You can also look at picture 1. Using these numbers, I've created the Plane of Forever. Pic 2 is the full map. I take a few moments to browse around with the arrow keys, then press p to export the data to files and then enter to save it as a world.

Back to the main screen, I select Start Playing, Sil Nalish for my region, and Dwarf Fortress mode. It takes a few moments to load the map back into memory, and it's time for me to select a region.

=== 3. Selecting a Region ===

There are any number of theories about selecting a [[region]]. In the end, there are 9 important things to consider when selecting a region.
#[[Sand]] - Required to make [[Glass]]
#[[Magma]] - Required for many types of [[fun]]
#[[Trees]] - The other source of fuel
#[[Water]] - Required for many types of fun, also for wounded dwarves
#[[Stone|Minerals]] - Required for mining
#[[Trade|Trading Partners]] - Required for Caravans
#[[Surroundings|Danger Level]] - Weird areas host dangerous monsters
#[[Aquifer]] - Can make reaching solid rock very hard, but serves as an excellent source of unlimited water
#[[Flux]] - Useful stone for making steel
There's a lot of detail available here, but for now, we'll just say that they are all good and do our best.

When you look at the screen, you'll see the layers in the bottom right. Little blue squiqqles beside a layer indicate an aquifer at that layer. The image below has White Sand as the first layer, and it's an aquifer layer. Above that, you'll see the biome information. Trees and Temperature are there. Temperate means that the map will freeze in winter. This is important to know, because freezes happen suddenly, and can kill anything that's in the water when they happen.

To the left of that are three maps, labelled World, Region and Local. The World map is the entire world scrunched up into the tiny square. Region is the standard world size. In adventure, this is what you'll see when moving around the world map. Finally we have Local. In that Local screen, you'll see a little 6x6 box. You control this box by using umkh as arrow keys. Since I don't like where the cursor has started me, I use the arrow keys to move around the Region map.

My cursor has started in the bottom right, which seems at first glance to be full of human settlements. Human settlements are good for humans, but not so good for dwarves. We need rock beneath our feet! Browsing west, I find a large 'good' ocean labeled as light blue. North of that is a haunted wasteland in brown. In the north central region are some mountains and terrifying terrain. I'll remember that area for when I want to play a harder game. I'm still not quite happy with any of the sites, but I keep looking.

Browsing around a little more, I find a quaint little spot in between The Neutral Dune and the Walls of Riddling. It's about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right of the region map. There, the Cinders of Soot, a volcano, burns. Additionally, the sand and high aquifer provide two other major requirements.

The location I've selected has three biomes, one of which will not contain the aquifer. That's a major relief! Digging through the aquifer is a challenge I don't want to have early in the fort, although I'll probably do it eventually, as an engineering project.

There are three flaws to this location. The first is the lack of flux stone layers. I'm willing to put up with it for now. I can always import some if I don't find any locally. The second issue is trees. There is only one biome that has any, and they are marked as scarce. I'll have to ration, and bring extras. Finally, this local is both calm (no wildlife) and does not have access to goblins. (In order to check civilizations, press Tab to change modes. You'll see that there is a red line next to the goblins.) Things will be quiet at my fort. Good for beginners, but not necessarily a lot of fun.

Before I embark, I'm going to use a little trick. There are three biomes in this location. I want to start on the white sand, because it's a little safer, and it's where the trees are. Pressing {{k|f1}} reveals the details of the mountain. {{k|f2}} describes the Yellow Sand portion of the desert. Finally, pressing {{k|f3}} causes the white sand desert to flash. Leaving it selected, I'll press {{k|e}} to embark. That means my wagon will land in that biome.

Oops! A warning just popped up. Aquifers are hard to dig into. I'm not worried though, I've got the rocky mountainous region for that. I'll just dig around the aquifer if need be.

=== 3. Prepare for the journey carefully. ===

I'm going to be honest with you. This is a trick question. Take what's in the grab bag of survival gear, or carefully pick out gear based on your plans and the challenges you expect to face? If this isn't a no-brainer, go back to puzzle pirates or this week's EA game.

The first thing I notice is that I've got seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with unpronouncable (or in my case typeable) names. So I rename them into something a little bit more readable. Doing this will also help me track my original dwarves later on when I've got immigrants. I press {{k|c}} to customize, and type in their new names. (Pic 4). The numbers by their names are the maximum skill points that can be assigned.

The next thing I'm going to do is drop the anvil. It costs 1000 points (or more points than everything else put together.) We'll spend it later, for now just dump it. {{k|tab}} to switch to equipment, then select the anvil and press {{k|-}}. Ahh, a fresh 1200 points to spend on loot for your dwarves.

Now, I'll {{k|tab}} back to the dwarves and give them skills.

*Grumpy: I've already decided that Grumpy will be the warrior. Since I'm starting with axes for free, I'll dual purpose him. First, I'll give him a point of wood cutting. Then his fighting skills. 2 points of axe, shield and armor user. I'll round this out with 2 points of wrestler, because I know wrestling governs dodge. In order to make sure he uses the axe, I'll bump the axe up to 3 points. Finally, I want Grumpy to stalk wild animals as well, so I'll take away a point of armor user and add it to ambush. Grumpy is fully loaded at this point. I don't normally spend so much on skills for one dwarf, but I want to have a solid fighter in this fortress.

*Bashful: This guy will be my farmer. I add a single point to Miller, Thresher, Grower, Herbalist, and Brewer. I add these more to set his skills than to give him any ability at them. Anything you give a dwarf skill in will be on by default when you start.

*Happy: Dwarves are insane little buggers. I'll make Happy my Animal Handler. That means points in Trapper, Butcher, Tanner, Leatherworker, and Animal Trainer. I leave milker and Animal Caretaker out becaue they aren't exactly implimented yet.

*Doc: Doc's the leader, so I'm giving him points in 6 random social skills. It's important to have Record Keeper, Organizer and Appraiser. The other three aren't so important. I finish him off with two points each in Gem Cutter and Gem Setter.

*Dopey: Carpenter/Mason will be Dopey's role. 2 points each in those, 1pt in Wood Cutter, Engraver and Building Designer.

*Sleepy: Metal shouldn't be wasted building up skill, especially without a large source of free goblin armor. Sleepy gets four ranks of Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, along with a dot of Miner and some wrestler to help his longevity.

*Sneezy: Apparently I hate this guy. He only gets a single dot of miner.

If you're paying attention to what's in the list, you'll notice there are a lot of seemingly important skills I'm putting little or no points in. For the most part, these are skills that train up fast, or where quality doesn't actually matter.

The next step in preparing for the journey is equipment. {{k|tab}} over to items to see whats available.

The first thing I do is grab 10 dogs and a breeding pair of horses and cows. I don't take war dogs because Happy is a trainer and will train them up onsite.

The next order of business is to add 1 to all everything from Dwarven ale on down. This is a small exploit due to the fact that items are 5 to a barrel, the the one extra item gets you a free barrel. Remember we had talked about hurting for wood on this map? We'll need those barrels.

Next, seeds. I buy up to 21 Plump Helmet spawn (those are the seeds.) Pig tail is rope and ale. We can afford for that to develop a little slower.

I want wood, but there's none available for adding. I press {{k|n}} to select a new item, and scroll down to wood. The only type available to me is Tower Caps, so I select that and add 20 of them. For grumpy, I pick up horse leather armor (body) and leggings (legs). On a whim, I grab 5 bags. To round things out, I buy 11 units of rum and dump the rest into Plump Helmets(up to 35).

Here's what it looks like: Pic 5

We're now ready to embark. (What 4 hours and it's just now time to play? What kind of game is this, anyway?)

=== 4: A new chapter of dwarven history begins.===

Strike the Earth! That's certainly my first goal, after I look around that is. I press space to start the game, then immediately again. The game didn't start paused, and space is the key that controls this. First things first, I'm going to press {{k|esc}} and Save Game. When DF saves, it exits to the main menu. In fact, without cheating there is no way to back up a game at a specific point. This is intentional.

The 'Strike the Earth' save game contains a save at the start of the fortress. To use it, copy the saved game into your \Dwarf Fortress\data\save directory. When you load your game, you will select the folder 'Strike the Earth'.

Back into the game. It's time for my initial look around. Z149 is my ground level. I've started on a raised plateau near the center of the map at Z150 (Pic 6). The green squares to the left are the tops of trees. It looks like I'll be in good shape for lumber. As advertised, the white sand is to the left and has enough trees and bushes to survive on. To the right side of the map is a wasteland, and the southern face is dominated by a mountainface.

Digging further, I find the magma pipe and it's 3 imps. We'll be staying away from there for now. The mountain face is 17 z-levels high, but with smoothed cliff faces. The current version doesn't use impassible cliffs. There are no major mineral surprises, but I do see a hematite vein and a copper vein off to the right. That will be extremely useful later. The [[cinnabar]] vein is useless to the dwarves, but may be for some nice furniture.

In order to navigate, I'm using the arrow keys in conjunction with the {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} keys to change z levels. If I get lost, {{k|f1}} focuses back on my start location. It's important to get the hang of moving up and down z levels. Each screen you look at is a single slice of the map. {{k|↑}}{{k|↓}}{{k|→}}{{k|←}} moves around that level, but {{k|<}} and {{k|>}} will move vertically up and down. {{k|<}} will move you one level higher. If you do this, you should notice that everything disapears and you only see the outline of the ground. pressing {{k|<}} again will bring you one level higher and you will see only air. {{k|>}} twice brings you back to where you were, and a third press will start drilling you into the ground.

The next step is to check the denizens of this area. I mentioned imps, and saw some goats on the hillside, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything nasty. Pressing 'u' brings up the units menu. The first screen is entirely dwarves and the creatures I brought with me, so I press 'page down' to get to the next screen. It's confirmed, 3 imps and 2 goats. As long as I stay away from the magma pipe, I should be fine.

Paging back up, I notice that Sneezy, Grumpy and Sleepy are already picking up their equipment. That means that Sneezy and Sleepy are ready to mine, and Grumpy will cut down trees.

Trees will be the first order of business. I press 'space' to back out of the units screen and move my cursor to the top left of the map, the move down (using '>') to get to ground level. 'd' brings up the designate menu, and I press 't' to select 'Chop down trees'. The yellow cursor is in the center of the screen, so I move it all the way to the upper left and push enter. Moving away, I notice there is a flashing green + marking the spot. I procede to bottom right of the sandy area, using shift-arrow to move 10 spaces at a jump. In a suitable spot, I press enter again. This marks a rectangle of squares designated for logging. You'll notice that all the trees are now highlighted. Pic 8. I see that there is an unknown mineral on the screen, so I decide to check it out. I press 'space' to back out of the designate menu, then 'k' to enter Look Around. Putting the cursor over the wall, I see I've found more copper.

The next step will be to gather outdoors plants. Dwarves hate being outdoors (They're allergic to goblin ambushes and get nasty cases of iron left lung, iron heart, and iron kidney, often from a single exposure), but this seems like a safe enough place, for now, especially since the magma pipe and dangerous imps are on the other side of the map. In order to mark the plants for gathering, I will use the same process as logging. Go to the upper left hand, press 'd' to designate, and then press 'p' to gather plants. Then, I'll select the entire area again. Excellent. My dwarves will now chop down every tree on the map, and uproot every plant. Hope there aren't any elves around!

Good habits are there when you need them, but only if you keep them up. The next step is to get the dwarves inside. While I'm not neurotic, I do like a pretty fortress, especially at the entrance. The natural culdesacs near on the last screen present two excellent entrance areas. I way the advantages of both, and go with the deeper one. It's a little bit closer to the magma. I may later use the second as a back door though.

'd' takes me back into the designate screen and a second d selects dig. Time for business! I mark out a four tile wide entry hall, and back in with the grand hall. Later this will be the trade depot, but for now, it'll be the dwarfs home. After selecting the huge area, I have a few misgivings, and decide a few pillars are in order. Still on the 'd'esignate screen, I use 'x' to deselect areas for pillars to be left.

One final task remains before I turn my dwarves lose. The lumber stockpile. We're send Grumpy out to cut down a number of trees, and he'll need someplace to put them. I press 'space' to back out to the main menu, and then press 'p' to designate a pile. 'w' selects wood, and then I press enter at one corner of the pile and then the other. Pic 9 Shows how things look so far. Before we leave this area, lets hotkey it for later. 'h' brings up the hotkey menu. Press 'F2' to select the second slot, and then z to mark it. 'n' will allow you to name it something memorable. I'm going to use 'Front E' for front entrance.

Hopefully you've been able to keep up. Let's take a short breather and head back to check out the dwarves. (Remember 'F1' will bring you to the first hotkey, which is the wagon) You should see something similar to Pic 10 if you're following allow at home. The bearded guys are dwarves. The C's are the cows, H's are Horses, d's are dogs. The down arrows represent ramps going down. A full symbol list is in the wiki here, or you can simply use 'k' and select a square to see what's in it.

I'm now ready to turn the dwarves lose, although it'll only be for a few seconds before I pause again to review. I do so by pressing 'space' on the main menu. Things start happening right away, although with everyone stacked up on the wagon, it's not immediately clear what. After four dwarves break away heading south, I pause the action to check them out. I do this by pressing 'v' (any command will pause the game.) V is the examine unit command, and it lets me take a look at what my guys are doing.

Doc, Sleepy and Happy are carting wood to the pile. I'm glad I made it bigger than twenty spaces! Sneezy is heading to the wall to mine. So far, so good. I've lost sight of the other three though. When I press space to back out of the view menu, the game starts again. Usually, I pause the game before going into a menu. That stops it from unpausing unexpectedly (not that a few frames is ever an issue). I quickly pause it again and select 'u' to bring up the units list. I immediately see that Dopey and Grumpy are cutting down trees, while Bashful is harvesting plants. Very good.

I remember that bashful will need somewhere to put the plants. It's not vital all I really want are the seeds, but I make a pile near the wood pile anyway. Food is the pile for this.

I start back up again. Mostly I'm watching Sneezy dig at this point, although Sleepy quickly joins him to help. Because I didn't spend many points on their digging ability, they dig excruciatingly slow. I continue to watch the game run, stopping every few minutes to check the units screen and make sure they aren't doing anything stupid and to make sure no predators have wandered onto the map. Seeing the camels makes me plan to capture then. Hopefully Grumpy won't hunt them to extinction before I get a chance, but it's not worth turning off hunting yet. I want him to keep his armor on.

=== 5: The Early Years===

It's not long before I notice that Doc isn't doing anything. Lazy bum! Admittedly, all he does is carry stuff and make jewelry, so if neither of those needs doing, I'll need to add makework. The two sources of makework are mechanisms and crafts. Mechanisms are good for traps, so I decide that Doc needs to make a few.

In order to make mechanisms, I'll need a mechanics workshop. 'b' to build, then 'w' for workshop. 't' selects mechanics workshop (or you can use + and - to scroll down, it's the top of the second page). When you select the workshop a 3x3 green square pops up. That's the outline of the workshop. The dark green square is solid. It will be impassible when the workshop is built. I put it in the alcove, but still outside. Workshops outside is a bad idea, and this one will go away, but I want to use it for now. When I press enter, it brings up a material select screen. Obviously I don't want to use my precious few logs for this task, so I use + to move down to andesite, a common rock.

I'm not done yet, Doc still isn't doing anything. I pull the 'u' screen back up and select him with the arrow keys. I then press 'c' to select him. This is the exact same thing as pressing 'v' and selecting him, I just don't have to go find him first. It turns out he's hanging out near the wagons. 'p'references and then 'l'abors brings up his labor screen. The labor screen is big, so I use * and / to page through it, and then + and - to select mechanics when I find it. Then I press enter to turn it on (white). When I start the game, he (eventually) runs out to build the mechanics workshop.

Focusing on the workshop, I watch the light green figure walk past it into the tunnel, grab a rock and then return. He works on it for a short while before walking away. As he does, I bring up the building settings screen with 'q', and select the mechanics shop. I 'a'dd a new task. The only task available is make rock mechanisms, so I select it with 'enter'. I then press 'r' to set the task to repeat. Whenever Doc doesn't have anything more interesting to do, he'll come here and make mechanisms.

While you watch your dwarves, you will occasionally notice them running to the stockpile and standing, or laying on the ground flashing 'Z'. They are either eating, drinking, or sleeping. Long term I'm going to want to build rooms for my dwarves to do these in. I'm patient though, and I'll let them dig out the great hall first.

Now, Happy is sitting on his bum. I select him through the 'u' menu, but when I 'c' to select him, I get a horse instead. I push 'v' to quickly cycle through the creatures on that square to find Happy. Ahh! Happy is our animal trainer. In all the rush, we forgot to set him up! It's time for another temporary outdoor building. I 'b'uild the 'k'ennel and place it with the others. Happy quickly jumps on the task. As soon as he finishes, I 'a'dd the train 'w'ar dog job and set it to 'r'epeat.

It's now time for a quick status check. I press 'z' to get into the status screen. The most important thing right now is food. I've got plenty of drinks and meat and plants, so I should be ok. It's good to note that cooked meals show up under other. I've got enough food to last another month, but after that, I'd better be growing something. I check out the Animals, Kitchen, Stone and Stocks screens across the top. Animals will let me allow animals to be pets, which I'm not ready for. In Kitchen, I set the booze to be non-cookable. The stone screen lets me reserve special stones. Everything is on by default, so I'm ok there. Finally the Stocks screen shows me what I've got. Anything that has more than 10 of an item will show up with a question mark, and will continue to do so until I get Doc a room with a desk to run the books.

As soon as there's room, I put a carpenter's shop, a mason's shop, and a craftdwarves shop in the main hall. They won't stay there, but it's good for now.

At this point I decide to try partial print. I save the game by pressing 'esc' and then select save game. This exits the game. You cannot have a save of an active game without cheating. In the Init.txt file, I change the Partial Print Line from NO to YES. When I load the game back up, it doubles my FPS, so I'll leave it on. Some graphics cards do not support this, and it can be buggy even on systems that do. I am lucky that it works, if it doesn't work for you, just turn it back off.

==== 5a: Defenses 101====

I decide it's time to start planning for eventual trouble. The easiest thing to do is set up passive defenses. I 'b'uild 'T'raps and levers. (Capital T) The simplest trap is the stonefall trap. It's decent damage, but single shot. I place four of them across my entrance hall. I also dig out a large area beside the main hall to serve as a combination archery/barracks.

When the Carpentry shop is finished, I set it to build beds using 'q' and then 'a'dd task. There are a lot of things to build at the carpentry shop, so it takes a few seconds to find it.

By this point, Happy has finished training the dogs, so I turn on Stonecrafting for him. He goes to build the Crafts workshop. When he finishes, I set it to repeat build rock crafts, rock mugs, and rock instruments. These will serve as trade goods for the caravan.

Since the dogs are all trained, I assign one to each of the non-miners. I do this by 'v'iewing them, checking their 'p'roperties and using 'e' to select Work Dogs. Pressing 'r' will assign a single war dog to follow the dwarf around. This is good for defense, especially the outside dwarves.

As beds are built, I 'b'uild them in the back room of the barracks. The dwarves will now sleep on them. This isn't as good as individual bedrooms, but it's still better than the floor. I'll only put about 10 beds in this room for now, but probably more later. I also mark the wall between the archery room and the main hall to be carved into fortifications by 'd'esignating them to be 's'moothed. As soon as that's finished, I'll come back and 'd'esignate them to be carved into fortifications. ('a') Fortifications can be fired through and protect your archers.

The next task is to start building doors, tables and chairs(called thrones in the list). These are all tasks at the mason's shop. I put them all on repeat. It will be a long time before I have too many of them. I also build a large furniture stockpile at the south end of the hall. Having too many items in a workshop will slow it down significantly, so I eventually build a large storehouse for all goods. While I'm at it, I build a big finished goods pile and a food stockpile inside. Since I want all the food moved inside, I also decommission the outside pile. This is done through the 'p'ile menu by using 'x' to remove the pile designation from an area of squares. (Select the corners just like creating the pile. The final task is to build a trade depot in the center of the hall. This is done through the 'b'uild menu.

Now that the hall is finished, I designate a log hallway for craftsmen. This should serve me for quite a long time. I do this by building small rooms slightly larger than the 3x3 workshop size. I can use the inside of the room for any number of things, usually small stockpiles of goods. The doorways allow me to seal my dwarves in. This is an important feature that we'll talk about later.

==== 5b: Sustainable Fort====

Going back outside, I see that it's time to clean things up. Step one is to remove the ramps around my door. I don't want critters coming down from above me. I do this by 'd'esignating the entire area to remove up stairs/ramps (z). I basically select any up triangle within 40 steps of my front door. Step 2 is to dig a moat. I want my moat to contain some sand, for farming, so I dig in pretty far out. It's still within the area cleared of ramps. The only way in is the 4 square gap I leave myself. I also make sure that all of my temp buildings are inside the moat. On both sides of the moat, on the outside, I dig ramps out of them. This is done by 'd'esignating a 'r'amp one z level down (>). This allows creatures that fall in to climb out. Since I like my dwarves more than I hate goblins, I'll build the ramp.

After this is designated, I build 3 small 2x5 farm plots outside on free spaces. These will be used to grow outside plants. For the majority of my plants, I come back inside and dig a large room

Stairwells in DF confuse some people. In order for a stairwell to be useable, you will need a down stairs on the top, and an up stairs on the bottom. You can think of a stairwell as not the complete set of stairs, only one half. You need both halves to transverse the stairs. So, in the L, I 'd'esignate 'j' downward stairs in the corner. I Because I have had bad experiences digging rooms only one z level beneath surfaces I am channelling through (Picture 16 shows the view from inside the moat as well as the up/down stairs) I decide to dig down another z level by 'd'esignating a set of four up/down stairs. Finally, I finish the stairway with a set of up stairs('d','u'). Normally I would use a single master stair for my levels, but I'm wanting to build over to the magma to set up my industry.

Now that my fort is dug in, I press 'F1' to get back to the wagon. 'k' brings up the items screen. I quick check around shows that there's nothing left in the wagon. Time for it to go. I deconstruct it by backing out to the main menu ('space') and pressing 'q' to get into the building screen. After selecting the wagon, you can see that the only option for it is to press 'x' to remove it. Removing the wagon will give back the three wood used to build it, so I mark it for deconstruction.

I watch my 2 miners dig out the areas I've selected, occassionally pausing to check the other dwarves. It isn't long before the game pauses with a message. 'You have struck Amber opal'. Excellent. Gems are very important to dwarves. They use them to decorate options to add enormous amounts of value to the things they make. They are also required for almost every strange mood a dwarf gets. (We'll talk about those later.) Out of curiousity, I decide to check my dwarfs' skill levels. Pressing 'v', I pull up the unit select menu and use the arrow keys to select the dwarf that found the gems. Sleepy is now an Adept Miner. Referring to the skill chart, I see that Adept is the 8th skill rank. For miners, skill is important for both speed and the frequency they leave stone behind. While it wasn't important earlier, it's desirable that we retain as many of the gems as possible. I decide that Adept is sufficient and start the game running again. I am rewarded when the 2 opal squares he digs out leave gems. I leave them there and move on. We'll get to gems when we build a jeweler's workshop later.

5b1 Dwarf Stats.
Curious, I move on to check the other dwarves' skill levels. Most of the dwarfs have obtained some small level of social skills. Dwarves socialize naturally as part of their routine. Dwarfs gaining social skills gain experience, which is used for attributes. Pic 17. Pulling up Dopey, I see that he's still relatively the same as I started him, although he has gained two ranks in wood cutter. The dwarf(unit) view also shows what Dope is doing,, and his attributes. Creatures in DF currently have 3 stats. Strength, Agility and Constitution. As a dwarf gains skill points, he'll also gain attributes. Attributes are gained at a fixed level of xp gained in different skills. Attributes are also gained randomly. It doesn't matter how you get the xp, when you ding, you'll get a random attribute. (Yes, this means you get stronger by telling jokes and lying to your boss.) Since it doesn't matter what skills you get, it doesn't matter whether you get 500 xp in 4 skills, 1000 xp in 2 or 2000 in a single skill. Anything your dwarf does counts towards getting xp.

It's important to note that a dwarf will usually have more skills than fit on a single screen. Use '+' and '-' to see the full list.

From this screen, we can also check the dwarfs inventory by using 'i'. Dwarves carry a lot of crap with them. Shoes, socks, pants, shirts, coats, hats, gloves are just the beggining. Using '+' and '-' navigates this screen as well. I decide to check out Dopey's axe. '+' down and 'enter' to select it. This shows me the weight and value of the object. I also have the ability to 'f'orbid it, 'm'elt it, 'd'ump it or 'h'ide it. (we'll cover these later). The final option is 'v' to get it's description. 'This is a Steel battle axe.' That's borring. Maybe we'll find or make a more interesting object later, eh? Press 'space' twice to get back to the inventory screen

Preferences is accessed through 'p'. We've already seen this screen for assigning dogs. You also use this screen to assign labors, change weaponry, and recruit the dwarf into the military. Dopey is a busy dwarf. He's making all the beds, all the stone furniture and is cutting down trees. Maybe we can give him a break? I press 'l' to access the labor screen. I see that the first page has quite a few labors assigned. Using * and / to page down, I find the hauling tasks. Surely Dopey doesn't need to be spending his time hauling stone and wood? We'll turn off all of his hauling labors by selecting them and pressing 'enter'. Later I may turn it off of others, but for now, Dopey is sufficient.

The final screen is 'w'ounds. '+' and '-' takes you through the different body parts. Dopey is still perfectly healthy, so his bits are all still white. The other thing to notice is that there are a lot of things that aren't in this list. A DF dwarf has toes and fingers and eyes and brains, and they can all be clawed, mauled, stabbed, and ripped out.

Trouble Strikes! While watching the game play out, I notice a red message flash across the screen. I'm not paying complete attention, so I miss it. 'a' brings up the announcements screen. On this screen, I can check the entire history of the fortress. I notice that Grump says that he can't return his kill because he can't find a path. This could be bad. Backing out, I bring up the 'u'nit screen and find Grumpy. 'c' Brings him up. He's over in the yellow sand area. 'u' brings up the units screen again. I Page Down to the bottom of it and find that there is a dead Fire Imp and a dead Camel. I can't zoom to either, but I know that Grumpy is in the yellow sand area near the magma. Looking around, I find the Fire Imp in the magma a few levels down. That's enough of that! I don't want my dwarves fighting with axes around the magma, so I turn off the hunting labor for Grumpy. He won't carry armor anymore, but he'll still carry the axe (for woodcutting). The error is resolved, because I now know that the imp is inaccessable due to being burried in magma. We've also learned that we can check the event log using 'a' at any time.

You may be curious why I haven't started digging out the hematite and copper veins I've found? The answer goes back to miner skill. I don't have a use for copper or iron ore yet, and the longer I wait, the more skilled my miners get. That will make them more efficient when I dig them out.

I've now built 16 beds in my barracks room. That's more than twice as many dwarves as I have, so I decide to stop using my limited log supply for making beds. I cancel the bed task and queue a few barrels and 3 buckets. Barrels are always useful, but why buckets? Buckets are used for three main purposes. The first is in wells. Dwarfs will only drink from wells when they don't have booze, so you should try to avoid needing one, but it's always better to have one than to let your dwarves die of thirst. The second purpose of buckets is bringing water to wounded dwarfs. Wounded dwarfs cannot take care of themselves and need to have food and water brought to them. Finally buckets are required in some trade buildings. It's a good idea to keep a few extras around.

Autumn has arrived. In the first autumn, a dwarven caravan will show up. Caravans are very important early on, so it's vital that we prepare well. We've already taken the first major steps. First, build a Trade Depot near the front of your fortress. Second, make trade goods to sell them. Some forts make food or heavily gem encrusted weapons. Others will make fine cloth with strange and unique dyes. I prefer stone toys and mugs for my exports, and Happy has been building them from early on. The final step in preparing for the first caravan is making sure that the wagons will be able to get to my fort. 'D' brings up the depot check. Anything flashing green is accessible from the Depot while anything flashing red is not. I quickly notice that my depot is not accessible. A quick glance at the problem and I see the problem. The sandy desert is strewn with boulders that the three tile wide wagons cannot navigate. I need to get rid of them. I do this by designating the boulders to be smoothed out.

This is an emergency though, because the traders will be here in 1 month. I need to make sure this gets done ASAP. While I can't hold a dwarf's nose to the task until it's complete, I can tell one to do nothing but smooth the stone. Happy is a convinient dwarf, so I 'v' him, check his 'p'references, and set his 'l'abors to only include stone detailing. When work doesn't procede as fast as I'd like, I turn on stone detailing for Doc, as well. I leave his other activities on, though.

Oops, not soon enough. The carvan has arrived with it's liason before I had a chance to finish the smoothing. While the liason and donkeys will make their way to my depot, the larger wagons will bypass us until next year. Such is the life of a dwarf fortress player. I do leave the smoothing to be done by Happy, but Doc has more important tasks now.

When the caravan arrives, the action is paused and the screen is centered on the arrival spot. At first I'm not sure where the caravan is coming from, but scrolling around a bit, I realize it's arrived at the bottom right corner of the map. The caravan will need to cover a lot of space to get to me, but that's ok, the map is largely peaceful. If it weren't, I would consider an escort or creative walling off of areas to make the caravan appear closer. (Since it will allows appear where it can get to your trade depot).

The next step is to re-check the unit screen for potential problems. The fire imps are still there, but nothing else looks hostile. The caravan should arrive safely.

Next we must arrange goods to be traded. 'q' selects the depot and gives us the option to 'g' select goods for trade. Using the arrow keys to scroll around, I press 'enter' to select everything in the Instruments, Toys and Crafts sections. These will all be brought to the depot. 'F9' confirms my selection. I can now sit back and wait for the caravan to arrive.

I mentioned wells earlier. It's now time to set up the well. The first task is to dig the shaft. I'm not sure how deep the water table is, so I'll dig a stairway down off of my moat. Using the same strategy before, I'll dig a down stairs and three or four up/down stairs directly beneath it.

I also place 4 more stonefall traps at the bridge area over the moat.

Soon after, the merchants arrive at the trade depot. At this point I select the Depot again and tell it that a broker is requested 'r'. I then unpause and wait for Doc to arrive. After a few minutes watching Doc continue smoothing floors and carry furniture, I realize he's going to need some help. I deselect hauling, mechanics, and stone smoothing labors for him. He quickly arrives at the depot after that.

After a short wait for the dwarves to finish hauling the trade goods to the depot, it's time to trade. (If the hauling isn't going fast enough, I might deselect labors from other dwarfs, but hauling trade goods is high priority, so I don't have issues). I 'q' select the building again and hit 't'rade. (If I get side tracked, there's still a two minute warning before the caravan leaves.)

I take a look at the goods and decide that my priority this season is food. Normally I would select the things I want and then let select enough trade goods to pay for it, but this is the first season, and I don't have a lot to trade. I select all of the trade goods by selecting them in turn and pressing 'enter'. (My goods are on the right). The total value is 740. The merchants are going to want a 10% to 20% profit, so I've got about 650 to spend.
Here's my bill:
Rum and Barrels : Booze is important, so are the extra barrels
All the meat costing 10 or 20 : I'll need to cook this fast!
The entire leather bin
The rope
The cat in a cage
I could probably get a few more things, but there's nothing I need, and a hefty profit will make the traders happy.

To conclude the trade, I press 't'. (Pressing 'o' offers the goods to the caravan as a gift... Not exactly what I want).

After trading, Doc sits down with the Liason from the mountainhomes. This is the place where we get to request what we'll get on next years dwarven caravan. This screen is a little complicated. '+' and '-' changes catagories 'up' and 'down move around within the catagories, and 'left' and 'right' determine how much you are requesting. Requests aren't a guarantee, but you'll usually get at least one item of the type you request.

Wood : I'll always need more wood. Plus, it's cheap.
Seeds : I request a little bit of every type. I didn't start out with a lot, so these will be handy.
Anvils : I didn't have enough trade goods to buy an anvil this trip. Maybe next time. I select Iron, because there isn't any difference except price.
Dogs : I like dogs, a lot. They serve as expendable front line military.
Booze : Buying booze gets you both more barrels and more booze. It's a good idea to beef up the stockpiles, especially early on.
Food : Food = good
Stone : I would like to buy some Bauxite or flux, but the dwarves aren't offering any. Looks like they don't have any either.

After finishing the agreement, I get to review it. At this point I learn that I will be paying 200% normal price for the logs next season. Greedy little buggers know I need them, so they're marking up the price. Still, logs are cheap. (Everything else is marked up proportional to how much I requested) The final step in negotiations is the export agreement. It's the same price boost, except for things I'm going to export. I honestly don't pay much attention to this (When you're dumping a fraction of your stone flute stores to buy the entire caravan, does it matter if you have to give them an extra 2-3% of what you made this year?).

I'm done with the traders now, although they'll wait out their allotted time at the depot.

My next step is to deal with all the meat I just acquired. It needs to be cooked, and quick before it spoils! In order to do this, I' build a kitchen workshop in one of my newly cleared rooms. I also turn on cooking for Doc. It is built in short order. In order to ensure the meat is cooked fast, I turn off cooking for the vegetables in the kitchen screen ('z', select cooking). I also set the kitchen to repeatedly make easy meals. An easy meal combines two stacks of cookeable ingredients into one stack of prepared food. Quantities are additive (so a stack of 5 meat and a stack of 3 plump helmets will make a stack of 8 prepared meals).

Finally, seeing the seeds in the cook list reminds me I still have to set up my outside farming. I 'q' select the first farm. Pic 19. I see that outside I can plant a variety of plants in Autumn. The problem is, I only have seeds for Prickle Berries and Wild Strawberries. I select Wild Strawberries for the first one. I then cycle through Spring, Summer, and Winter, selecting things to plant in those seasons. I follow this by selecting things to plant in the other two fields. This should keep me going until I get my real farm going.

Interesting. At this point I notice that my well came up dry. I dig a few shafts into various parts of the level, looking for water, but coming up empty.

6 Exstatic dwarfs

After finishing the farm setup, it's time to make sure the dwarfs are happy. The traditional means of dwarven happiness are gold, good food, and good booze. In Dwarf Fortress, this means artfully designed objects making a legendary feasting hall combined with quiet bedrooms for the individual dwarfs.

The easiest way to keep dwarfs happy is a legendary dining room. Legendary in this case refers to the sum of the quality of the items in it. Tables and Chairs count, but so does other furniture. Even more important, smoothing the walls and engraving them can add a great deal of value to the room. This being the case, I dig out a large ( approx. 8x13) room and fill it with tables and chairs as well as smoothing the entire room. I make sure that each chair can only reach one table, and each table only has one chair at it. (the easiest solution is a row of chairs, two rows of tables, two rows of chairs, etc. While I don't have enough to fill the whole room right away, I place them as they are built.) If I were neurotic, I could make sure all the tables and chairs were of the same material. It certainly looks prettier. The final design step is to build doors in front of the room.

When I get enough tables and chairs place, I define the dining room. 'q' over one of the tables gives me the option to 'r' define a dining room. Flashing blue squares indicate the size of the room. I use '+' to grow the room to fill the dug out square and then enter to accept. A room includes the value of any squares contained inside of it. Dwarfs using a dining room will use any chair available in it while eating. After pressing enter, I'm back in the 'q' select screen, only this time with a few extra options. The dining room is public, so I don't want to assign an owner. Freeing the table removes the room. I do want to make the room a meeting hall. This means dwarven immigrants will come to the meeting hall when they arrive at your fort. This is a good thing, because we don't want them standing on the edge of the map.

I won't designate the engraving until later. I want them to be as good as possible, which means training my engravers with smooth operations first.

THIEF!

I'm alerted that a thief has made of with my steel bolts. That can't be good. A few moments later, a pair of leggings goes missing. I'd better do something about this. My first task is to a restraint out by the moat. A restraint requires a rope or chain to build (fortunately I bought one from the caravan). After waiting for it to be finished, I 'q' select it. 'a' allows me to assign one of my wardogs to the chain. I now have a guard dog out in front of my fortress.

Because the thief only stole armor and crossbow bolts, I'm a bit suspicious. These items were probably left outside the fort, and vulnerable. That means I'm going to need to bring those items inside. Fortunately for me, I've got a barracks ready built. I just need to build a few piles for armor, weapons, and ammo.

Desperation.

I still haven't found water, and my farms aren't up. I see a dwarf with a flashing blue down arrow and realize he's thirsty. Checking the 'z' stocks screen indicates I'm out of water. This could be bad. The next thing I do is check my kitchen screen in 'z'. It shows me I've got over 20 Prickle berries to brew. I can tell they can be brewed, because the have the word brew next to them. I can tell they will be brewed because the word is blue. (I can toggle brew by pressing 'b')

Fortunately for me, dwarves can live off of distilled liquor alone. I immediately build a still. Bashful has brewing so he immediately builds it. After setting it up, I set the still to repeat brew drinks. Bashful gets to work. (A good thing. If he didn't I would have removed all other jobs. Booze is a dwarven necessity)

The fact that there is only sand on the first z level has changed my plans. I abandon the first farming spur I built, and generate another, a single z level beneath the surface. As soon as it is finished, I build several 5x1 plots in the room. This will serve as the backbone of my forts food production.

I also dig out a series of workshop rooms near the farm. This will be useful for farmers workshops. When they are finished

Finally, I build a seed pile in the farm. When making a 'p'ile, there is no seed option. What I need to do is designated a food pile and then 'q' select it. There I have the option to 's' change the settings on the pile. The arrow keys control the cursor and all me to move to the food section. First I press 'u' to disable prepared food and then 'b' to block everything and start fresh. I select seeds and 'p'ermit them. Because the farm is so far from the outside, I don't want to be carting my strawberry and pickleberry seeds down here. I select them and press 'enter' to disallow them from the pile. Space finishes.

As soon as I finish the piles , spring arrives. We've survived the first year of our fortress. We established stable food production, created a two tier defense perimeter, and established a reasonable and sustainable trade industry. I'm going to back the fortress up here as a 'Stable First Year'. It's a good save to open up and look at the layout of things.

Still to go, we need to expand our trade industries, establish a viable metal industry, deal with immigrants, and start working on the advanced social issues like nobles, rooms, and the economy. If you feel comfortable with the game at this point, you should experiment with these things yourself. If you'd like a little more help, we'll continue. If you still aren't comfortable designating dig spots, building workshops or managing dwarves, you may want to start over at the beginning.

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-27T04:00:53Z

Granite26: Formating

User:Granite26/Tutorial

2008-11-26T22:39:08Z

Granite26: DF Tutorial (Work In Progress)

40d:Adventure mode quick reference

2008-07-14T23:53:32Z

Granite26: /* Key Bindings */ added refill waterskin

These are the keys used in [[Adventure mode]].
==Key Bindings==
{| class="wikitable" style="border:1px solid #ccc;"
|-
! align="center" | Keys
! align="center" | Meaning
|-
| {{k|8}} {{k|2}} {{k|4}} {{k|6}} {{k|7}} {{k|9}} {{k|1}} {{k|3}}
| Move
|-
| {{k|↑}} {{k|↓}} {{k|←}} {{k|→}}
| Move
|-
| {{k|Alt}} and a direction key
| Move carefully / Deliberately enter dangerous terrain
|-
| {{k|<}} or {{k|Shift}}+{{key|5}} (num lock off)
| Ascend
|-
| {{k|>}} or {{k|Ctrl}}+{{key|5}} (num lock off)
| Descend
|-
| {{k|.}}
| Wait for a step
|-
| {{k|Space}}
| Advance/Clear Messages
|-
| {{k|a}}
| View Announcements
|-
| {{k|c}}
| Combat Preferences
|-
| {{k|d}}
| Drop an item
|-
| {{k|e}}
| Eat or drink something
|-
| {{k|g}}
| Pickup an item
|-
| {{k|f}}
| Fire a projectile
|-
| {{k|i}}
| Inventory
|-
| {{k|l}}
| Look around
|-
| {{k|k}}
| Talk to somebody
|-
| {{k|p}}
| Put an item into a container
|-
| {{k|r}}
| Remove an item you are wearing or from a container
|-
| {{k|s}}
| Stand or lie down
|-
| {{k|t}}
| Throw an item
|-
| {{k|u}}
| Interact with building, furniture, or mechanism
|-
| {{k|w}}
| Wear an item
|-
| {{k|z}}
| Status
|-
| {{k|A}}
| Attack a adjacent creature. Change Mode to [[wrestle]].
|-
| {{k|C}}
| Center screen on yourself
|-
| {{k|D}}
| Date/Time
|-
| {{k|I}}
| Interact with an object in an advanced way. (unstick a weapon, refill waterskin etc)
|-
| {{k|L}}
| Search the nearby area very carefully
|-
| {{k|P}}
| Temperature
|-
| {{k|Q}}
| Adventure log (tasks, map, et cetera...)
|-
| {{k|S}}
| Sneak
|-
| {{k|T}}
| Travel
|-
| {{k|W}}
| Weather
|-
| {{k|Z}}
| Sleep
|}

[[Category:Guides]]
[[Category:Adventurer mode]]

40d Talk:Spleen

2008-05-08T15:12:39Z

Granite26: New page: This needs to be supported: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_spleen]

This needs to be supported:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_spleen]