v0.31:Starting build

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v50.13 · v0.47 · v0.34 · v0.31.25 · v0.28 · v0.23 This article is about an older version of DF. More Info · V

A starting build is a personal strategy for choosing the initial supplies, equipment, and Template:Ls of your initial seven dwarves when starting a new game in Template:L. These skills and items which you assign to your dwarves will have a large impact on life in your new fortress, especially in its first year.

This page attempts to give advice on some of the many gameplay elements which influence the flow of your game based on your goals. These include: choosing a fortress site, the starting build itself, as well as challenge builds aimed at providing new or unusual challenges to advanced players. This page is not an explanation of the mechanics of doing so, see Template:L for an explanation of the interface itself.

But one thing should be made clear - there is no "best" build, no "perfect" or "clearly superior" final mix of skills and items, if only because there isn't any one goal of play. The goals you have for a fortress will dictate which sets of items and skills are best suited to achieving that goal - in your opinion. And then there is the environment, where your dwarves will arrive, the creatures, the resources available, and so forth. Finally, some people do things solely because it is hard, and that makes it more fun for them.

Items are tied to starting skills, and starting skills are tied to the expected environment for your chosen embark, and all are tied to your preferences for playing the game - not all sites require (or invite) the same approach, and no two players would take the same approach to the same environment.

This page attempts to provide a discussion about how and why you make the choices on what you bring along.

Components of a Starting Build

Starting builds can and should vary based upon a number of other variables. Where you choose to settle will give you a fortress that supplies different raw materials and thus require different skill sets to utilize, not to mention different threats from native wildlife based on biome, savagery, and alignment. Which civilization you come from will restrict the materials with which you can start.

Along with this is player preferences - if you wish an economy based on Template:Ls, Template:L, or Template:L, each of those have very different requirements. Likewise, if you want to play a military game, fighting off sieges with huge battles, that's a very different mix (and different site requirements) than if you want a calm location to build your perfect Template:L.

While this page will reference decisions made about some of these components, this article is not intended to settle those questions. Potentially helpful articles include Template:L, Template:L, Template:L, and Template:L.

Skills

With only 7 dwarves, you can't take every Template:L, so you have to balance what you do take. At this starting phase, each dwarf can only be assigned a maximum total of 10 skill levels, with no single skill starting higher than "5". With 7 starting dwarves, you could take no skills at all, or take 70 skills all at level 1, or 14 skills all at level 5* (2 per dwarf), the highest allowed at embark, or (most likely) something in between the last two, but closer to that last.

(* Note that an unskilled dwarf starts with all Skills at Level 0. Adding +5 Levels is then Level 5. This is true regardless of how many "points" a level costs when first buying skills at embark.)

Once play starts, dwarves can learn any and all skills - these choices only determine what sort of "head start" they have, what they are good at when they first hit the ground. See Template:L for a discussion of increasing skills during game play.

The considerations are several:

• Maximizing starting skill ranks vs. generalizing and having more skills covered at lower levels.
• Balancing multiple skills for a single dwarf, so they aren't constantly needed for two different tasks at critical periods
• Military vs economic needs
• Your goals vs "basic survival needs" to keep your fortress healthy and happy.
• Speed that a skill can be trained in game
• Demand for a skill during a game
• Whether quality or speed are significant considerations for tasks/final product
• Balancing the desire to create Template:L (with high-value products) with the need to maintain Template:L (with low-value but commonly used products, like Template:Ls, which normally are made from Template:L).
• most importantly - your playstyle - what you think is "fun"!

While there are some arguable "no-brainer" choices (or are for each player, according to their playstyle), the final few selections are often a coin toss, or close to. And there is often more than one way to skin a cat - in fact, while many players recommend never starting with more than one cat, starting with many cats (breeding them for leather, bones and meat) and a skilled Template:L and/or Template:L is one way to go with (part of) a starting build. Until you have some personal experience, the various suggestions and advice may mean little, but will have more meaning after your first fortress inevitably fails - Template:L.

So don't over-think it at first - you'll make a good guess, dive in, and learn far more than we can explain here.

Items

The starting items are what is needed for your dwarves to survive until they are self-sufficient, or at least until the first yearly Template:Ls will keep them afloat. The first won't show up until Autumn, so that's more than 2 seasons your dwarves are on their own.

A dwarf eats about 2 meals a season, and drinks a little more than 4 drinks in that same time. If you add your expected Template:Ls, multiply that by the number of seasons, you can estimate how much food and booze will be needed to get you safely through to the first Template:L - barring Template:L. In your starting build, you can bring all of that, or your Template:Ls, Template:L, Template:Ls, Template:Ls and Template:Ls can provide some or most of it.

Similarly, most of the finished products are expensive to buy pre-embark, and so a minimum is recommended - maybe a pick or two for immediate mining and basic defense, maybe a (cheap?) axe* or two for better defense and cutting wood, thread, cloth or a rope for a Template:L, maybe a few leather to make bags, and call it good.

(* "Wooden practice axes" cost only 17P, and cut down wood just fine. They will be significantly weaker than metal axes in combat, but still far superior to Template:L, and you can Template:L quickly enough.)

You can produce any and all of those from scratch if you are willing to wait - and your Template:L don't kill you first. Raw materials are much cheaper, in the form of Template:Ls, Template:L, Template:L and so forth, but whether you want to take the time at the start of the game is the question. The trade-off is always a balance of cost savings vs. time savings when you first strike the earth. Everything else depends on your strategy and on how tough or leisurely a challenge you want the game to be.

Skill Optimization

At this stage, pre-embark, skills cost a number of starting points, equaling monetary value. Later, during fortress mode, all skills will be trained by practice, and "cost" is no longer a concern. All dwarves start with "No Skill" and the first additional skill level (Novice) costs 5 points. To buy the next level would cost 6, and so on. To buy up Proficient (the max allowed to start with), costs 5+6+7+8+9, or 35 points.

A dwarf can start with up to 10 additional levels, regardless whether that's 10 skills at Novice, or 2 skills at Proficient. So, if you are going to buy the maximum skills allowed (highly recommended), that can cost from between 50 to 70 points each, but is usually around 400-450+ for all 7 dwarves.

Any dwarf can have any labor designated, and they will perform that task and learn or improve that skill, even if they have no skill related to that labor when they start. Dwarves with little experience in a skill will work slowly and ineffectively, while dwarves with higher skill work faster and/or produce a significantly higher quality product. Some skills are not used often, and/or produce no "quality" in the final product, or produce qualities that have little impact on the game - for these it's questionable whether investing in high starting levels is worthwhile, but that's often a judgment call. Other skills might be very easy to level and as such, investing to them is fairly pointless headstart.

Template:L is a central concept in the game - it affects Template:L, Template:L, and almost anything you will have your dwarves create in the game: Template:L goods, Template:Ls, Template:L, Template:L, Template:L, Template:L, and so on. Quality also has a large effect on the worth of an item while Template:L. Using and seeing high-quality items gives dwarves happy Template:Ls. This tends to decrease the incidences of Template:Ls, increasing a fortress's longevity.

Some skills are also trained up fairly quickly or cheaply, especially where the task consumes no (valuable) materials, or doesn't matter in the final product - mining, furnace operator, wood cutting, butcher, tanner, glass making and (especially) Template:L skills being only a few examples.

Which skills do I need, really?

The only thing that you absolutely must do in the first year is get your food supplies into a food stockpile, preferably inside, otherwise your food will rot on the ground and your dwarves will starve. Anything else you want to do can be accommodated by sufficient investment in initial food supplies and/or skills. This means the options for possible starting builds are vast because virtually any set of starting skills for your dwarves is viable (and that's before you even think about equipment, which adds more variables). So the short answer is: none.

That said, there are some skills which will be used, to one extent or another, by virtually every fortress - but that doesn't mean you need or even want to invest points in them to start. You could even manipulate the fortress (see Template:L) to completely avoid one or more of the following, but these are the skills you will find it exceptionally hard to avoid creating jobs for:

Template:L - to dig your fortress, and gain stone for projects. Only possible to avoid using if you're secretly an elf.

• Inexperienced Template:Ls work very slowly and are less likely to recover mined gems or valuable ores. Mining can be leveled up quite quickly by mining Template:L, but taking two dwarves with at least some points in mining is recommended in many cases.

Template:L - Template:Ls can only be produced from Template:L (rare Template:Ls aside). This skill can also be used to make Template:Ls without having to have an Template:L, use any metal Template:Ls, or use any Template:L.

• Carpentry is used, but opinions differ - on one hand, wood items are just not worth that much Template:L-wise (10's of dwarfbucks vs 100's for stone furniture or 1000's for armor or prepared foods, for instance), so the difference in monetary value between high-quality and no-quality is minor for wood products. However, high-quality Template:Ls are one of the easiest ways to help make and keep your dwarves Template:L (since every dwarf will encounter a bed regularly), so some players swear by it.

Template:L - to build walls and stairs, and fashion dwarven furniture from stone. Possible to work around, but incredibly hard and annoying to do.

Template:L - your farmers' work echoes throughout so many other tasks, it's stunning

• While its possible to feed your fortress on nothing but caravan goods, you'll never come by enough alcohol that way, so you'll eventually need to grow crops for brewing, and dwarves will literally go crazy if forced to drink nothing but water for long periods. Thus you'll want to plan for farming eventually - not that you need to bring a highly skilled Template:L, but it'll certainly be very helpful. Likewise, a skilled Template:L produces higher quality Template:L (though the quality is hidden!), which improves your dwarves' mood, as does a skilled Template:L with the foods they prepare. However, most food can be eaten raw, and so long as they are not starving there is life.

Template:L - all dwarves "need alcohol to get through the working day"

Template:L - if you want traps, and most people will. Also needed for most machinery.

Template:L - mandatory for some buildings and constructions, but skill only improves speed a tad and increases structure Template:L

Template:L - most importantly Template:L - a minimum of Broker skills are highly recommended to start with at the Novice (1 pt) level - it'll make your life much easier (especially Novice level of Template:L, at least, as it greatly facilitates trading).

Template:L - Lets you be able to see the exact amount of things you have much faster than training one, and is necessary to view the stocks screen.

Of the above, Mining, Masonry, Growing, Brewing, Cooking, and Mechanics are generally worth considering as "highly desirable" starting skills for your dwarves.

Remember, any skill can be used untrained, and/or get trained on the job - it just means a slower process and/or average lower quality product than if done by a dwarf with a higher Template:L.

Ultimately the answer to "What skills do I need?" is "Whichever you want". Choosing a mixture of these commonly used skills and your desired specialized skills will make starting up your fortress easier and more efficient.

What considerations could inform my skill selection?

You will often want some optional skills, often vastly more than something as useful and desirable as even masonry. For example, any player intending to do more than dabble in the metal industry may well want to start with multiple dwarves each highly skilled in at least one metal industry skill, especially those that produce goods with Template:L.

The following may influence your choices of skills:

1. Some skills are harder to gain experience in than others - requiring valuable resources or taking an extended period of time, and thus inconvenient to train from the ground up. Investing in some of these extensively in your initial dwarves can make those industries much less painful to start. For example, metal-related skills generally eat metal bars, and thus the less time you spend training metal workers up to a decent level, the faster they'll be churning out high-quality items for you, and the fewer bars they'll waste becoming skilled. On the other hand, despite its importance, skills like mining train relatively quickly and barring extenuating circumstances (expected need to accomplish particular digging projects in the first month or you'll get mauled by a Giant for example) there's little need to actually invest your starting skills in it - they can learn on the job.
2. Keep in mind that some skills are used to make Template:Ls, and successfully making an artifact can give the dwarf a lot of experience in the used skill (depending on the sort of artifact mood received). It can be worth investing in some skills solely to bias your artifact skill pool in the hopes of getting a legendary dwarf in an industry you want to really get working on a year or two in. (See Template:Ls for more info.)
3. If you plan on settling in a dangerous area, consider including at least some military skills, if not a dedicated Template:L, or several. The nature of the environment should dictate the military skills chosen (for example, marksdwarves will be an ineffective counter to expected roving hordes of Template:L wildlife).
4. Migrants can and will arrive with a wide selection of decently trained skills. While it is a gamble, chances are pretty decent that migrants will arrive with a highly trained skill that is also highly desirable and would usurp the job of one of the seven starting ones. The first few migration waves are likely to give you a much better talent pool than what you can assign at embark.
5. Skills rust if not used and they can eventually de-level. Consider that skills which you will use years after embark are going to be rusty or even deleveled.
6. The dwarf with the most social skills will end up being the Template:L, who will then become the Template:L and start making Template:Ls. Thus you should avoid giving the most social skills to dwarfs who have Template:L for things like Template:L.

Combining Skills

Some Template:L are highly time-consuming, and working at different jobs levels up specific Template:Ls. One could level up a miner until he becomes mighty and ultra-tough - and then turn him into a soldier, or retire him to haul stone. If you plan on doing so, it may not be a good idea to give this guy a second critical job that will demand a lot of time away from their focus. There are many parts to a suit of armour, so armoursmithing will take more time than weaponsmithing - once you have one weapon per soldier, he's done. Masons, miners, growers, and any craft that your fortress will base their economy off of (glass, stonecrafts, armour, etc) will take a lot of time.

Since tasks will take place in specific areas, another approach is to combine tasks into dwarves who will take care of a specific industry, or spend all their time in one generally narrow part of the fortress - the forges, or the kitchens, or outdoors, for instance. So combining Farming with cooking, rather than mining, for example, and turn on only Haul Food, not Haul Stone. Woodcutter/Herbalist/Mason/Axedwarf (for outdoor walls/projects) might be another combination - the possibilities are endless.

Some combinations follow naturally in sequence to each other, but also can conflict with each other. One animal is butchered, then the leather is tanned, and the meat is cooked. But if you have 5 animals, several will rot before one dwarf can process all of those. A highly skilled craftsdwarf is often better suited at sitting in their Template:L and having others deliver raw materials to them, than going out and obtaining their own raw materials themselves.

Many builds recommend combinations such as:

• Outdoors: Woodcutter/Plant Gatherer. Add Template:L for added security.
• Mason+____ : In many fortresses, the Mason is a very busy dwarf. He could be a spare miner, have abilities that are only rarely needed, or do tasks that can be accomplished quickly like Template:L.
• Farmer/Cook, Farmer/Brewer. Basic two-person food team.
• Farmer/Herbalist, Farmer/Brewer/Cook. One bold dwarf to farm and venture outside looking for wild plants, the other to keep busy in the Template:L, kitchen, and indoor farms.
• Boss: Novice Template:L/Novice Template:L/Novice Template:L. This guy will be your Template:L and Template:L; you can make him Template:L too (the default), at least to start with. Combine this with a single time-intensive task such as Template:L and optionally turn off all hauling tasks right at the start of the game. Or keep him a generalist, or combine with one of the other options.
• Weaponsmith/Leatherworker: If they're not arming your military, they're making leather armor for them.
• Template:L, depending on your strategy - e.g. Template:L maker, Template:L or Template:L, sometimes combined with related tasks from that industry (Template:L, Template:L). Typically an item hauler in the initial months of your fortress, this dwarf may become one of your most valuable dwarves later.

Not all combinations have to "look right" together. A weaponsmith will most probably not spend nearly 100% of their time creating weapons - what they do with the other part of their time may have nothing at all to do with forges or smithing.

• Grower/GemCutter (or Grower/x-Craft): When gems are found, he's there, otherwise he's outstanding in his fields.
• Mechanic/Brewer: usually produces the mechanized defenses, but does moonshining when it's called for.
• Miner/______: This dwarf will quickly become legendary in mining, and then retire to pursue something else full time. On call for important veins of high-value ore.
• Brewer/Appraiser/Leatherworker: several typically low-demand skills
• StoneCrafter/Herbalist - after quickly finding above-ground plants for seeds for the first season, they never go back unless something goes wrong.
• (x-Craft)/Armor User: Plan for the future - armor using is slow to train in if this dwarf is ever going to join the military.

You can max out one skill and have several lower-level skills additionally, or just several skills that are not maxed out - the combinations are (almost) infinite.

Combinations like these often have one Template:L skill and one non-moodable (or a less desired moodable skill at lower level), so any mood will improve the desired one.

Combining Skills for Moods

Template:Ls will create a Legendary skill of the "moodable" skill with the highest level, and moods take hold of dwarves with different professions at different rates. Some skills are "moodable" where others are not. Another consideration is to place desired moodable skills with non-moodable, to ensure that both the professions and highest skills stay as preferred. Usually this involves one "craft" skill and one "farmer" type skill, such as Armor/Cook, or Weapon/Brewer. This can take some manipulation, and is not of primary concern to many players.

Matching skills to a dwarf's personal profile

Once you have your optimal skill mix for all 7 starting dwarves, you can, if you wish, take the time to view each of your individual dwarves and match skills to their Template:Ls. This can be very advantageous: if you have a dwarf who likes Template:L, Template:L, Template:Ls, Template:L parts, or something else equally interesting, they're an ideal candidate for matching skills (specifically for these examples, Template:L, Template:L, Template:L, or Template:L).

Likewise, if they have any obviously relevant Template:L strengths or weaknesses, those should be factored in. Some are obscure or ambiguous, but some ("Is constantly active and energetic") are a clear sign.

Item Optimization

An experienced player can start out with no skills for their starting dwarves, 1 copper nugget and an anvil - and nothing else - and have Template:L. So what is "needed" is up to what you think is "fun" vs. "too hard" etc. etc. etc.

Some basics are recommended for all builds. Unless you plan to Template:L, you definitely need to bring one Template:L for each Template:L, and if you plan to gather wood, you need an Template:L, which will become a weapon in wartime. Also a minimum of about 25-30* Template:L and about 55-60* Template:L, which should get 7 dwarves through to the first Template:L in Fall. Everything else depends on your strategy and on how tough or leisurely a challenge you want the game to be.

(* A single dwarf eats about 2x/season, and drinks about 4x/season. With 7 dwarves that's ~approximately~ 14 meals per season and 28 alcohol per season, or ~28 meals and ~56 alcohol until the end of Summer. The Caravan is due sometime in Autumn, usually early Autumn, in the second week or so, but the first won't have enough to keep you going until whenever the next one arrives. Hopefully you'll have some food and brewing industry going by the first, or soon after.)

Note: Many builds recommend that you bring many different cheap foods, in quantities ending in a "1" (1, 11, 21, etc.), and alcohols in amounts ending in a "1" or "6". This is to maximize the number of free Template:L you start with; dry foodstuffs fit 10/barrel, and (pre-embark) alcohol fits 5/barrel. More barrels will let you build a larger stockpile for your first winter and conserves the Template:L you need to cut and shape in the early game for beds and other necessities. (Seeds are 100/bag, and you don't need near that many of any one type, so 6 bags max with this approach. Even if you don't plan on growing much Template:L, starting with 1 seed and getting the free bag, and planting that one seed later and dumping the result could be worth it.) Also note that multiple types of meat taken from the same animal (warthog meat and warthog tripe, for example) will be packed into a single barrel on embark, instead of separate barrels (as of version 31.04).

Items for moods

When a dwarf is taken by a Template:L, he often needs obscure material or he will go insane and die, possibly with severe consequences to an entire fortress. Bringing along some of the harder-to-find ores (Template:L, Template:L, Template:L, Template:L), and putting those aside, forbidding their use "just in case", is spending a few points on an insurance policy. Many players also choose to bring a few items like pig tail cloth and cave spider silk just in case.

Free Equipment

Dwarves who start with the ambusher skill may get some leather Template:L, a crossbow and some bolts for free.

Site considerations

Each fortress Template:L offers particular challenges and opportunities, and can make different demands on your starting build. Your starting build may need to be adjusted depending on the Template:L your fort occupies, the specific vision you have of your fortress, and what it will take to Template:L where you're going!

The differences include what Template:Ls, Template:Ls and likely Template:Ls are present in your chosen embark site.

General Surroundings

Simply put, if your Template:L are Template:L or Template:L, your dwarves have a higher risk of suddenly facing personal combat before they are safely behind their defenses. Consider bringing extra weaponry, in the form of axes, picks or crossbows (see Template:L). Hand in hand with those, consider skill mixes that include Template:L, Template:L (the skill used to wield a pick), Template:L, or Template:L (a solid unarmed-combat skill).

The same is true if you are embarking near an exposed magma vent or an open chasm - these features can be seen on the embark map, but it's impossible to tell if they are "open" to the surface or not, until you are there in person.

Be sure to include some source of Template:L on the map, preferably running Template:L. Water is (almost) essential for any fortress. In Cold and Freezing climates streams and Template:Ls will often be frozen year-round and your dwarves may quickly die of exposure, in Hot climates Template:Ls will dry up, and in Dry ones rain will only rarely re-fill them, if ever. Choose Temperate or tropical zones for an easier game.

Aquifers

If an Template:L is present in the first soil or stone layers (visible on the pre-embark menu), it may bar all access to Template:L and Template:L until you find a way through the water barrier. Consider bringing some stone for building, and ore for your first basic needs. This may be critical to getting your fortress running smoothly.

Mountains

Mountains often have abundant Template:Ls, but at the loss of trees and plants. In previous versions lacking Template:Ls, this was a serious drawback. In DF2010, brave pioneers can dig down into the caverns to find essentials like water, mud, and plants. However, players should be aware that above-ground crops will not grow in mountain biomes, no matter how muddy you may make the surface.

Depending on the exact layers, it's common to find exposed Template:Ls of useful Template:Ls that can be immediately mined for Template:L weapons and tools.

Wooded/Plains

Flatlands with at least some trees and gatherable plants can also make for highly successful fortresses. Advantages over mountain zones include abundant trees and plants and (unless frozen) more abundant water. There are even (rare) magma vents. More water also means a high likelihood of an Template:L being present. Make sure to check on embark.

The greatest disadvantage is the potential lack of exposed Template:L to mine. The first level(s) below the surface is often Template:L of some type, which offers no building materials. However, soil is mined much more quickly than stone (x3-x4 faster), and expansive accommodations (rooms) can be achieved quickly even by untrained miners. You will find stone, you just have to go down a bit for it - but that's what dwarves do, isn't it?

Template:L a Template:L from No Skill to Proficient takes less than a month (~20 days with hauling disabled) in soil, and to Legendary in just under a season after. ^v0.31.12 From embark, this means you should have legendary miners in early summer if you dig only in soil. Times increase slightly for each additional miner used.

Oceanside

With many features in common with some of the above locations, Template:Les are often a mix of ease intermingled with bouts of extreme difficulty. Minerals and trees are often abundant, as well as farmland and sand, but there is often no drinking water unless the biome has a flowing Template:L of some sort.

By definition, the settlement will fall between (at least) two Template:Ls (one land, one water), potentially hazardous if the player expects a peaceful oceanside meadow, without realizing the Template:L ocean is full of amphibious zombie Template:Ls.

Desert, Glaciers, and Barren

Treeless (or near-treeless) Template:Ls are challenging sites for a fortress: you get most of the disadvantages of a flatland site without having access to nearly as many trees and plants. However, near-lifeless zones such as Template:Ls are wonderful for players with slower computers, as there's little to burden the CPU but your dwarves and livestock. Template:Ls and barren areas often have sand; with a sufficient source of energy (preferably magma), you can build almost anything out of unlimited glass.

Hunters should be replaced with fisherdwarves and a fish cleaner (although the latter can be easily trained). Depending how much water vs. land, more starting wood and ores might be helpful. Swimming is rarely useful in Fortress mode, even at the beach, and can be trained.

Sample starting builds

See Template:L

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