Dwarf Fortress: the Noobening.

[Lantyssa]

I take pleasure in getting as many kitties as possible.  Small animals stand no chance in my games.

[sidereal]

Ooh, tax collector tax collector!  I suspect the government pension is pretty good.  Also, I'm wicked corrupt.

[UnSub]

For some reason I find "Mark Jacobs - Fish Dissector" to be hilarious.

[Slayerik]

Did I end up as anything?

[Furiously]

Can I be the brewer?

[Rasix]

Did I end up as anything?

Fortress guard.  You don't do a whole lot, but you are highly skilled.  I can switch you up with another profession if you like.

Can I be the brewer?

I had an unnamed brewer.  You are now making the drinks along with HAMMER FRENZY.  I have no idea what happened to my other brewer. 

[UnSub]

HAMMER FRENZY really should be the Hammerer.

[ashrik]

That group of nobles are the most interesting, I can't wait for them to do something horrible to my poor dwarves

Source: http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net

The dungeon master is a noble and, like the expedition leader, is not a position that can be replaced by the player. S/he arrives as an immigrant and is not elected. The dungeon master arrives in a fortress' first immigrant wave after reaching a population of 50 if certain site features are present like magma, a river or a brook. The dungeon master may also arrive alone, without immigrants.

The dungeon master has a somewhat... odd taste in clothing. He or she often shows up wearing a cloak, hood, and mittens, with nothing underneath. The dungeon master will often procure more cloaks to wear over the first at your fortress. This is because the dungeon master is insane.

Apparently, the Dungeon Master is the only dwarf that can catch the rare "purring maggot", which is milkable for very expensive milk and cheese products 

The Hammerer is the executioner of your fortress. If your fortress does not have enough cages, chains and/or ropes set to be used by justice or the crime is heinous enough, (s)he will proceed to hammerings. In the older versions, various crimes were worth different amounts of hammer strikes, but in the recent versions this has not been verified.
The Hammerer is usually quite a ruthless guy, who "takes pleasure from killing". You definitely don't want this guy to go rampaging through your fortress.

Note that it is possible to greatly reduce the damage inflicted on his victims by marking his hammer for dumping. This causes him to dispense justice bare-handed instead, greatly reducing unnecessary deaths. However, it will also make him very unhappy. Another option is to recruit the dwarf facing punishment and assign him to wear armor as a means of limiting the damage.

[Hoax]

Did I get a namesake dwarf, if not 

[Rasix]

Did I get a namesake dwarf, if not 

You're a mechanic. Would you like a change of vocation?

You do tend to throw a lot of parties.

[bhodi]

Dwarf me!

I kind of lost interest in playing this game, right around the time I always seem to - Defense becomes trivial, I successfully build a cool structure, try out the tradeskills, and my dwarves start to get really annoying to micromanage. Boo. Sorry to all who I left hanging, I played a bit more since the last ep, everything worked fine and I got bored and quit. This thread's picking up the slack nicely!

[Trippy]

Dwarf me!

I kind of lost interest in playing this game, right around the time I always seem to - Defense becomes trivial, I successfully build a cool structure, try out the tradeskills, and my dwarves start to get really annoying to micromanage. Boo. Sorry to all who I left hanging, I played a bit more since the last ep, everything worked fine and I got bored and quit. This thread's picking up the slack nicely!

You can't leave us hanging with that tree, though. You need to at least finish that part of the story.

[Merusk]

I'm left out! I knew Rasix hated me.   

[Rasix]

I'm left out! I knew Rasix hated me.   

Just for that I'm going to make you the new hunter.  Say goodbye to your posh leatherworking gig.

[Rasix]

Current unit list:












I may be running into the same problems at Bhodi.  My site is fairly tame and the goblins haven't been back in force in a while. There's no magma, no underground river, and I'm having no luck finding adamantine.   I have huge, huge food stocks. I'm potentially siege proof if things go really sideways.

I'm thinking of starting a new fort in a more challenging area. Maybe a flat fortress with potential access to magma and underground rivers.

PS. You did die again, Trippy. 

[Slyfeind]

You totally misspelled my name. 

[Rasix]

That's it.  No more f13 dwarves. 

[Merusk]

F13: we can bitch about everything!

Leatherworker, eh. Awesome. Fitting females into tight animal skins! 

Your roster has gotten huge. I've never put up with the game long enough to have more than 15 dwarves, I'm impressed.

[Teleku]

I usually try to go for a haunted/sinister volcano (or at least have a magma pipe hidden in it somewhere) with Adamantine at the bottom.  And Chasm/bottomless pit/underground river as well if it can fit in.  You want all the features you can to fuck around with to make the game fun (just use the search tool on the world map).  Starting in a Sinister/haunted area makes for a good challenge, as EVERYTHING in the area is Undead (like, I had a dwarf swarmed and killed by a pack of Skeletal groundhogs), and then lots of unique monsters start coming out of the wood works to kill you.  Then, if you have areas like the chasm/pit/underground river/lake, you have areas you can try to get your army to clear out for fun and profit.  And have lots and lots of things to capture in cages and then feed things to.

At the very least, before you give up, just make sure you tunnel down and find the adamantine (if you chose to start with a site that has some) and just try to save yourself from THAT.  That is the big challenge right there.

[Ingmar]

Oh no I vanished! I was totally a wrestler in one of the earlier updates.

[Rasix]

That is puzzling. 

Anyhow, I think I'm going to start looking for a more interesting starting location.  Still going to keep this fortress going.  I think the elves are going to be warring me soon.

[Slayerik]

Na, I'll keep the cake job :)

[Lantyssa]

As Captain of the Guard, why am I in someone else's unit?  Shouldn't I be heading up my own?  Is it just an honorary title and something to keep me occupied?  Did I mouth off to the mayor?

[Rasix]

You're not.  Not sure what's giving you that impression.  The town has been pretty happy and there haven't been many instances where justice was served. There's only been two jail sentences (both military).

You do show up as belonging to a squad in the military screen, but all dwarves do (except for royal and fortress guard) until they're assigned to another squad.

[Lantyssa]

You're not.  Not sure what's giving you that impression.

The asterisk beside my name indicating I'm in someone else's unit and that there wasn't a list of dwarves under me.

DISCRIMINATION!  I'm contacting my dwarven lawyer and filing a Title VII complaint!  How can I properly abuse my station if I'm not heading up my own squad?

[Rasix]

I just checked and you actually can be activated into the military.  I don't know what would happen though if you were on active duty.  All semblance of law and order might vanish and the hammerer would just start dispensing justice on his own. 

[Lantyssa]

In my games I make the fortress guard their own squad.  I only active them if something is attacking and then I station them at points inside as a defensive measure.

[Slyfeind]

When I activate my guard, it turns them into soldiers, and then when I deactivate them it turns them into craftsdwarves and fishers and peasants again. Frustrating. So, I have my fortress guard, and then I have my military...which are drafted and rotated and they work in irregular shifts.

[Rasix]

I'm a firm believer in a standing army.  Once you're in, it's a life long commitment.  Well, unless you have a baby right before a siege, and you're a "redshirt".   I really never activate patrols unless I'm attacked.

[gryeyes]

I attempted to play this game. It did not go well at all.

[Lantyssa]

The failures actually make the most interesting fortresses.

[gryeyes]

I was nowhere near constructing a fortress. I failed on a far more basic level. As in i don't know wtf is going on. Just swamped in commands and mechanics i don't understand at all.

[grebo]

This is a good start.  Plenty more info in the wiki too.

[gryeyes]

Thanks that is exactly what i required.

[Rasix]

The tutorials on youtube (by captnduck) were some of the most help for me, even though his starting skill load out leaves something to be desired.   It was good for me to watch them, play for a bit, and then go back and rewatch specific ones with the first hand knowledge of what I was actually doing in game.   The wiki is also a  tremendous help throughout your playing.

And just try things to see how they actually work.  Drain a lake.  Try to construct a well.  Maybe make a death pit for captured goblins.  Build up your defenses.  Pave a road.

Some general advice:

1.  Make sure you keep your dwarves well stocked with booze.  In the same vein, always have a lot of barrels.

2.  Once you get your first set of migrants, it would be wise to start a small military squad.

3.  Use lot of traps.  They really mess up any incoming attacks.

4.  Save your shells (bones too, mostly for bolts).  It's a good idea to have a wide variety of crafting materials available for artifact creation.

5.  Keep your agriculture going even if you get a decent amount of hunter/fisher dwarves.  Hunters and fishery workers have almost the highest mortality rate of any dwarf.

6.  Start rock crafting industry soon, because that's almost the only way to realistically trade with the elves without pissing them off.