GETTING STARTED!!! [TIPS PLZ] :)

[MAHツ]

New to the game and having a good time so far. Not much of a tutorial but it is coming along pretty well.

So any vets out there have a few tips, hints or suggestions to help get this party started a litTle smoother?

Appreciate it in advance :)

========================================
*UPDATED:

TY, to all for the wonderful tips here, keep them coming for other players to enjoy aswell.

[Banzai]

1) You can speed up or slow down time by using F1-F3.

2) Craft faster by double clicking to fill in multiple of a particular item. Select crafting design, then drag an item like wood onto the grid and drop it in a wood slot. Double click the wood you just dropped and it will fill in any remaining slots of the same type.

3) Manually control dwarves to allow you to place items without going back to base for the required supplies. Ie- placing ladders or dirt etc.

4) Never let dwarves stand around doing nothing. If you see a bunch of guys just hanging out in the base, tell them to go harvest a tree or some stone etc. Games are long enough without wasting time, and you just might need that extra resource in an emergency.

5) Always be hunting. Killing snails, sheep, boars.... they all drop useful stuff. They all spawn in an "AI pool" so killing creatures allow more creatures to spawn. No sheep but you need wool? Kill a bunch of snails, and a sheep will probably spawn.

[ReneMiner]

It's still a hassle but good planning is the key:

Cut 2 full-grown trees near your stockpile for wood, thereafter get your very first stones from the graveyards. Scan the map while cutting the first trees and collecting the wood, check out how many graves and where the hills are.

Use portal spell- but only have 1 portal at once, wait until jobs are done before opening another portal!
Use manual control-mode to destroy the graves with your miner-dwarf (if have one) and let the others do jobs nearby as collecting and maybe cutting a tree or bush or dig some sand or just flatten terrain nearby. Don't let them destroy graves on their own nor let others work close to some gravestone that is about to be destroyed - else they would have to start all over again when the gravestone is done...
Craft stone-pickaxes from the grave-stones and equip your dwarves with as soon as possible.

Give them other dwarves orders using right-click while you're controlling the mining-dwarf. (Hunt a sheep on the first day if in sandbox-mode and make ropes & bow)

Graveyards should be destroyed until dusk and don't bother about your stockpile nor totems for the first 3 days. Avoid being near the stockpile during the night and avoid killing/meeting the ghosts or zombies if possible. Just place 2 blocks high stones left and right of your stockpile.
Don't craft anything but pickaxes and clubs/simple bows maybe.
DO NOT HUNT SNAILS! Avoid gaining XP in the beginning.

Go to the mountains and collect stones then and start to build the outer walls around your stockpile while also mining stone from the hills. Place stones in direct control so you don't need any ladders for the top-row.
Don't bother placing backwalls now but just the outer walls as very first.
Equip new joining dwarves with pickaxes instantly! Use the miner- & logger-books instantly if found, but save the other books.

As soon as you have 100 to 120 stones you might be on day 4 close to level 5 or 6 already. Perhaps you have a few coins- buy a good axe (steel or silver) and equip a logger.
Focus now on collecting some more wood - cut trees in manual-control-mode - while other dwarves collect the wood. Hunt some meat (no chickens yet!) and begin to place backwalls in your shelter, dirt will serve too if you're short on stones.
Place a table, put a few cones and apples onto.
When goblins appear you should be done with outer walls, now place missing backwalls and a totem. Don't do this manually now so you get your dwarves inside the future shelter.
Place 1 or maybe 2 beds for your most injured dwarves to recover if necessary.
Thicken your outer walls now from the inside using manual control mode: You can build stones on the outside through the walls from the inside!
Have at least 3 or better 4 layers of stone-walls all around your base now. Equip all dwarves with clubs or simple bows and hunt some boar if you don't have bones- go for the magic-light-spell and now you might kill a snail...

Gametime should be 25 to 30 minutes by now, still around 15 to 25 minutes left until the first wave, you should have some (at least 120 to 150) wood and some meat in stock, now go for kitchen(coal, kettle) & workbench (nails/boards->buckets= WATER) and start digging a little for resources and create some space below stockpile to work and sleep.

Plant grains underground! Wheat is not only a food-source but also prevents spiders etc. from spawning, so it keeps your main-tunnels clear before you can build rails there.

If you go that pace and stay focussed you'll make it to dig yourself in long before the first wave, stay inside until you have steel swords/longbows and at least leather armor before you build doors, open them and wipe out the goblins.
In the meantime only use portal-spell to get out for hunting, logging or gathering water.

Do not destroy the goblins tent before the second wave, do not open chests in tombs and caves before you don't have made a little progress in tech-tree or before you crafted maybe workshop in sandbox-mode: the droppings depend on the items you can craft already...
Feed preferred cones & mixed greens salad, later also bread to save coal.

After goblins camp destroyed make some longer excursions and collect more stones to enlarge your house.

[Banzai]

I'm curious why you're so specific about not progressing XP wise at the beginning. Generally I level up quick so I have more dwarves to gather resources. I've noticed that after a certain point the enemy waves start spawning, but I don't seem to have much trouble dealing with them. What are the triggers for higher difficulty stuff you seem to be avoiding?

[ReneMiner]

Consider this:

Enemies as goblins appear at level 5 in campaign or 6 in custom game so at a certain XP. The slower you gain XP the more stones you can collect before the enemies appear.


Mining 1 stone gives 2 XP.
Placing a stone gives 4 XP

Crafting some item gives 6 XP

If you craft 1 item you can mine & place 1 stone less.

Killing a snail/ghost gives you 50 XP!

If you kill 1 snail/ghost you can collect 25 stones less.
If you kill 2 of them you can place 25 stones less...

The earlier you have more dwarves, the earlier you'll need more food.

[Banzai]

Hmm, maybe it's because I build a base underground almost immediately. Mining doubles as base building for me. I don't have a big need for stone right away. Still interesting, thanks for the info.

[bauerbach]

I dig a shaft straight down 1 block over from the stockpile... each level is 3stories including the ground.

first 2 levelsI only dig out a little , 15-20 blocks each way. thats where beds and other stuff will go. put hatches to "wall" it off so it can be enclosed. I put a top level at ground level later for easy exit and a fighting point.



once you have 4-5 levels below your home, you just start mining sideways. As each mine can only accommodate 1 dwarf (1 exposed block to be mined), the 4-5 levels, each going left or right gives spots for 8-10 dwarfs. After a while you can dig down and start new levels rather than keep going horizontal up top.

dig each level only 1 block tall unless theres a resource in the 2nd layer. replace resources in the ground blocks with dirt, keeps your walkway in place and gets your resources. If you dig into a void, build the walkway, bonus points if you take control of a dwarf so you can do it without a million trips back to the surface.

thats my mining strategy. As pathing is pretty weak, random digging wherever you might see some resources tends to go very slow as dwarfs leave blocks undiggable, and fall all over the place needing to sleep to heal.

kill animals and trees whenever you need, avoid using berries for food. They are a very scarce resource, and very necessary for oil and paint among other things.

IMO make every dwarf a melee swordsman. Archers and mages just dont do much for damage, and they avoid tanking which puts the pressure on the remaining swordsman. fill another skill slot with miner skill IMO. all the rest of the skills, meh.

Easy mode, craft till you get the explosion spell, when you find a portal room, blow the boss up.

[MAHツ]

This stuff is all so helpful. I appreciate EVRYONE of you alls time. THANK YOU GREATLY :)

Any more TIPS ??

[Banzai]

Originally posted by Hempy Do'Herben:

Any more TIPS ??

1) Build one bed for each dwarf as soon as you can, so they can heal up after fights. Each dwarf takes ownership of a bed, they won't share.
2) Build a table and place it near the beds, then place food on the table so they can eat
3) Different kinds of trees drop different secondary items (other than wood) when cut down, learn which ones drop what stuff you can log more tactically. Need green leaves? There's a specific tree that drops that, while others won't.

And it seems like Bauer and myself use very similar strategies. :)

[MAHツ]

Originally posted by bauerbach:

avoid using berries for food. They are a very scarce resource, and very necessary for oil and paint among other things.

Ty, for this tip.

[✿⊱oLadyGamer⊰✿]

Originally posted by Hempy Do'Herben:

Originally posted by bauerbach:

avoid using berries for food. They are a very scarce resource, and very necessary for oil and paint among other things.

Yes I found this out the hard way. Been buying then with the gold coins I find. Berries also good for tea, which like the beer, Dwarves love, makes them go A LOT faster :)

[MAHツ]

So KILL SNAILS or DON'T?

[ReneMiner]

Just avoid gaining XP before your shelter is done

[LiketheShore&theSea]

Wow, I just got the game in the 50% off sale, and my experience has been that it's not nearly hard enough to warrant all those special precautions in the early-to-mid-game. I left all the grave stones intact and didn't do much besides gear up as fast as I could. As long as you have an intact shelter with beds that you can send your dwarves to if they get down to one heart in a fight, ur good to go (and keep them from getting trapped to their death between enemies in their dwarven panic to escape, lol).

It feels like it's been much harder late game though, as I prolly haven't been keeping the necessary upgrade pace perhaps? I have all my guys kitted in full steel gear, and a few purchased mithril weapons, have hit 13 gnomes a short whlie ago (I think it's gonna be a loooong wait for 14, rofl), and aim to unlock silver gear fairly quickly. The waves are getting much more brutal now. So many more in total, and many more beefier units. It seems like the enemy portal doesn't stop pumping enemies until the sun shines the following day, also.

The ridiculously slow pace of the construction process in this game hasn't been helping either. It's an amazingly stable and polished game for an early access game on Steam (Hurrah, GJ Devs. Lovin your game thus far!), but it still requires some tweaking and fixes. It doesn't make sense to me that your dwarves can haul 3 or 4 building tiles to drop off at the resource pile, but they can only carry 1 tile @ a time to place during a build order? It makes construction retarded (construction-challenged, literally and figuratively lol) and inhibits experimentation in building ur base, which has to happen to some extent the first time u build one anyway, uggh.

Berries seem to be too rare as well. I almost always get trees on grass tile regrowth. Kind of a bummer as so many recipes rely on berries. I kinda want to keep my dwarves tipsy, as I'm sure they'd like too (better be careful on them scaffolds in the dark mines of moria lol), but my dwindling berry supply is making that impossible, poor denied sods. Just doesn't seem right... ;)

Wouldn't it make more sense for them to use the grain to make their alcoholic beverage of choice anyway? After all, it's beer they're brewing, not fruit for wine, etc. Save the berries for their herbal tea, lol.

[ReneMiner]

One more tip for upground-landscaping:
I flatten almost all the terrain- flats are easier to defend and my dwarves are faster if collecting stuff etc.
I make "natural steps" & ladders (like in image below) every 30 to 40 blocks on surface and the ladder-side always points to my door while the steps-side points away from my entrance. That makes animals come closer to my doors and unable to flee too far again.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=251887677

And for the berries: leave always one bush left- then new bushes will spawn close to it- berries are most important for later game to make life-potions. Don't waste them on oil, paint or tea. Don't fry fish, make prefereable slime-torches and save the resin for arrows and life-potions

And: ladders are the better bridges.
Try out and build ladders where you would usually think of a bridge.

[bauerbach]

I tried the bush thing before... I left berry bushes alone for hours, clearing only trees to make sure the land around it was open for new bushes. Not one, not a single case of a bush popping next to another bush, infact only after killing a bush did a new one ever spawn. My single case may not prove the rule, but that was my experience. Each time I clear cut a forest, a bush or 2 would pop up all on its own though.

Snow world makes berries more available anyway.