Best dwarf fortress guides for a complete beginner?

[Alexalmighty]

Hey everyone,

I've been very excited for this steam release however I've become impatient (I'm not mad at the devs I know that these things take time.) and would like to try out classic dwarf fortress. However, every time I load it up and generate a world I never know what to do.

Are there any well known beginner and intermediate guides? (text+image based preferred over video guides)

Is there also a cheat sheet for the most important key-binds? (preferably image based so I can print it out)

[Nova Solarius]

I would recommend the wiki for pure text: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Quickstart_guide

Alternatively, Peridexis has a pretty good tutorial: https://df-walkthrough.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

When I first got into the game, I played along with a short video made by Kruggsmash, so I'm linking that as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTeQJOC1H38

As for keybinds, you literally have all the available keybinds on screen in classic. No need to print anything.

[clinodev]

For an up to date new player tutorial, I'm recommending SalfordSal's YouTube series. It walks you through the download and settings for the most popular Windows Pack, and she's a joy to listen to. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5-Ab4ta4zm9benUlfb5_vJXNTChfBll2

[MSA75]

DasTactic has a fairly recent new players guide for PeridexisErrant's Starter Pack (from September 2020):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuyQhtwQHF4

[Skinny Pete]

I really liked Getting Started With Dwarf Fortress by Peter Tyson. It has an entire chapter that takes you through from worldgen to embark to having a semi-functional fortress, checklists suggesting other advantageous things to do, and a generally solid overview of every major aspect of the game. It's a bit out of date being from 2012 but the basics haven't changed enormously since then.

After that you should be equipped to be able to use the Wiki. While the Wiki is immensely useful it isn't that useful until you know what to look for on it.

[clinodev]

It's worth noting that the Peter Tyson book was outdated when it was printed, referring to a March 2011 version with only a handful of corrections, ending in 2014. Our present dwarves would be very unhappy in those forts. I'm glad to have it on my shelf but I'd never recommend it to a new player.

The wiki, though, that's required reading for sure!

[Nebber01]

Originally posted by clinodev:

For an up to date new player tutorial, I'm recommending SalfordSal's YouTube series. It walks you through the download and settings for the most popular Windows Pack, and she's a joy to listen to.

While i found her very informative and easy on the ears myself, the whole mapping out your fort thing was waaaaay outside my understanding of the game. I would've preferred her to show more on just basics like which workshops and why placement is ideal and how stockpiles work. Instead i found myself constantly shaking my head and shouting "That's too complicated for a brand new player". Z-Levels are hard enough to understand without trying to map out your whole fort before digging.
Just my opinion. Also her voice was putting me to sleep at times lol.

[Nova Solarius]

Originally posted by Nebber01:

Originally posted by clinodev:

For an up to date new player tutorial, I'm recommending SalfordSal's YouTube series. It walks you through the download and settings for the most popular Windows Pack, and she's a joy to listen to.

While i found her very informative and easy on the ears myself, the whole mapping out your fort thing was waaaaay outside my understanding of the game. I would've preferred her to show more on just basics like which workshops and why placement is ideal and how stockpiles work. Instead i found myself constantly shaking my head and shouting "That's too complicated for a brand new player". Z-Levels are hard enough to understand without trying to map out your whole fort before digging.
Just my opinion. Also her voice was putting me to sleep at times lol.

Frankly, you should probably start by just playing a few games yourself once you have the basics down. There's no teacher quite like experience. Play, experiment, get familiar with the way it works. Once you can manage a simple multi-level fort, you can start worrying about optimizing your layouts and planning the fort ahead of time.

If you DON'T have a decent grasp on the basics, I still maintain that playing along with Krugg's crash course is the best way of learning. Sal is great at providing an in-depth understanding of the game, but I find her videos poorly-suited as an actual tutorial, precisely because of their depth and length. Unlike Sal, Krugg doesn't go into anywhere near as much detail. Instead, he provides everything you absolutely need to know to start in a quick half-hour primer. Krugg also provides drawings for a number of things, which I personally found very helpful for visualizing stuff like Z-levels.

[Teemo]

Originally posted by Nova Solarius:

Originally posted by Nebber01:

While i found her very informative and easy on the ears myself, the whole mapping out your fort thing was waaaaay outside my understanding of the game. I would've preferred her to show more on just basics like which workshops and why placement is ideal and how stockpiles work. Instead i found myself constantly shaking my head and shouting "That's too complicated for a brand new player". Z-Levels are hard enough to understand without trying to map out your whole fort before digging.
Just my opinion. Also her voice was putting me to sleep at times lol.

Frankly, you should probably start by just playing a few games yourself once you have the basics down. There's no teacher quite like experience. Play, experiment, get familiar with the way it works. Once you can manage a simple multi-level fort, you can start worrying about optimizing your layouts and planning the fort ahead of time.

If you DON'T have a decent grasp on the basics, I still maintain that playing along with Krugg's crash course is the best way of learning. Sal is great at providing an in-depth understanding of the game, but I find her videos poorly-suited as an actual tutorial, precisely because of their depth and length. Unlike Sal, Krugg doesn't go into anywhere near as much detail. Instead, he provides everything you absolutely need to know to start in a quick half-hour primer. Krugg also provides drawings for a number of things, which I personally found very helpful for visualizing stuff like Z-levels.

This is how I learned, it works really well. I mostly learned from the wiki, and what I would do is read a lot about a specific aspect, then play a couple forts focusing mostly on that aspect till i got a handle on it. As you learn more and more aspects you do also fine tune those previous aspects you already learned.

[Alexalmighty]

Guys I consider myself proficient in DF now lol

[Teemo]

answers to this question are still good for other people to read.

[Alexalmighty]

Originally posted by Teemo:

answers to this question are still good for other people to read.

while this may be true odds are in the close future most people will be looking for tutorials for the steam version rather then the free version and while they're similiar they certainly wont have the same ui so guides for the free version might cause them to get even more confused

[LaChouette]

Originally posted by Alexalmighty502:

Originally posted by Teemo:

answers to this question are still good for other people to read.

while this may be true odds are in the close future most people will be looking for tutorials for the steam version rather then the free version and while they're similiar they certainly wont have the same ui so guides for the free version might cause them to get even more confused

Guide: press bsduyfeqiuofhfbsdfqd to access the mcguffin menu
New player: presses bsduyfeqiuofhfbsdfqd
Game: drowns new player's fortress in lava

[mwirkk]

Originally posted by Teemo:

answers to this question are still good for other people to read.

Good thought! Your optimism is inspiring. :)
But most people will just start a new topic in the forum to ask their questions. Most people don't bother to search the vastness of the wisdom already passed along before them here or elsewhere anyway. :\

[Lokked]

Captain Duck's YouTube videos are slightly outdated, but the mechanics and menu hasn't changed a whole lot, and his starting strategy will give you a very general overview of the key components you need to not die in Year 1.