Prepare Carefully proper skill distribution.

[CodyProductions]

Not really sure where to ask this but does anybody know how to properly distribute skill points in prepare carefully? I've just been giving my dwarves 2 points in each skill I believe they should have but I'm not sure if that'll ♥♥♥♥ me over later in the game.

[Erei]

Depends mostly on your embark (a glassmaker is useless without sand, a woodcutter will not be useful for a while on a glacier....), and what you want to do.

Assuming generic embark, I mix what I need early and what I need in the future that I may not get in migrant wave.
(immediate need)
-1miner
-1woodcutter
(future)
-1armorsmith
-1weaponsmith
-1engraver
(both)
-1carpenter (beds and stuff)
-1stonecarver (rock furnitures)

you can then add another skill line (enough for 2). So I add :
-a medical oriented dude
-a broker dude (appraise, persuader)

You can also make a military dude if you wnat to. I wouldn't stress it unless you got a combat heavy embark (like evil biome, savage place).

Every profession that doesn't make quality is irrelevant for skill IMO (like planter, stonecutter....).
Also, manager and book keeper both ahve a skill, but it doesn't affect their job and can be safely skipped.

[Stealthkibbler]

Originally posted by Jetrel:

Worth taking for sure then. Only problem is I wouldnt know who to put it on lol. Might be able to just make a mod for them to hold tactics demonstrations.

I would love for a mod that lets me establish a 'military' guild like how we can establish a 'doctor' guild that can train all medical skills, but considering soldiers are only given their jobs on duty it might be more difficult to get it working.

[Jetrel]

Yeah. Id just make it a part of standard training. Ill ask around the bay12 forums and see if its possible.

[Erei]

Originally posted by Stealthkibbler:

Originally posted by Jetrel:

Worth taking for sure then. Only problem is I wouldnt know who to put it on lol. Might be able to just make a mod for them to hold tactics demonstrations.

I would love for a mod that lets me establish a 'military' guild like how we can establish a 'doctor' guild that can train all medical skills, but considering soldiers are only given their jobs on duty it might be more difficult to get it working.

Soldier on training duty are basically doing what guild does. One guy will do a demonstration and the other learn from it. If you have people in the same room, they may watch and learn to (like in guilds).
Some people put toys and such in barracks for the kids to learn how to fight. I will not enter a moral debate about the ethic of it though :D

[Jetrel]

Lol in games like this i throw ethics out the window. My dwarves like their dorf child skin socks.

[Grimmrog_SIG]

Originally posted by Haethei:

It's not very important. You can do fine if you assign them literally no skills at all, it's just inefficient

It's really up to you. I prefer to start with 3 dwarves that have 10 mining because mining out the fort takes a while when you only have 1 or 2 miners at lower skill level, and my other dwarves are usually sitting around waiting for them to finish mining out their work areas

some other important ones are at least 1 planter (farmer), someone with a point or two in Appraiser + Record Keeping, at least one stoneworker and at least one woodworker. can also start with a combat dwarf etc

Just my example
3 miners, with Mining 10 + Swimming 7 + Dodging 8
1 Stoneworker, with Stone Cutting 10 + Stone Carving 10
1 woodworker, with Carpentry 10 + Wood Cutting 10
1 farmer, with Planting 10 + Brewing 8 + Cooking 7
1 administrator, with Appraiser 7 + Record Keeper 8 + Mechanic 8

this seems to be fishy, as dwaves without mod shouldn't be able to start with any skill above 5.

[Rainbow Jeremy]

On Steam version (so 5 cap but free embark skills) I always look through personality for preferences for materials likely to come up or be useful, then attributes to decide with those two factors who is what. I make my 2 most otherwise useless dwarves have some mining skill, give both of my miners 1 wepsmith skill in case they mood. Then a proficient carpenter for quick good feels furniture/cook and a planter. My 2 miners get some minor combat skills. I bring 3 copper picks despite only bringing 2 miners to cycle the third one out until I can make more or get a better mining migrant but 2 is enough to get everything inside fast imo. The dwarf with the best social skills and empathy is my manager/bookkeeper/expedition leader with record keeping and comedian/flatterer/consoler/pacifier and their only job is typically keeping dwarves sane. I make a dedicated appraiser/negotiator/judge of intent dwarf the broker and they often brew (but no points at embark.)
Maybe more specified stuff for some embarks, it's not perfect but I have had a good time setting up and I always get swamped by legendary crafting migrants somehow. Right now all of my trading is just food since it is still totally busted when you repeatedly make masterful lavish meals, so I ignore gems on embark etc. Similarly insane food prices make buying out caravans of everything else really easy too, I'm even on economy hard settings lol.

[Haethei]

Originally posted by mr_pan7s:

Originally posted by Haethei:

It's not very important. You can do fine if you assign them literally no skills at all, it's just inefficient

It's really up to you. I prefer to start with 3 dwarves that have 10 mining because mining out the fort takes a while when you only have 1 or 2 miners at lower skill level, and my other dwarves are usually sitting around waiting for them to finish mining out their work areas

some other important ones are at least 1 planter (farmer), someone with a point or two in Appraiser + Record Keeping, at least one stoneworker and at least one woodworker. can also start with a combat dwarf etc

Just my example
3 miners, with Mining 10 + Swimming 7 + Dodging 8
1 Stoneworker, with Stone Cutting 10 + Stone Carving 10
1 woodworker, with Carpentry 10 + Wood Cutting 10
1 farmer, with Planting 10 + Brewing 8 + Cooking 7
1 administrator, with Appraiser 7 + Record Keeper 8 + Mechanic 8

in the steam version you can't put a skill past 5 but they don't count towards your points. each dwarf just gets 10 total 5 in one thing max. if there is something i missed though i would love to have a dwarf start with 25 points.

I will say what others are saying though. the starting dwarves aren't that important as far as skill allocation goes. i would say having a few miners a woodcutter and someone with social skills for expedition leader otherwise you will more then likely get dwarves better in all these things or easily improve them on other dwarves

Ah, I'm more used to the ASCII version of DF where the skill screen shows 5 as "no skill" and you can raise them to 10. It's the same thing, they just start at 0 instead of 5 now?

When I say '10 mining + 7 swimming + 8 dodging" they actually only spent a total of 10 points because each of those skills started at 5 already

[Haethei]

Originally posted by Grimmrog_SIG:

Originally posted by Haethei:

It's not very important. You can do fine if you assign them literally no skills at all, it's just inefficient

It's really up to you. I prefer to start with 3 dwarves that have 10 mining because mining out the fort takes a while when you only have 1 or 2 miners at lower skill level, and my other dwarves are usually sitting around waiting for them to finish mining out their work areas

some other important ones are at least 1 planter (farmer), someone with a point or two in Appraiser + Record Keeping, at least one stoneworker and at least one woodworker. can also start with a combat dwarf etc

Just my example
3 miners, with Mining 10 + Swimming 7 + Dodging 8
1 Stoneworker, with Stone Cutting 10 + Stone Carving 10
1 woodworker, with Carpentry 10 + Wood Cutting 10
1 farmer, with Planting 10 + Brewing 8 + Cooking 7
1 administrator, with Appraiser 7 + Record Keeper 8 + Mechanic 8

this seems to be fishy, as dwaves without mod shouldn't be able to start with any skill above 5.

I'm used to the older version of DF where all skills at "zero" were listed as 5 in preparation screen

10 mining + 7 swimming + 8 dodging is a total of 10 points spent, the equivalent for new DF would be 5 mining + 2 swimming + 3 dodging

[NimrodX]

I tried to come up with a "best noob skills" set I could think of for the guide, but it's kind of impossible to nail down exactly what the best skill selection is for starting since it always partially depends on 1) what you prefer to focus on and 2) what is on your map.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2899235556

Like some people might want to just polish stones and not make mugs and ignore stonecrafting in favor of gem cutting or something.

Brewer can be sacrificed for something else because it's speed and not quality.

Some points of the broker skills could be sacrificed for something else like pacifier and consoler, or craft skills.

Miner could be sacrificed in safer situations since that's speed only and will skill up fast.

Doctor skills could be sacrificed and you could just hope you end up with a migrant with those skills before you get any wounded.

etc.

If anyone can think of any improvements to my "noob starting skills" suggestion that would be more optimal then let me know in guide comments or here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/dfmwf

[Grimmrog_SIG]

Originally posted by NimrodX:

I tried to come up with a "best noob skills" set I could think of for the guide, but it's kind of impossible to nail down exactly what the best skill selection is for starting since it always partially depends on 1) what you prefer to focus on and 2) what is on your map.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2899235556

Like some people might want to just polish stones and not make mugs and ignore stonecrafting in favor of gem cutting or something.

Brewer can be sacrificed for something else because it's speed and not quality.

Some points of the broker skills could be sacrificed for something else like pacifier and consoler, or craft skills.

Miner could be sacrificed in safer situations since that's speed only and will skill up fast.

Doctor skills could be sacrificed and you could just hope you end up with a migrant with those skills before you get any wounded.

etc.

If anyone can think of any improvements to my "noob starting skills" suggestion that would be more optimal then let me know in guide comments or here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/dfmwf

does mining in the steam version not also determine the chance to generate ore/stone?

[Haethei]

Originally posted by Grimmrog_SIG:

does mining in the steam version not also determine the chance to generate ore/stone?

Nope, only digging speed. Stones have a 25% chance to drop boulders, veins have a 33% chance to drop ore and small clusters (like gems) have a 100% chance

[High Lord Denix]

Originally posted by Grimmrog_SIG:

Originally posted by NimrodX:

I tried to come up with a "best noob skills" set I could think of for the guide, but it's kind of impossible to nail down exactly what the best skill selection is for starting since it always partially depends on 1) what you prefer to focus on and 2) what is on your map.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2899235556

Like some people might want to just polish stones and not make mugs and ignore stonecrafting in favor of gem cutting or something.

Brewer can be sacrificed for something else because it's speed and not quality.

Some points of the broker skills could be sacrificed for something else like pacifier and consoler, or craft skills.

Miner could be sacrificed in safer situations since that's speed only and will skill up fast.

Doctor skills could be sacrificed and you could just hope you end up with a migrant with those skills before you get any wounded.

etc.

If anyone can think of any improvements to my "noob starting skills" suggestion that would be more optimal then let me know in guide comments or here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/dfmwf

does mining in the steam version not also determine the chance to generate ore/stone?

That was taken out of the game like 10 years ago.

[Sinclair]

Originally posted by Haethei:

Originally posted by Grimmrog_SIG:

this seems to be fishy, as dwaves without mod shouldn't be able to start with any skill above 5.

I'm used to the older version of DF where all skills at "zero" were listed as 5 in preparation screen

This was not the skill level, but the cost. So you had to pay 5 points to rise the skill from none to dabbling, 6 to rise it from dabbling to the next level, and so on.

I usually start with:

1 Miner/Mechanic
1 Miner (need to think of something else they can do)
1 Mason (now Mason/Stonecarver)
1 Planter/Herbalist
1 Brewer/Cook
1 Appriser/Medic
1 Carpenter/Woodcutter/Woodcrafter

[Haethei]

Originally posted by Sinclair:

I usually start with:

1 Miner/Mechanic
1 Miner (need to think of something else they can do)
1 Mason (now Mason/Stonecarver)
1 Planter/Herbalist
1 Brewer/Cook
1 Appriser/Medic
1 Carpenter/Woodcutter/Woodcrafter

I like to give my miners some points in dodging and swimming so they can defend themselves a little better from common threats that miners can face. Optionally trade swimming for fighting so they're like a backup militia (since mining counts as a weapon skill with their picks)