Custom Embark: Keep Out (skills help)

[The Knowledge Seeker]

My goal is to customize my embark so that my 7 dwarfs can safely build and thrive by themselves. I do not want to accept anyone, till the later years when I feel my base can accept "FUN!"

This is what I have come up with, and would like to know your suggestions for must have skills, especially if you have done something like this.

Embark Location:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3394697100

*Self Sufficient
*Will trade live animals to Elves
*Not accepting anyone

Starting Animals:
2 cats
4 dogs (turn 2 into war)
2 pigs
4 Blue pea's
2 Sheep

1. Easy Likes - Noble

4 Appraiser - Broker
(Analytical Ability, Memory, Intuition)

2 Diagnostician
(Analytical Ability, Memory, Intuition)

2 Suturer
(Agility, Focus, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

1 Discipline
1 Swimmer

2. Likes Steel

4 Armorsmith -->Metalsmith's Forge + Magma Forge
(Strength, Agility, Endruance, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

4 Stone Carver -->Stoneworker's Workshop
(Strength, Agility, Endurance, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

1 Discipline
1 Swimmer

3. Likes Platinum

4 Weaponsmith -->Metalsmith's Forge + Magma Forge
(Strength, Agility, Endurnace, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

4 Mechanic -->Mechanic's Workshop + Metalsmith's Forge
(Strength, Agility, Endurance, Analytical Ability, Creativity, Spatial Sense)

1 Discipline
1 Swimmer

4. Likes Gold/Woodaxe

4 Carpenter -->Carpenter's Workshop
(Strength, Agility, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

3 Axeman

1 Bone Carver -->Craftsdwarf's Workshop
(Agility, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

1 Discipline
1 Swimmer

5. Pickaxe

4 Miner
(Strength, Toughness, Endurance, Willpower, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

2 Surgeon
(Agility, Focus, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

2 Bone Doctor
(Strength, Agility, Focus, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

1 Discipline
1 Swimmer

6. Animals

3 Animal Trainer -->Vermin Catcher's Shop
(Agility, Toughness, Endurance, Intution, Patience, Empathy)

3 Herbalist
(Agility, Memory, Kinesthetic Sense)

2 Wound Dresser
(Agility, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense, Empathy)

1 Discipline
1 Swimmer

7. Crafting

4 Stone Crafter -->Craftsdwarf's Workshop
(Agility, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

4 Glassmaker -->Glass Furnace + Magma Glass Furnace
(Strength, Agility, Endurance, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

1 Discipline
1 Swimmer

[Sinclair]

I usually put Mechanic on one of my miners, as higher quality mechanisms improve weapon trap's to hit chance. You might also want to put Stonecutter on him to get better furniture.

If you are finding yourself missing a dwarf, consider combining Carpenter and Woodcutter.

Sheep are an alternative to llamas. They don't produce as much wool, but they give horn when butchered.

[The Knowledge Seeker]

@ Sinclair, Thank you, good point about getting horns with sheep, I will switch that out.

Mechanic and Stonecutter, yes, I need to have those skills, so I will make some adjustments to add those to the dwarfs.

Yeah, I am combining the woodcutter (not putting woodcutting skills though) with the Carpenter.

I will update the post after I look them up. Thank you again

[AlP]

While it's tempting to give skills to your woodcutter, it's actually the most exposed and risky dwarf. It's best to use the most expendable dwarves do woodcutting, not high-value artisans and engineers.

Also, you don't need a ranger, your seventh dwarf is completely useless.

[Saver Sigonith]

Hehe
I tried a couple versions of this challenge myself before, and can confirm it's doable with no skills on anyone and nothin' but a pick and anvil - so don't stress it too much ^.^
Add whatever skills sound neat and whatever equipment might be fun!

You'll end up with 7 near maxed-out dwarves by the end, so easily-trained skills like mining and planting are less valuable to bring than doctoring and metalworking. Consider maxing one doctor skill each on five different dwarves so they can train each other in a guild later. And if you spot anyone without item preferences (or whose item preference is like rings or doors that it's chill to mass-produce) load 'em up on social skills.

Sheep are a good edition~
I wouldn't bother with pigs. It's easy for animal populations to get out of control with only a handful of dwarves to haul butcher returns around. If you have spare points, hell, bring nice-colored wood and rocks!
Might as well have a pretty home, right?

[The Knowledge Seeker]

@AIP, I was hoping that the ranger skills would allow me to catch wild animals/vermin and have them fight for us. I also wanted to sell any unwanted animals to the Elves. Would this not be possible and do you have a good 10 points skill dwarf to suggest? I will put mechanic skill on another dwarf, thank you


@Saver Sigonith, Thank you! You set my mind a little at ease. I thought about the no skills start, since they do what they want anyways lol

Ok, a doctor 5 skill on each dwarf sounds interesting and a good strategy. I think I will work some skills around.

I am bringing pigs for indoors, and milk. I am thinking of bumping it up to 4 for the dogs so that I can have 2 turned into war dogs at the start.

I guess I should use the 5 Armorsmith and 5 Weaponsmith skills. Along with those, what would you suggest for skills to have wild animals on our side and protecting us? It would be a shame to not put the stream to some good use

[Saver Sigonith]

Oh, rangers don't catch wild animals - cage traps do :)
Make a wooden cage and a stone mechanism and construct it in the traps menu, and any animal that walks over that tile is caught and free for training. Stick some down at your entrances, and perhaps at pinch points in the caves to scoop up some nice friends and a useless hoard of crundles~

Animal trainer is the skill involved in that. It's pretty quick to practice especially with all the damn crundles so not too important to start with, but a few points are nice if you managed to catch a couple crocodiles.
Try making some cage traps at the corners of your animal pens too if you keep partly-trained animals in there, just in case they go feral. If you have a spare dwarf, maybe warrior skills would be good?

(A no nothin' start is actually possible too - but rather boring as you just wait around for the caravan for a few months eating leaves off the floor :P
The anvil and pick were for a caravanless glacier start. So aye, don't fret a bit you're golden.)

[Other]

If you can reduce some other skills, you might want to consider 1-2 points of Swimmer and Discipline on each dwarf. Since you can't afford to lose anyone for the first 20 years or so (when you hopefully start getting grown children), you definitely don't want anyone to drown. For the same reason, I would mark Fishing, Hunting, and Woodcutting as "no one does this" before even unpausing at embark (you might use woodcutting if there are trees in the way of a surface building, not for logs, and the others are just too dangerous when you have no migrants coming in as replacements).

Don't neglect humans as a source of animals. Elves usually have enough choices (and a low caravan weight, since they never have wagons) that getting a breeding pair of anything is very difficult. Humans, on the other hand, don't have so many choices, but still have some nice things like grizzly bears (which are war-trainable). Humans also have a trade representative at least sometimes (so you can order a breeding pair of anything they have tamed), while I don't think I've ever seen a trade rep for the elves. I'm not sure if you will see a trade rep even if the human civ has, them though, since the times I've seen them I've always had nobles, and the default settings require 20 pop to get a baron (you can get the king through "a polite discussion with rivals" earlier than that, including the first day after embark if your civ is dead or dying).

You have quite a few skills selected that are trivial to train, affect only the speed of the relevant job, or produce useless products (these comments are colored by my preferences, and you can train any skill just by using it, so don't worry too much about anything you disagree with)
1) everything noble - Record keeping and Organizer are trivial to train; I'd switch the points into appraiser, which is very slow. This dwarf should be selected for their preferences rather than stats (no mandates is ideal, but anything easy will do)
2) doctor - I'm dubious about the value of medical skills at embark, but since you can't replace people, fixing them is better than nothing.
3) farmer - brewer only affects speed, since alcohol has no quality. I'd swap that skill for herbalism 5, since bigger plant stacks from gathering is a much better deal. If you are living just under the surface, gathering might even end up as your primary food source.
4) craftdwarf - both skills produce mostly trade goods, and are easy to train. I could see one point of bonecarving if you expect to have a lot of bones, but otherwise I would substitute almost anything else. Glassworking is probably a good fit for your plan even if you need to import all your sand, since otherwise you will be selling the elves tons of metal cages (both for the quantity, and the weight ...).I see you have sand on your embark, so it is even better. An animal-focused fort will probably be swimming in food even more than usual, so cooking the food & selling high-value meals would also be easy ... but the value of prepared meals is high enough some folks consider it an exploit.
5) miner - if you take glassworking somewhere, gemcutting is easy to train. It is worth keeping if you don't have an easy source of glass to cut, though. If you decide to bring a soldier to get your military up and running faster, I would use this fellow, since Mining is a weapon skill.
6) "woodcutter" - I would turn off woodcutting unless I needed to get a tree out of the way of a building, but the skills of Carpenter & Mechanic are good. Both are moodable skills, so you may want to consider splitting them up; it won't matter until you have 20 dwarves, though (which is one of the triggers for artifacts).
7) "ranger" - for an animal-related fort, I could see taking animal training, but trapper is just bad. The only thing trapper does is get you vermin ... and vermin are awful even for their "best" use (probably as pets if you have a dwarf with a relevant preference, and no one who hates the same vermin).

You've already noted Weaponsmith & Armorsmith as skills it might be worth fitting in somewhere, since they are slow & expensive to train. You might also consider adding some military skills to one dwarf so you can use them as a seed to get military training going faster. With only seven dwarves you probably can't afford a full-time military, but at the same time good defensive skills might make the difference between one of your dwarves surviving a fight vs dying, so one or two months of training a year for two dwarves might be useful.

Bags of sand are only 1 point at embark, and Bituminous coal is only 3, so 11 embark points for 1 coal and 8 sand will get you 8 glassworking jobs right away (you do need one refined coal or charcoal for 10 points to kickstart the fuel smelting if you want to do this right at embark, though). Glass is magma-safe, can make all three pump parts, and the terrarium is Elf-friendly as long as you use green glass. The cheapest magma-safe minecart is nickel - 1 garnierite is 6 points, and will make 2 carts if you add three fuel; conveniently, 2 carts of magma is enough to power one magma forge or furnace.

[The Knowledge Seeker]

Thank you both very much! I have adjusted according to all the suggestions. I will work on it some more, cause I have a few points available. I just thought I would update the possible changes.

1.............. Noble
4 Appraiser - Broker
(Analytical Ability, Memory, Intuition)

4 Herbalist
(Agility, Memory, Kinesthetic Sense)

2 Diagnostician
(Analytical Ability, Memory, Intuition)


2............... Likes Steel
5 Armorsmith -->Metalsmith's Forge + Magma Forge
(Strength, Agility, Endruance, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

5 Stone Carver -->Stoneworker's Workshop
(Strength, Agility, Endurance, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)


3.................. Likes Platinum
5 Weaponsmith -->Metalsmith's Forge + Magma Forge
(Strength, Agility, Endurnace, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

4 Stone Crafter -->Craftsdwarf's Workshop
(Agility, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

1 Bone Carver -->Craftsdwarf's Workshop
(Agility, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)


4................ Likes Gold
5 Carpenter -->Carpenter's Workshop
(Strength, Agility, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

5 Glassmaker -->Glass Furnace + Magma Glass Furnace
(Strength, Agility, Endurance, Creativity, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)



5...............Scholar (belief in knowledge, curious, inclined to abstract thought)
5 Mechanic -->Mechanic's Workshop + Metalsmith's Forge
(Strength, Agility, Endurance, Analytical Ability, Creativity, Spatial Sense)

2 Surgeon
(Agility, Focus, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

2 Suturer
(Agility, Focus, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)


6.....................Pickaxe
5 Miner
(Strength, Toughness, Endurance, Willpower, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)

2 Bone Doctor
(Strength, Agility, Focus, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense)


7...............Animals
5 Animal Trainer -->Vermin Catcher's Shop
(Agility, Toughness, Endurance, Intution, Patience, Empathy)

2 Wound Dresser
(Agility, Spatial Sense, Kinesthetic Sense, Empathy)

2 Discipline

1 Swimmer

[The Knowledge Seeker]

I updated the post according to suggestions. This makes more sense to me, so thank you everyone for your help

I had tested this embark location before, and know a little of the resources available and the layout. I really wanted to work with it for the "rags to riches" play style. I didn't want to start off with putting myself into a corner so soon. Please feel free to make further suggestions, if you have any.

[RadCon One]

Although it is tempting to want to have dwarves with day-to-day skills, it is actually much more beneficial to give them mostly military/combat focused skills with at least 1 doctor, as those are the skills most necessary to not die, and that can't be as safely "grinded" unlike most others.

Craft skills in particular aren't going to be of much use to you in such a run, on the contrary they will be a detriment generating too much value.

Your miners will still mine, your farmers still farm, and so on and so forth in such a way that will still be good enough even without elevated starting skills.

[Saver Sigonith]

Yeah, I agree that taking skills almost just off what's hard to train is sensible - but also eh don't overthink it too much.
At this point, just start the dang thing and see how it goes ^.^
Worst that happens is you learn a ton and try again, right? Remember to name the town something silly!