My Lazy Guide to Surviving the first year of Dwarf Fortress

I have finals this week. But I have been playing this game for 4 years almost every day, so I want to give a few macro pointers for new people, I put 10 minutes into this guide and no more.

i dont care about section titles

First things first, just go to the dfwiki
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Quickstart_guide

Things your dwarves need

Move all your stuff into a safe spot, preferably underground
then:



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YOU WILL ALWAYS NEED:

Beds
Booze
Fresh Water Source in case ♥♥♥♥ freezes. (it can be dirty just get it done indoors and underground.)
Food source -fish,meat, or veggies/fruit

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kind of important:

make sure your animals are penned under grass if they are the kind that eat grass,
try and aquire cloth of each type, try to have several gems cut and uncut, and anything else you need for STRANGE MOODS
Build a door, and use it to cover your dwarves hidey hole (you can manually lock enemies out)
designate a broker before autumn (assuming you are connected to your civ [islands are not])
make some barrels
make some tables
make some chairs
make some wheelbarrows (great for trading and easy to make[although this version makes them heavy and trade caravans have a weight limit])
make some crafts (for elves)
make a manager
make large custom stockpiles that dont include corpses, stone, or wood
make large seperate indoor stockpiles that include stone and wood
make a hidden outdoor stockpile that includes corpses
make a few coffins and manually place them, and designate them as a tomb so you dont forget

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not important but do it anyway

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make a hospital, figure out how to make hospital staff work in this verison
make a meeting hall
make a temple
make a library
make a military
make well
aquire gypsum plaster
make prepared food with a cook
make a lot of crafts

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Cats and Dogs

Do not pen Cats and Dogs unless you have several petlocked doors where they cant see things or go places. your dwarves will constantly have to corral them back to the pens.

Also, make sure you GELD your animals when you have plenty, you can only GELD males, and cannot spay females. There is a good chance your female animals are already pregnant by the time the last male is gelded, which means the babies need to be gelded too.

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Final Note:

Everything that moves slows the game down.

200 dwarves is the max, and is way too many

more than 100 animals pathing is dangerous and dumb.

Beware Cat Explosions (so many babies)

Do not underestimate water. The movement of ground water is so strange and occult, that to try and govern it will only lead to your eventual demise. Also water movement slows your game.


Have Fun, don't get into the habit of save scumming, the game is better as a story game than a construction and management game. the end of your fortress is a story, and therefore fun.

[need2know88]

Not making a well lead to a lot of my dwarves drowning. Atleast I think thats what was happening. Who knows with this game.

[Hazel]

Islands still receive trade with their home civilization, as a longtime island player!

[Citizen Snips]

When you say fresh water source, does my river count? Surely the river will not freeze... How do I get a water source underground? I will NOT make a fort on an aquefier.
sorry if I said something dumb I am inexperienced with dorf

[Count]

Thanks for this primer! Very informative.

Good luck with finals. I need to create my exam... wonder if any of my students are too busy playing DF to take the exam just as I'm too busy to make it. Lmao