Not sure it's been mentioned in this thread, but two words that helps me immensely: Dwarf Therapist. I didn't even know I could assign jobs to dwarves before I got that program

I always just dug a shaft to the surface to let the rain get in.

I used two floodgates and a river.

So, if one were to, hypothetically start playing said game, are there any other things that would be 'needed' besides the zip file? I see some mention of some sort of therapist, for instance...

Nope DF is all you really need. I do recommend a tileset when you first start. Looking at little graphics cuts down on the learning curve compared to looking at assorted ASCII characters. I'd also recommend dwarf therapist. It's a second program that lets you change your dwarf's jobs in one menu instead of running through 10 different menus for each dwarf.

So, to make sure I understand--

I'd want:
-Dwarf Fortress (findable Here)
-A tileset (findable... Location unknown)
-Dwarf Therapist (location unknown)

I personally use the mayday tileset.

Rika showed this to me earlier today. Seems to be an all-together starter pack. DF is currently on .18, I don't know if there's any major differences though. If you want to update you can just download the current version and place it in the related folder.

I believe the major changes between .16 and .18 were only related to Adventurer mode, not Fortress.

And ghosts!

I found large caverns and at the bottom, there seems to be a bunch of water in there,.

I'm having trouble convincing my dwarfs to mine in the Z-axis (Shaft down). What do I need to do to convince them that they can dig down, instead of just sideways?

Need to designate down stairways. It's d and then j, from memory. i is for up/down stairways and u is for up stairways.

If there's digging designations on a higher z-level, dwarves will do that first before lower levels.

I am attempting to build my own river. Wish me luck.

Edit:




Wave 4 just came in. WTF.

Good luck. I hope you've discovered the screw pump for that. Handy thing, really- I used a few of them to make this delightful "sewage plant" that pumps our abundant refuse downstream... to where the elves live.

On that note, has anyone had any experience with elves or humans in the current version of Dwarf Fortress? When I try to find them in adventure mode, I just come upon empty areas were the DF world map and Adventure Mode compass say they should be...

EDIT: Ah, never mind. Found the answer myself.

No, I just took the river and re-routed it.

I noticed that the Lazy Newb pack is still in 31.16. If at some point you decide you'd like to play 31.18 with graphics, and Dwarf Therapist included, you might give this a go:

http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=2983

The graphics are comparable, but I don't know about this Stonesense application. Looks pretty neat.

Oh. Does this mean that you now have an empty river bed, with blood-thirsty carp and whatnot flopping around in it?

No, never had a way to fill in the old river, so I just had a seperate path for the water to take.