Jaghatai Khan said:
Before I start the game,what would be your first tactic?
Include at least this in your starting lineup. You can play with the rest if you like, but do not ignore these dwarves (with exceptions, of course, but when you are a beginner I strongly advise not trying anything creative).
1 Miner
1 Woodcutter
1 Carpenter
1 Mason
I recommend starting with your carpenter and mason both at proficient skill level. Higher skill will produce higher quality goods at a higher rate. Masonry and carpentry produce furniture, and higher quality furniture makes your dwarves happier, so they are less likely to tantrum and break things / beat kittens to death.
You may also want to include some farmers in your starting lineup since this is probably the easiest* way to feed your dwarves. Other than that, good choices are pets, drinks like dwarven wine / rum / ale / etc. because one unit of drink = one free barrel, seeds for planting [I like pig tails and plump helmets], and food, especially the cheap meats. If you buy pets, eventually your pet population will be running so wild that it will become very profitable to butcher puppies and kittens for bones, meat, leather, and fat.
* Easiest, but not actually easy. Farming is a huge pain in the ass.
For those of you who are more advanced at the game, here is a more interesting start that I came up with and love. It's exclusively for thickly vegetated maps with relatively nonthreatening wildlife:
Purchases:
1 Proficient Carpenter
1 Proficient Mason
1 Proficient Miner
1 Proficient Lumberjack / Proficient Axeman / Proficient Wrestler
1 Proficient Herbalist
1 Proficient Brewer / Proficient Building Designer
1 Proficient Cook
1 Axe
1 Pick
No food
No drink
No pets
All leftover points are spent on wrestling training for the dwarves so that I can make them skip their breaks by recruiting them and then releasing them from military service. The lumberjack is my backup soldier; if things get rough I will draft him and have him kill things.
This build sounds kind of insane, but is actually wonderful. I start the game by disassembling my wagons and removing all jobs for my herbalist besides "gather plants". I then keep him busy constantly by assigning him large swathes of shrubs to gather. At the same time, I tell my woodcutter not to do anything but cut trees, and assign him to deforest the land. My miner sets away digging, of course, and my carpenter builds a carpenter's shop outside, next to a wood stockpile. I set the carpenter to work making a number of barrels, a few bins, nine beds, and one bucket. The cook and brewer make a kitchen and still, and I zone a large food stockpile around the two buildings.
The herbalist will bring plants to your food stockpile, sometimes as many as 5 at a time. Let's say that my herbalist comes back with 5 longland grass. You can't eat it. You can't even cook it. So what good is it for...? Brewing! Assign the brewing task at the still and you will end up with a barrel with 25 longland grass beer and several leftover seeds in the still. And now you assign the task of making a lavish meal at the kitchen! Your proficient cook will gather four food items and cook them to produce a roast. With any luck, your beer barrel will be one of those items, and he will take 25 beer and 3 seeds and make *28 Longland Grass Roast*. Once moved to the stockpile, this food item will never rot. You might even have enough seeds left over to make 4 servings of seed roast. Pretty cool eh? The rule of thumb is that one serving of plant = six servings of prepared food. Technically this is actually the bare minimum, as you sometimes get more than one seed per plant unit.
Using this strategy I managed to create over 400 food [actual food; not counting drinks or seeds] before summer of my first year, and about 900 before winter hit. And winter doesn't even matter. You can gather herbs in all four seasons of the year.
