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[Verjigorm]

So, something new has happened to me.   I have not a single idle dorf, and more tasks to complete.  I actually look forward to the inevitable cheesemaker, because I have a job for him.  I need walls and floors built, ore smelted, things to be made, food to be cooked.   I have plenty of food, plenty of booze, access to water(I NEED MOAR DORFS!   I can't build a resevoir and pump yet). 

17 dwarves, and nary a single one of them is idle.   Holy crap, am I starting to get this?

And can I get my defenses done in time?

[Gigaz]

Yes, you will soon win yours first game.

You can start to think which jobs need to be done with highest priority. Sometimes people carve rooms for 200 dwarfs when they still have only 20 and that is a waste of useful dwarf labor.

[Verjigorm]

w00t.  I have a tower(ok, can a 1 story construction be called a tower?) about 12x11, with a series of drawbridges raised on platforms build around my entrance stair.   So I have built the preliminary layer of defenses, and I am happily making pig iron.   Food and booze stockpiles are heavy(345 booze, 500+ roasts), and I am still having 0 idle dorfs. 

I haven't started makign any armor or weapons, because I don't have the dorfs to use them.   I need some cheesemakers.

[Getix Kain]

w00t.  I have a tower(ok, can a 1 story construction be called a tower?) about 12x11, with a series of drawbridges raised on platforms build around my entrance stair.   So I have built the preliminary layer of defenses, and I am happily making pig iron.   Food and booze stockpiles are heavy(345 booze, 500+ roasts), and I am still having 0 idle dorfs. 

I haven't started makign any armor or weapons, because I don't have the dorfs to use them.   I need some cheesemakers.

In my current 130 (110+20 children) I have between 5 and 10 idle dorfs.

[celem]

You are doing pretty good to keep those 17 busy yes, though if you examine their labours in 'U' you probably notice them hauling a lot to keep up.  Theres candidates for your first migrant cheesemaker, give him just hauling and take those labours off some of your more useful embark dwarves.

A real benchmark is going to be round pop 50.  If you have more than 10-15 idle at 50 then you need to make something happen ASAP or face a large idle fort with the massive drawbacks associated (idle forts spiral easier).  If I'm behind at 50 then im behind at 100, and you never wanna see 'Idlers:50', trust me

[NomeQueEuLembro]

Yes, check your haulers! Put then into making stone pots and brewing alcohol. Who cares for scattered clothes everywhere?

Btw, I'd make an army in the next migrant wave if I were you.

Btw², did you started the metal industry? I started using metals some forts ago and It's just the awesomest thing.

[Teldin]

Personally I tend to play as the benevolent overseer, because I hate micromanaging migrants. I just let them do the job they start enabled with unless I need a lot of masons/engravers for construction or a few more farmers. I'm cool with 50% of my fort having parties in the dining room with a few legendary workers doing most of the work. If there's just a massive excess of labor I enlist a few militia squads, as I rarely make traps or even basic defenses. Sure it causes more tantruming, but with that many extra hands it's not hard to churn out huge, lavish bedrooms filled with marble chests and obsidian cabinets that they can cry on/punch.

[YAHG]

If you are playing 40.+ you are gonna need either a sealed roof on your 1 lvl high tower or a second level of smooth walls (stone/metal seems to work dunno about wood blocks yet). The first level doesn't really need to be smooth (it seems to me) because they have to grab onto the 2nd level to climb and they should fail the climb vs smooth walls . I find I can keep em pretty busy until 2nd spring big migration wave hits, then only way is massive digger or engraver corps, I just find I never have anything I want em to do .

[Deboche]

The wall should have a floor jutting out like this:

__   Floor
0    Wall
0    Wall

They can't climb a floor that's above them. However, if you have a drawbridge and leave it down, they'll prefer to use that. I usually do a bridge from the main wall to a 3 tile wall and put glass(if available, otherwise some metal) serrated disc traps there. They'll kill about 5 or 6 invaders and the rest will flee.

Sieges seem to be only one squad everytime now.

I've been smoothing everything, making silver furniture and encrusting all furniture with cabochons for a while and my fortress is worth more than 1 million at this point. Still, very weak sieges

[klefenz]

A busy fort is a happy fort (one that does not fall so easy to tantrums)
If they are doing something (anything) it means they are not making friends with everybody.

Friendship is deadly.

[Verjigorm]

You are doing pretty good to keep those 17 busy yes, though if you examine their labours in 'U' you probably notice them hauling a lot to keep up.  Theres candidates for your first migrant cheesemaker, give him just hauling and take those labours off some of your more useful embark dwarves.

A real benchmark is going to be round pop 50.  If you have more than 10-15 idle at 50 then you need to make something happen ASAP or face a large idle fort with the massive drawbacks associated (idle forts spiral easier).  If I'm behind at 50 then im behind at 100, and you never wanna see 'Idlers:50', trust me

The 2nd wave hit, and I was too drunk to keep playing, so I stopped then.   Bout 10-15 idle dwarfs, but I'd also finished a lot of tasks.   ut at pick, I had 3 engravers engraving, 2 soap makers burning wood, 2-3 smelters, 2 guys making metal goods, a pot maker, a mason making stuff, and the rest either hauling or building the floor and second set of walls for the tower.  I've got plenty of iron and pig iron, so the next task is to start making STEEL!  Then, once I have steel, I'm going to start cranking out the armor and weaponry. 

About 45ish dorfs now, so I think I can start making my military.   First I'm going to make a bunch of screw pumps and make an excercise room for my recruits while I'm making their armor.   

[Verjigorm]

Alright, so how things stand:  I'm about halfway through my second year, over 700 urists of Roasts stockpile, about 279 urists of booze(mostly wine, but that's how it goes.  But of course, Sweet Pods and Plumps are what I started farming with, and I expect my pig tail and cave wheat plots to kick-off in a big way this summer.   But we'll see. 

I a big peak of idleness at at the end of spring, when three things things happened:  First, a Werezebra showed up, then I forgot that my manager had wood cutting enabled, and he was walking around cutting down trees, rather than managing the work orders, so my entire metals industry ground to a complete and utter halt.  Finally, a Fey mood sieze my main mason, and sole masons shop so all stone construction is on hold.  But after fixing it, I've got 40 adult dorfs, with 2 idle.  6 are hauling crap, but Most are now involved in the metals industry(2 wood burners fueling 3 smelters and 3 forges), with a large body of dabbling and novice of masons building the tower. 

So, first the Were zebra!   So, I was in a pretty good position, as I'd finished walling in the second level of the tower, and building and linking my drawbridges(3x3, and on a stone platform, so they enter the 2nd level of the tower), so my first impulse was to close up and get my military online by making a bunch of armor. But then I realized I had five pretty skilled miners, so I formed a squad of them up and sent them out.  But anything worth killing, is definitely worth overkilling, so I formed a second mob of wrestlers and sent them in too.   Furi Tupostokol or whatever didn't stand a chance.   But large portions of my floors 3 and 4 of the tower we suspended, and I forgot about that, which spiked unemployment even higher.  But it's one of my first successful military actions that didn't involve a corridor of traps, dorf death and danger rooms, and it's even better that I did it on the fly.   I think I might just stop mining for a bit(breached a cavern, so I think it might be prudent to get a militia together) and put all my miners into a squad and start actual militia training.  The Manager thing is almost a foot note, really.   

The Fey dorf is happily building something at the shop.   Who frikken knows?!   Hope it's cool.

[Mimodo]

No idle dwarves means either an extremely productive fort, or an extremely inefficient fortress...

Before my last tantrum spiral, I had 209 dwarves (including children and babies), and only ever 1 or 2 idle dwarves. If he was idle for more than about 10 seconds, I'd find him a job. This lack of idleness, however, was due to mass inefficiency, but when you have over 150 dwarves, it doesn't matter how inefficient you are, you're going to have a pretty productive fort anyway.

It sounds like you're going pretty well though, just take care to keep that idleness down, and boost your booze up a little more. I have over 2000 in my fort at the moment, and still producing. 279 will go quickly if you get a big migrant wave. Your food seems to be plenty at the moment:D

[cikulisu]

Yes, you will soon win yours first game.

You can start to think which jobs need to be done with highest priority. Sometimes people carve rooms for 200 dwarfs when they still have only 20 and that is a waste of useful dwarf labor.

i find that generally past the first year i'm actually struggling to come up with things for miners to do. i carve out massive rooms, tombs, excess dining rooms, truly oversized workshops etc. i spend about 30 minutes designating all of it then ignore it for a few minutes and it's all done. just two legendary miners can level a mountain in an hour. for this reason i generally don't economize miners except for keeping them doing something.

[celem]

Yeah I can totally see that.  You do use them in bursts now and then for exploratory mining, or vein-chasing.  But not enough to keep them busy with just mining enabled.

Thats why I always embark with 'useful' miners.  Mining isnt moodable anyway, so give them a backup trade that is, as a starting dwarf theres a better chance of them mooding than most since they will be available for every selection.  Dont make it a critical one.  miner/mason i dont like, it gimps your setup speed off the wagon.  miner/stonecrafter is also horrid if you want to trade stone crafts at first caravan.  My 2 embark miners are miner 5 weaponsmith/armorsmith 5.  Funnily enough, right around the time you stop needing fulltime miners is right around the time you start needing fulltime smiths.... go figure.  Only clash is when I go to move my initial low forge to high levels after pumping up magma, while they cut the pumpstack/minecart tracks your smiths are busy.

Do remove their hauling and make them pure miner for the first year(or season or two), but remember to add them back in or they will be idle a lot after your intial dig-in is done.