Week Two: Getting Settled

While digging out the first level, I realized that all the tiles I was digging out were sand. I thought you could only build farm plots on dirt, clay, and silt so I dug up one level into a silt layer for my farming. When I was placing the farm plot, I noticed that it would have let me place it on sand so I could have stuck with my original layout.

While digging out my store room, I found a large cluster of gypsum. Gypsum is common on sites that have it, but it's not too common to embark on a site with it. I brought 5 units of gypsum powder for making casts because you don't always have easy access to raw gypsum. The other stone I've uncovered is rock salt, which is one of the basic low quality rocks I'll be using at the masonry to craft furniture with.

I've designated an area to mine out for my workshop level. I've gone through various layouts and haven't found one that I really like yet. The quickstart guide on the wiki puts 4 workshops per floor in 5x5 rooms right off the main stairwell. RadGH puts almost everything on one floor with a wood area and a stone area. The wiki layout is probably more efficient for a new, small fortress but lacks a large stockpile for raw materials that can be easily shared between workshops. I've also become a fan of building two mason's workshops so I can produce furniture quicker. Here's the layout I'm going with for this fortress:

The level below will be for the upper tier workshops like smithing, smelting, leatherworks, and clothier. In my last game I had just started making things out of iron for the first time, but didn't have any fuel ores so I had to make charcoal. I've also never gotten into leatherworking/cloth making so hopefully I'll survive long enough to dabble in those this time around.