Hi everybody,
Well...I have confession to make. I never played Dwarf Fortress *prepares for swift death* ... okay I am still alive so I assume you are willing to hear me out. I am lately hearing a lot about Dwarf Fortress so I am wondering...should I start playing Dwarf Fortress vanilla or should I play it with some mods? And do you have any mods without which you wouldn't launch Dwarf Fortress?

I'd suggest getting a tileset, so that you don't have to discern all the various ASCII-symbols. Makes it easier for me, at least.
I'd also suggest getting a utility program such as [url=http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/40d:Utilities#Dwarf_Foreman]Dwarf Foreman[/url], to make telling your dwarves what to do less cumbersome.

Other than that, go vanilla.

Yes, some form of tileset will come in handy. Not only will it make things easier to tell apart, but it will also make the tiles squares, which makes room planing a lot easier.

I'm a big fan of Ironhand's tileset.

Watch all of this first plus anything else the guy tells you to watch. Then keep the wiki handy.
If that sounds like a lot, it's better to give up right now than waste time struggling to learn things as you go along - not going to happen.

I used to play the Mike Mayday's Graphical Edition which bundles Dwarf Fortress with his collection of graphical assets.

There were some symbols in the game that weren't replaced by graphical versions in one of the earlier versions that I played, but that was a while ago. Still worth checking out IMHO.

Time to bump this thread. Thanks everyone for tips, next week I will try to play Dwarf Fortress. If anyone has favorite mods/tilesets or tips feel free to post them here and I will check them out :) so far I like Ironhand tileset most (no offense to anyone who posted their favorite tilesets :( )

Lazy Newb Pack aaaaaaaand you're done.

And if you're feeling even lazier: http://www.desura.com/games/dwarf-fortress

They have the Lazy Newb Pack as well as the vanilla game.

That is just the thing for me! You know since I am lazy and noob at this. Thanks :D I am that lazy though :D or am I...damn need to decide :D

Hey Detlik

Best of luck with this :)

The game as a learning curve like an overhanging cliff ([url=http://www.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://pics.livejournal.com/smartgaming_ru/pic/00006ps2&imgrefurl=https://yogscast.com/showthread.php%3F26993-Simon-must-play-Dwarf-fortress!&h=480&w=494&sz=46&tbnid=cWeCiqHsDdpe2M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=93&prev=/search%3Fq%3Ddwarf%2Bfortress%2Blearning%2Bcurve%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=dwarf+fortress+learning+curve&docid=Q2cSXvH8lZI0VM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bn4kT5LFLaatiAfzqqHzBA&sqi=2&ved=0CDoQ9QEwAg&dur=13]Learning Curve[/url]) however if you stick with it, it can be a lot of fun*.

Karl

*Fun = anything going disastrously wrong (there is a scroll-down comic thing that explains this.