A - Farming - Essential, you won't get through year one without it
B - Fishing - A nice supplement, but you don't have the dorfs spare initially, save for Winter
C - Hunting - Fun, but not hugely relevant, returns are low and weapons are needed
D - Mushrooms - A great harvest if you happen to find some in your early mining, but assume you won't
E - Mushroom Farming - useful later game addition as your colony digs further from the sun, but slow to produce so limited early use

Once you have done the tutorial, you will be free to start future colonies at any point on the map. This is certainly one of the most impactful decisions you will make as dorfs have little legs and so minimising walking time to key resources is exceptionally important.

A - Near River - Essential, you can hope for enough rainfall RNG to water your crops, but a few squares of free irrigation, reduced need for pipes/trenches, access to drinking water and power will all make your colony much easier to keep alive

B - Near Mountain - Pretty essential - rainfall wrecks your kit and makes dorfs sad and it is much quicker, easier and more profitable to mine out a home than build one in the open. You are aiming to be King *under* the Mountain for a reason.

C - Near Forests - Important, you can do all the year one essentials with your starting wood supply, but it will become important particularly if you aren't lucky enough to find easy coal on your map

So, you've picked a nice spot, a beautiful grassy zone between a majestic mountain and a gurgling river, some ancient oaks rising to the clouds in the near distance.. What do you do now?

1 - Build two sizeable separate stockpiles in front of your mountain - 1 for Seeds, and 1 for Tools - and let your dorfs empty their pockets in to them. If either fills up, expand it a bit until you are sure they have dropped everything.

PAUSE YOUR GAME

2 - Open the Settlers menu and add/change your dorfs secondary jobs so that you have 3 of them Farmers, and 3 of them Miners. The 7th dorf can be either depending on how far your river is from your mountain. **Do not change the primary job of any dorf, they have a hidden efficiency bonus for it.** Check that at least one dorf is a Chef. These are the only jobs you need for now.

3 - Build a small Kitchen zone (3x3) next to your mountain and add a single Water Barrel to it. So your miners don't run all the way to the river when they get thirsty.

4 - Mark out your Farm zones and set them all to High Priority. We will be planting our Carrots, Potatoes, Wheat, Tomatoes and Corn, you will need a separate zone for each. 4x4 is a good size for a starting farm zone, where possible they should be next to the river as it will irrigate the first two squares. Leave enough space on the riverbank for a Water Wheel and a Water Pump, you can place these now if you like to occupy the space.

5 - If your starting location is good (primarily a short distance from mountain to river) you can also add a Farm zone for planting Hemp. This is nice to have but not essential for year one. Do not plant your Hops and Barley - these are only useful for making Beer which you are unlikely to be doing in the first year.

6 - Mark out the areas to be Mined. Obviously this will depend on the shape of your mountain, but you will absolutely need;
A: A Stockpile space for Tools - big enough to bring all your Tools inside. *They will rust if left out and this can be game-ending.*
B: A Stockpile space for Products - a similar size to the Tools one
C: A Masonry Workshop - ideally 6x5
D: A Kitchen - ideally 6x8 but can start smaller if you leave space to expand
E: A Feasting Hall - also 6x8
F: Bedrooms - One per dorf size 3x3. Individual bedrooms of a decent size are a great way of keeping your dorfs happy

Each of these should be a separate room, rather than zones in a large cavern, with rock left as a wall around it and only single space doorways. Your dorfs are happier in enclosed spaces. Do not Mine any area larger than 7x7, this will collapse and crush your dorfs in to paste. 6xInfinity is fine, Infinityx6 is fine, 7x7 is death. You can create larger caverns by building Pillars from the Build>Furniture menu but its not necessary for now.

Once you have all this planned out UNPAUSE YOUR GAME and let your dorfs go for it until they have tilled and sown all your Farm zones.
Then its time for stage 2...