Hi!
I don't know if this may be caused by the transfer (most likely (^_^;; ). Civilization conflicts have been improved considerably in the new version, so it seems likely that you have some defaulting phenomenon there.
IIRC, Toady mentioned that civilizations no longer respond to a simple system of EVIL vs. GOOD, instead basically depending on conflicts in their spheres which are not guaranteed to spawn wars.
Anyhow, I wanted to mention that dwarves are not as pacifist as people claim, at least in history. I have seen enough Dark Dwarven Fortresses and Dwarven Forest Retreats, and there are regularly ruins on the map in the mountains near dwarven halls (or near goblin fortresses :) :) :) ).
I think the biggest problem with wars we have is the low civilization density. Currently, if you have a medium map, for instance, there is more than enough land to go around so that the civilizations may initially have a few wars but then experience quite a lull as the borders become defined and they hit their population maxima.
20 civilizations, belonging to dwarves, humans, elves, goblins, and kobolds, that is theoretically 4 civilizations each. It seems that each civilizations starts with a single settlement at best (actually, it seems to just generate some people and they may build a settlement), that is 20 settlements on the entire map. Look again at how large the medium sized map really is.
Add to this the various restraints placed on civilizations (check the raws):
Toady mentioned the max civ number, which effectively currently means that you can't have more than 31 civilizations alltogether. Each race has a different max number of civilizations.
But the interesting part is in the next two lines:
Each race also has a maximum population cap, which probably also overrides the menu population cap.
And each race has a maximum population per settlement, which may help explain why goblins are so easily overwhelmed from within.
So, I think that making things a bit tighter may help getting some wars started.
But then again, personally, I am a fan of SimCity, so I can live happily without sieges, wars and the like...
Deathworks