The first six years have gone exceedingly well. Due to time constraints, I will only briefly touch upon what's going on in the fortress, and backdate this thread with in-character story when I have more time.
The D20 hasn't rolled above a 14 yet, but next year, a 15 or more will begin the zombie apocalypse.
The world was hand-painted by me. I'm not completely satisfied with the outcome. I was hoping to make a world completely covered in evil biomes, but it seems like all I could manage was three measly regions. You will find the world map included. It's a pocket island, and took about five minutes for me to paint.
The site I chose is in the mountainous region to the northeast of the large landmass. The landmass is almost entirely forest and hills, with a few deserts and badlands peppered in, and massive mountains all over. This was the first world I ever painted, so it's a little shoddy if you ask me.
Events of NoteYear 3 WE: Population cap set to 7 in the first year. Caravan doesn't arrive until autumn, and as such, I got two migrant waves. Luckily, they brought me the much needed spare-labor I needed. Population hit 21 before the caravan arrived. Lucky because my original wave only had 1 female, and the two new waves were majority female. Great for shitting out babbies with a quickness. We almost starve, but the migrants help harvest enough food to make it through the first year.
Year 4 WE: got pretty close to a tantrum spiral, due to miasma, and constant drafting/releasing of dwarves while I learned the new military screen. Began the terraforming project. Trying to carve out proper space and stone to dam the canyon between my two biomes so I can tap the brook and slowly fill the entire canyon with a massive resevoir of water.
Year 5 WE: Lost a dwarf. I sent my squad of seven in to take care of some zombie eagles, mountain goats, and yaks. They stomped the zombies out effortlessly, but somehow, and enraged tigerman got involved in a tussel with one of my swordsdwarves. This resulted in the dwarf dodging off of a steep cliff and breaking his fall on his head. My first burial was a total surprise, and a very sad one, reducing my military from 7 to 6, and my population to 20.
Year 6 WE: Breeding has begun. My expedition leader, being the only member of the original party to be female, began her family. Began the bridge project. Elephants invade the unprotected fortress, luckily, nobody is hurt, and a mechanic is able to trap all six of them. The two females promptly give birth. I now have 9 captive elephants. Will be changing the raws to make them require a sustainable diet.
Year 7 WE: Breeding is starting to pick up. Four more kids born. All our grazing animals have killed each other, and/or starved to death in the overcrowded pasture. Just as well, the yaks were missing three hooves on average.
Year 8 WE: Breeding is getting out of control. 26 children and counting. "A child does as it pleases!" is the bane of my existence. Worthless hungry mouths, is what they are. Watched a spectacular fight on the edge of the newly constructed bridge. One of the caravan axedwarves crippled a giant jaguar, which had been chasing one of my dwarves to the edge of the bridge while my military was busy suiting up into proper arms. The axedwarf caught up with the jaguar, engaging it on the edge of the bridge, and is promptly slammed into by the jaguar, which mauls his hand and leg off. He gets up, and gets slammed into again, this time, throwing him right off the edge of the bridge. We buried him in honor of his awesome armor he has left our metal-less fortress with, and put his axe in a stockpile in front of his coffin.
Year 9 WE: Turned off new pregnancies until my population is under control. Child cap set to 0, population should level off at 50. Bridge is complete, trying to think of new project to burn up the dolomite I've been building my fortress out of. Yes, Dolomite. DFHack Prospector tells me I have 500,000 of it. I'm not concerned with running out, as I've only mined up a few thousand, and built maybe 500 constructions so far.
As for what I've been building, I've got a pretty unique shape for my fortress. It's pretty much a circle ATM, only one floor is actually dug out, but I'm going to go deeper when there's a need for another industry. The dog population isn't large enough to justify a leatherworking industry yet, and all my grazers are dead. Hopefully elephant leather could become a valuable commodity as well.
Image gallery:
http://imgur.com/a/4eYwe/all