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[Foxite]

(I dont know if this is already suggested. If it is, then link please =) )

I recently browsed through the history of my world in legends out of boredom and noticed that sometimes, citizens of sites decide to become a scout, as notated with "In Year, Urist McCitizen started scouting the area around Settlement."


I came up with the idea that this should be possible to do yourself. You could draft dwarves to become scouts, and equip them with some ranged weapons like hunters, and food to survive for a few weeks or a month. You should also be able to draft multiple dwarves(see the second drawback).

Benefits would include:
- Early warnings when a siege, werebeast or other fun things approach.
- As (lots of) time passes, you may be able to expand your fortresses' boundaries to the area that has been scouted. Only if you choose to of course, since that may decrease performance on older PCs. Like mine. Even though I may be getting a lot better one soon, with a Core i7 processor and at least 3TB of storage space and...Im driving away.

Drawbacks:
- The loss of a dwarf who didnt manage to make it back in time before the approaching siege arrives.
- Dwarves that are not on the right place when a HUGE group of goblin soldiers approaches to notify you that they are coming with the intent to have lots of !!FUN!!
- Unhappy thoughts of the relatives of scouts, because they miss them/are worried about their safety. To prevent this, incorporate this with a schedule that allows them to get back home every so often and have another dwarf scout the area.

[Witty]

Sending dwarves out of the map area to interact with the outside world is a hugely planned feature. The next release is setting the groundwork for this, but it's still some ways away.

[Waparius]

Rather than expand your own fortress it would probably be better linked up to hill and deep dwarves, especially when agriculture etc gets fixed up and dwarves get more feudal in general (ie, a good-sized fortress depends on a constant stream of food and maybe other resources coming from outlying settlements, and is as as such more vulnerable to siege).

You send out your scouts into the worldmap, either above or underground, and they come back with news like, "we've found a good fishery to the north-east" or "along the Western cavern there are copious veins of Hematite." Or even, "There are hilldwarves to the south, farming Sun Berries."

Then you can get an expedition to go found a village or a militia squad to go bring them into your barony by force, set taxation or what-have-you and build a road in that direction.

Then, when a deep settlement stops sending traders you send a scout to see why they aren't talking. Could be a peasant rebellion, could be beastmen, could be a forgotten beast...