Wall of questions:
Will we have underground roads built over the cavern floors in this release, or tunnelled out roads?
Does the king live exclusively in a fortress, or elsewhere (i.e. in a deep settlement or hill settlement).
If we're getting underground roads and tunnels, will dwarven merchants arrive through the caverns? If so will they be more proactive in choosing the caverns as their exit?
As we're getting deep settlements, will migrants arrive through the cavern layers or underground tunnels?
If caravans and/or migrants arrive through the cavern layers and tunnels, would they still be able to arrive during sieges on the surface? If we get underground sieges, will there be a differentiation between the levels that are being sieged and the levels not being sieged to allow migrants to arrive some way or other (i.e. by means of a sealed underground road that leads to the next fortress)?
Which cavern layer will dwarf settlements reach down to? If they can reach down to the second or third cavern layer, does that mean they will be able to harvest the resources of that layer (i.e. so we can order Blood Thorns from the caravan)?
If we tunnel down to the HFS and establish a fortress in there, does that mean dwarves will set up deep settlements there as well?
Will other races set up trading outposts around our fortresses as they grow?
You've mentioned that the hill dwarf settlements are close to the mountains, fortresses are in the mountains, and deep settlements are underground connected to the surface through fortresses. What happens when the fortresses - such as player fortresses - are located outside of the mountains? Many players do things like embarking in jungles or in deserts or on remote islands, so in those cases would deep settlements appear around the player fortress? If the settlement is remote, would we be able to get migrants or caravans through the underground in the absence of ships and boats?
With all the new things in worldgen, how is its speed looking? Is it running slower than in 0.34.11?
Commentry:
Personally, I'm expecting the naval release to be coming up along with the tavern release, unless we get taverns in this release which is not too unreasonable (@Toady: With all the nonlethal combat and so on thus far, are we likely to get taverns in the upcoming release?). There is a direct connection between taverns and the navy and colossal bar fights and bandits and pirates, after all. This would require the addition of ports and naval towns, though that might be relatively simple given all that has gone in. Given the movement, however, we may have to wait until armies are properly sorted out.
We'll need and get another UI addition for controlling things that happen in the world. For example, we could have a system to assign a squad of dwarves to work off-site, say, in building a road to the nearest friendly settlement (this was emulated in the 2D version, where on finishing a road out to the map edge, a road would appear beyond the build-able space indicating that the connection had been made). This would mean calling up a world map to design the route. The fortress would need to supply the building materials and logistics (wagon with animals). This would also give more reason to have architects in your fortress, as good architects could be able to estimate the amount of resources and time it would take to build a road, and their presence would speed up construction somewhat.