So I had another go at The Hill of Death, which more or less lives up to its name. I've survived three tantrum spirals and a couple of invasions, and each time the fort gets back up and running again - mostly since every carveable surface has masterwork engravings on them from the numerous legendary engravers that have showed up every time the previous ones get killed. It was also a bad idea to remove all the beds before I made new ones, so I had the fortress tantrum for a while before I got that figured out. One result from that is that I now have a melancholic dwarf sitting in an underground cistern alone with water over his head, but still somehow alive. I suspect it's because he's able to drink a lot, but it's still odd. I have a whole floor dedicated to memorial slabs, since I atom-smash all the corpses to prevent them from accidental necromancer raising. I also noticed the corpses were tagged as "friendly", which was strange. Maybe because it's a friendly dwarf raising them or something? One thing is for certain - the elven caravan getting ambushed was the best thing to happen to the fort ever, since they brought a breeding pair of dragons that have since been war trained and is now the fortress' primary means of defense. Last siege they single-handedly wiped out 24 orcs on mounts, and before that several dozen undead that came along. Right now I have pastured them in the first entry room with double doors, followed by a pasture of turrets and armored dogs/horses, and a third room for military dwarves if they got that far. Behind that is the hatch to the underground fort and a cage with dozens of war dogs if need be. Works out well if you don't get in the way of the dragonfires...
Some things of note: I can't see what the selection is on in the menus, as the selection bar is completely opaque. This is rather annoying, as I have to either scroll up and down to see what the selected dwarf is doing and all that, and in categories with only one member (like the "other" in the unit menu or if a category has a full list +1 in it) I have to enter their profile to see anything about it. Not unusable, but quite bothersome. Weapons are awesome and useful, and so is the armor that the caravans nicely provide. Most features are good, but the documentation could use more work in determining what workshops do what. I'll be trying out libraries next to see what they have to offer. Also see the melancholic dwarf thing above - all the others that went crazy from being miserable have died, but he's been there for two years and still seems ok despite having a literal bridge dropped on him, being introduced to weapons of various kinds and flooding the cistern to the brink with water. I don't want to kill him violently though, as that risks contaminating the well, and that would be bad. Will have to wait on this... maybe a fall would work nicely? Must test...
No caverns or metalworking as of yet, but since I have literally hundreds of weapons and armor in various conditions lying around from destroyed caravans and invaders, this is hardly a problem. Gotta make a military, eventually. Or so I think.
Also, I like the little easter eggs! So far I've noticed burning elephant statues, orcs with "waagh" battle axes, and some more fun things amongst the craftings and engravings and stuff. You do a great job, keep it up!