Due to a shortage of rainwater, I was forced to have my dwarves drink without the benefit of wells.
Even so, Dwarves move VERY slowly without the benefit of alcohol, and I was forced to bump the FPS up to 200 in order to not to get bored sitting around waiting for stuff to happen.
I am now in the middle of a tantrum spiral when a particularly beloved dwarf was fatally injured by a magma crab. I checked his relationships, and it turned out he was a BLOOD RELATIVE of like 30 people, part of a very big family. I have had no marriages or births (child caps) so I guess this must mean migrants come in families.
Needless to say, I've lost half of my population and most of the remainder has gone insane. My Militia captain went berserk and killed 5 dwarves before I knew what was going on. Fortunately I still HAD some semblance of a military at that point. Not any more.
My Thoughts:
-If you want to live on rainwater (drunk from wells), don't embark in a hot climate. You're going to need a lot of water. If my math is right, 100 dwarves drinking 8 times a year means 800 units of water, approximately the volume of a 1-level 11x11 cistern.
-Don't delay on happiness-making improvements! It's tempting to cut back on "luxuries" given how slow everything is going, but those are the only things standing between you and a riot.
-In a Sober Fort, farming is even LESS essential than it is in a normal one. My hunters fed the whole fort. Granted, it was with elephants and rhinocerous, but still, most of the crops you grow in DF are for making booze. I made do with a small pigtail farm for my cloth industry.
-Sober dwarves are slow dwarves. Ever been annoyed that something was taking forever to complete? In a Sober Fortress, that's everything.
Conclusion: Sober Fort = Hard Mode.
If you're looking to increase the difficulty level by lowering the Tantrum Spiral Threshold, and lowering Productivity in general, then the Sober Fort challenge will do just that. Have lots of FUN with a fort full of melancholy lazy-asses working at half-speed.