1st update (Dead of winter year 138)
Had to strand 3 guys outside but I managed to get a good sized group back inside with a military alert. So far only one tantrum and one death due to melancholy.
I started digging out some more room, planted crops and started building workshops and what not. Also started out digging out tetrahedrite, which was already discovered, (OP you have 183 coke and no ore mined out?
?). Next is armor and weapons, and bedrooms (the fort's got 1 dorm with 8 beds and 125 population), and a great deal of coffins and slabs.
2nd update:
Made it through winter but there are still about 12 goblins just cruising around the map. I decided to let them hang out while I tried to catch up on booze and food and other things, but starving dwarves continuously snatch up plump helmets the second they sprout. I even have booze queued up with the job manager in hopes that a brewer would catch a helmet every once in a while but it's not happening. Despite building some big farm plots and getting a lot planted, this is a huge issue
mostly because I've had two farm plots destroyed by tantrums (never knew this could happen.) Overall, though, at this point happiness is generally improving. At one point I had only 5-6 "miserable" dwarves.
Started making picks before anything cause this fort is so friggin crowded and only 2 or 3 picks were available and digging was going very slow. This fort needs a TON of expansion and it simply can't be done all at once. I was happy with 6-7 more picks, miners started really opening up some space and by this time I'm thinking I need weapons and armor ASAP but then a smith got a mood and took over the only forge......
Mid-spring passed by, I knew traders would be arriving soon and this is fort is so desperate for some food and booze that I decided to send a group out to confront the goblins. I sent 4 soldiers who had metal weapons I scrounged together (but no armor, sadly) and also sent my newly-equipped miners out with them since I knew 4 half naked, depressed soldiers would be useless against the ambush.
The results of my gambit:
At least 8 out of 11 Urists were struck down....then the survivors just started limping back into the fort and the gobbos decided to call it quits, too. So for a split second I was relieved but just seconds after the goblins disappeared a vile force of darkness showed up!!
Here is the catastrophic happiness impact of the insane unarmored shenanigans:
So 20-25 dwarves dropped to "miserable" so this fort is going to be pretty out of control at this point. The siege that showed up is actually pretty small so I could get some cage traps up to deal with it but missing the elven caravan is really gonna cause a shit storm.
Done for tonight, will probably play a little more tomorrow but the "fun" of the challenge really started wearing thin when the farm plots got ruined by a berserker and my tiny booze supply disappeared instantly.