Heh. my first artifact, I had, essentially, chalk and pink tourmaline lying around. It wound up being a throne worth 20k despite having no history whatsoever. It is now the core of over 40 rooms, since the overlapping room penalty is only applied ONCE. (future fortresses shall rely on this phenomena from the start, making massive dormitories that eventually reach throne room quality; I've even figured out how to use it to cancel out most of the problems from nobles. )
I'm up to 40 dwarves without a single dwarf casualty. lots of stray animals dying though. and I plan to keep dwarves out of fights untill I get a cistern up and running...at least i can use the local freeze/thaw cycle to produce plenty of water if I'm careful.
Oh, and I now use my trade depot as a "quantum" stockpile. It feels more legitimate than a garbage dump since the incoming traders are doing the exact same thing. and now that I've figured out that furniture is heavy, while crafts from a craftshop are lightweight, I can deal with the solid clutter left behind by my miners. (I'm using an older version where you can get 100% drops because I'm preparing for a turn at swordthunders.
)
Did i mention I had a bowyer go into a strange mood? Yeah. He's turned out more masterwork bows than I have dwarves. next non-elf trader caravan, I'll be giving away all the non-masterwork bows so that I can guarantee equiping a decent wood bow to my military.
yeah. And this is my first try. but maybe my world generation derped and killed off all the goblins or something because I haven't seen a single one.