Embark:
We're in some foothills next to a woodland on the southeast corner of the region. The volcano is in the upper left corner, and most of the rest of the map is mountain. Fortunately our woodland area is quite flat, perhaps the only such spot in the region, and makes a nice starting point.
4maskwolf: Build yourself a workshop and get some essentials done. We need a hatch, some beds, and some spike balls.
Timeless Bob: I need to get you some stone. Go ahead and get your masonry up and running, and I'll get to digging.
Danman: I'll dig you up some farmland as soon as I get some stone for Bob. Go ahead and grab whatever you can from these bushes and I should be ready when you finish.
Wozit: Bob needs all the stone we can get for now; build yourself a still, and I'll work on getting you some containers so we can start brewing whatever Danman gathers.
WoobMonkey: You're a manager? See if you can manage to cut down some trees.
Dolwin: Hopefully we don't need your skills anytime soon, but take care of all the hauling.
I know I'm going to be very limited this year by how much I can dig. I put Puutuulion (myself) to work immediately. I made a big stockpile outside (our wagon was tucked up in the hills.) I dug a large trench for basic protection, clearing the trees and shrubs from the area. Here's a picture of the starting area significantly later in the year (when I finished walling the trench up.) FYI, I forgot about building walls too close to the edge, so I built a bunch of bridges and raised them. I don't know how to check if they are actually raised or not, so we might have a flawed defense; please inspect it if you know how and let me know if it was done right.
I got some farms set up, and put our carpenter to work making beds and spiked balls. As I started digging towards the volcano i found quite a bit of stone, so I was able to get our mason up and running making chairs, tables, and blocks for the walls. I had to un-designate the volcano path for a while to get the still, kitchen, and dining room all dug out. Our kitchen is a pig's face, and the dining room is a pig's tail:
In case you can't tell, our fort is a total mess. Several of our workshops are just out in the main hallway, and our furniture stockpile is in our dining room (it was convenient when our only furniture was tables/chairs.) Some major cleaning will need to be done, which will require quite a bit of excavation that I just couldn't get done in year 1.
In this next picture below, you see our z-1 level under our walled outdoor area. Several important features:
a) our underground farms are here, conveniently just one staircase away from our above-ground farms. Our only seed pile is located in the room on the left.
b) the external ring is our old trench. this is above-ground and outside, so refuse does not rot here. this ring is our only stockpile(s) for refuse/corpses.
c) the murky pool is our only water right now. more about the blood and bones later.
d) the floor hatch in the image is not stockpiled; it is the only way in and out of our fort (besides the staircases at the highest level of the volcano caldera.) If we go into danger mode, burrow everyone and forbid the hatch; there should be no way for non-fliers to get in. the path to the surface is the j-tunnel that I so adore (the only access in from the surface is coming up through the hatch from below.)
e) the stockpiles around the fort are basically only currently functional for the farming/brewing/cooking industry. everything else is messy or unpiled; this pile here was convenient located below the depot before i deconstructed said depot. for now, you should probably just re-construct the depot above ground just outside our wall (near the staircase.)