One of my forts, Dikefaith, had to take the entire dwarf caravan's goods. (Actually, I forbidded the depot after the traders arrived and unloaded). The fort had no food for a little while, and 3 dwarfs came up with, "Urist McDwarf cancels Job: Hunting vermin for food". So I simply forbidded and hid the depot until the traders left. I don't really care if the dwarfs stop sending me caravans, because it's not the dwarf traders I depend on. I depend on the humans and elves for cloth and metal and other appropriate crap. So now Dikefaith has a massive amount of Plump Helmets (or PHs, for short).
Another fort, Lanternchannels, has just arrived. I picked a mountain with a volcano and a broadleaf forest, and found iron and copper right off the bat. I dug about 50 or so tiles back and found galena and FOOL'S GOLD!!! I wonder if my metalsmith would be stupid enough to try and forge it into some random craft. I picked a volcano site because I didn't want to try and dig a few dozen levels just to find coal or lignite, nor did I want to piss off the elves by burning hundreds of trees per year smelting metal ores. With copper, I can get my militia started with my first wave of immigrants. Actually, I can get a scout or two patrolling the map, but their training spears (to function as hiking sticks, basically) would be crap against anything that can fight back. Anyway, with iron, I can get my first batch of Axemen started up, as their uniforms require only leather armor and cloth pants, with iron being used for their axes. With both, my first batch of crossbowdwarfs with wood crossbows and iron bolts, and cloth clothing (practically no protection, I won't let them get anywhere's NEAR close-quarters fighting, using towers).