@Splint: Have you actually traded with the traders in bulk? Has the dwarven liason come and left alive and with an agreement?
It seems you may be the last dwarves in the world
Dawnhammers: The year is now 10 (the fortress was founded in 3). We have over 200 dwarves and the queen seems to be enjoying her stay. A real trooper that queen: until I disabled her labors, she insisted on hauling, fishing, and constructing semi-megaprojects with the rest of my dwarves. We'll have none of that here, as we want a King Consort and an heir. The queen also constantly mandates more cages and bans their export, so we're setting up cage traps for the residents of these savage lands (mostly thrips, louse, and masked lovebird men, but some honest animals as well) and will soon have a truly impressive zoo for her majesty in the new Recreation Commons.
The military, including the Fortress Guard, is 50 strong -- 20 marksdwarves and a squad each of hammerdwarves, swordsdwarves, and axedwarves. They sustained losses to a web-shooting titan that visited a few years back, but other than that make quick work of anything they're dispatched against. One of the swordmasters is also our perpetual mayor, with perpetual mandates for more shields, more bolts, or no exporting shields or bolts.
The goblins come almost seasonally, and have thusfar been a complete joke. The biggest problem has been snatchers grabbing children that are outside on wall and roof assembly, but so far no snatcher has made it off the map. Mostly, they get spotted by cats. The ambushes are annoying when they come (especially alongside the elven caravan), but the one siege we had... a single squad of goblins, smaller than the ambush the season before. Pathetic.
Elves brought two tame/domesticated Giant Ravens last year: a male and a female. It's a pity the goblins butchered that entire caravan, as I would have sent them off with a mountain of stone crafts. The ravens have been given a secluded aerie with nest boxes, locked away from dwarves to breed.
Dwarven Hydromechanical Power Plant completed, generating 2400 raw power, walled in with a roof to protect it against any attempt to damage it. Pumping magma to the surface could now commence... but abandoning the deep industries would be impractical after so much time and building, and I use the surface a bit much to assemble a magma flooder... so I'm not really sure what to do with the power plant.