As it happened, both embarks I started on DF 2012 just before the new update dropped were right next to Necromancer towers. The UI, uh, quite needs to make a
bigger deal out of that, considering they are considerably more deadly than Goblin armies ever could be, and they attack much faster. As in, possibly before your first supply caravan, you could be facing an ambush. Of reanimated beings. With an ambushing, hidden Necromancer who flees as soon as he sees your guys and thus makes locating him, much less taking him out, practically impossible. And infinite hordes of your own dead rise against you.
Often without the game bothering to even ping you with an alert; I found out the Undead were in my primary 'access lift' stairs only AS it was happening. Needless to say, my first embark didn't last long. I hadn't even hooked up the drawbridge in the entrance, two zombie horses walked in and effortlessly slaughtered my seven settler non-military dorfs.
Second time we held the line a bit better, purely due to having more time, but again I completely unwittingly embarked into a Necro area. In fact, I practically camped on the guy's front lawn and challenged him to a fight without knowing it. Despite some valiant efforts, that fell too. Mainly because 2014 was out and I wanted to play that instead, dangit.
As I type this my first standard world is cooking. I plan to find a good, well-wooded hill and embark for a human-style town of wood and stone buildings aboveground, just because it sounds neat to try it. A trick I saw from others who cared to try it, that I'll be doing, is getting the high ground then removing all the ramps except like three, connected only via drawbridge, making it practically as safe as if it were buried underground, minus flying enemies or bowmen. Hrm.
The building plan will be roughly like a frontier fort, starting with a small central secured building and expanding out in rings of construction/farm fields. That, plus the hill strategy, may give me a decent chance to make it work. I think an early emphasis on crossbows might be good too. Anyhow, we'll see how it goes.
EDIT: Maybe it's just because I've been using tilesets so long, but I think the ASCII graphics have their own beauty to them, especially with a broad color range.