So, my first embark on a newly generated 5 year old world, carefully read all the personal info on all seven dwarves, select skills and change up the items we embark with, no picks or axes... lots of milk, and sandbags, some coal, and a few different metal ores, 20 logs, and pause it instantly when they arrive. We have arrived in a nice alpine valley with a scattering of trees, a nice brook and a few scattered lakes, with the valley running N-S every bit of water is frozen as it's still early spring. I press "k" to survey my surroundings, and check the sides of the valley for exposed mineral ores, and I see a nice "D" some 50 to 60 steps away, and there was a popup about finding a cave. Yes, I managed to embark on an occupied dragon cave, quite by accident. the units screen lists the dragon as "Resident Dragon", and it turns out the dragon is not hostile to my dwarves, at least for now.
Shortly after I un-pause, a wombat annoys the dragon, and I have a forest fire approaching my wagon, so I get busy making a few workshops from the stone I brought, and proceed to turn a log into charcoal, turn coal into coke and proceed to smelt the hematite I brought and make an iron pick, iron battle axe and 20 iron bolts, and one wooden crossbow. We dig into the clay walls make a food pile and get my dwarves set to hauling in my seeds, milk and the few other edibles I brought, I did not have enough time to haul in the logs or the sand. I set up a pasture inside one of the rooms and bring in my livestock, dogs, chickens, turkeys, cattle, water buffalo and yack bull. The fire arrives and eats the wagon some 20 logs and 35 bags filled with yellow sand, I just hope some trees survive the fire, or my dwarves will be sleeping in mud for a long time to come.
I have the settings to zoom to the site of a message and pause the game, and I am treated to several hundred zoom and pauses as each tree collapses on the surface, my dwarves look concerned, eying the bare floor. While waiting for the fire to pass, we finish digging out some more rooms in the clay and set up a farm plot and plant our 10 plump helmet spawn.
The fire has passed, and I delete the alert burrow that had restricted my dwarves to the one tunnel and few rooms we built, and survey the area. There is still a single patch of greenery that was protected by a band of bare stone, I set up a pasture, and assign the grass eaters to it. We have a milk supply established, though it is on the far side of the valley.
I build a few workshops in the scrap of a fort we have dug out, and order the outside workshops we built to be de-constructed, the coke was gone, one bit of coal remained in the ashes of the wagon, but the ingots we had smelted were all just fine as well as a couple of metal ores we did not get to. I create a dump zone inside the fort next to the entrance and proceed to mark the remains of my embark materials to be brought in and dumped into the pile. There are a few trees left, I ask the woodcutter to take the axe and chop down two willows near a small pond, and we now have some 30 willow logs, we'll need to be careful about where we use wood, but for now I make one bucket, 7 beds , one splint, and one crutch, and burn one log to charcoal, and turn my last lump of coal into coke. the farmer's workshop converts the various milks we brought into some cheese, and the cook makes a plump helmet roast using 10 cheese and three plump helmets. Hmm, that might not be wise to cook the plump helmets, Urist.
Migrants have arrived, and some small, scattered greenery is poking up through the ashes. I ask a few dwarves to go gather what they can find, and we make some rye beer, which is quickly consumed, most of the dwarves are starting to feel some effects at not getting enough alcohol, I have my expedition leader talk to some of the dwarves about the lack of alcohol in the fort and encourage them to find more plants that can be brewed. One of the new migrants is a hunter and I find him hauling in a dead wild yak bull, after the butchering is done , but before the meat is hauled to the food pile, I ordered 3 lavish meals to be prepared, yup the cook grabbed the plump helmets. I can see that we'll be trading for more seed.