Tired of early game, decided to run a 100+ year fort. "Creatureland the Monastery of Scholars" is a war animal research / breeding fortress for "The Theater of Wanes", the smallest of the three remaining dwarven civs, beset by goblins and badly in need of high quality war animals and (according to the Queen) "dogs the size of grizzlies". Embark with a lot of dogs and some barely competent dwarves, only scientist is the book keeper, a math dwarf. We'll get better scientists later, we're sure.
Things go well, we survive the wild life, set up crops, industry, clothes, defense. Get two small immigrant waves, gives us 21 dwarves total. Elf and human merchants drop by, bringing some promising creatures. Lose a few dwarves: Drowning in the well, failed mood, miner killed digging out the pit. Migrants pass us by for some reason... bump up the bribes to the merchants, keep going, lots of progress, no attacks. Migrants pass us by again... huh? Realize we've never seen the dwarven merchants. Never seen any diplomats at all. What?
Only one continent, so we're not isolated. Civ/holdings map shows The Theater of Wanes is still there, although they've lost some ground to the suddenly more numerous gobs. No new gobs between us... look at the civ/civ page. Looks... isn't there a lot of W's on there?
The Theater of Wanes, our home civilization, has declared war on us. Civil war, apparently.
According to statues and stories in the tavern (seriously), the Theater of Wanes started when time began and has seen new king/queens on years 53, 56, 100, 110 and... midsummer 125. Right after we left. And the changes in 53 and 125, at least, were preceded by military events, or changes in military leadership. Looks like we just missed a civil war – possibly a holy war, based on the new King Likot's past career as a “holy walk” in a popular religion. Now we're refugees, or expatriots, take your pick.
Darn. So immigration has stopped. Remember the three casualties? Two were each half of the only two couples in the fort, so no kids for a while. Looks like we'll be recruiting out of the bars and library, then. Unfortunately, while there are apparently plenty of bards, there are only three wandering scholars in the entire world, and while they visit here, they don't stop. Better offers elsewhere, apparently.
Not exactly how I expected to start a hundred year fortress!