I cannot stop fucking playing this game. When it first showed up in the how did you last die thread I'm like "oh no, I won't be able to control myself". And... that turned out to be accurate.
My first/only village is called Ostoya, and worships Mokosh the Earth Goddess. My experience with the game is that it tends to be rather easy and relaxing except for the occasional moment of abject terror. These also happen to be the game at arguably its most fun. I had an expedition out harvesting elven wood around turn 50 when a werewolf + posse event-attacked my lightly defended village (6 people, but not good fighters), winning and then cursing everyone, including the expedition. Thankfully some of our ancestor spirits had told us to visit a ruined city if we needed curses lifted, so I brought the expedition back and then, unable to feel safe except in numbers, the entire village set out to find the ruined city.
Bouncing back from that crisis was really fun actually. By the time that expedition returned, cleansed of curses, there were only 7 survivors. I built a bunch of Dew Drops (light, elven wood shields) and expanded Ostoya's cabbage fields even further to get the population up. We are a decidedly agrarian people, with 2 pastures and 6 cabbage fields. Because of the plethora of exotic shields and swords I have most of my characters have 12+ block. Now there are 21 villagers and everything is easy again. Hopefully a new trial will arrive...
This may be because I'm playing Mokosh, but I will say this: harvestors are the shit. Wicker + spider silk/fur leather crafting tools and amber trinkets gets 5-7 improved harvesting and even a single skilled harvester can gather a resource like a fucking boss. Nothing super-charges a village like returning with a cart full of an exotic resource you have a good recipe for. Bring a hunter or 2 and you can gather food while you do this so everyone doesn't have to eat veggies every day.