holy...I have to say I am quite surprised at the verocity of the argument that I ensued
just to extend on what exactly I have in mind:
i want to create a smaller (33*33) world with 5 civs (since they are equally distributed, one of them has to be dwarven) and the dwarven one wiped out during worldgen.
to make it happen, I usually increase the number of megabeasts and titans for some extra FUN. If the "world_sites_and_pops" text file (pressing 'p' after worldgen) shows no dwarves, I assume the dwarven civ is dead. LegendsViewer also shows it as "fallen".
If I understand correctly, a dying civ cannot be distinguished from a dead civ before you check ingame. That puzzles me somewhat...so even if "world_sites_and_pops" as well as LegendsViewer shows no surviving dwarves, some are still hidden somewhere? Excuse my logic but "every dwarf is dead = civ dead", at least in my book. I'm aware that DF logic might absolutely disagree with me here...
As for the differences: a dying one will provide unlimited migrant waves, caravans with liaisons etc. A dead dwarven civ means only 2 hardcoded migrant waves and no caravans before the winter. Has anyone tried whether it is doable to create a big fortress (150+ dwarves) with just two waves and many many kids?
Also, if my civ is dead, would one of my grand-grand-grand-kids be appointed monarch once the fortress hits a certain threshold?
thanks for all of your answers! it seems like they have only sparked further questions though haha...