So I wonder, based on the mechanics of the human civilization, is it even worth going about this as humans or will I always run into trouble from them being inside all the time? I know I can do basically all the same stuff with dwarves and eliminate the potential issues, but that seems too easy.
Oh wow... okay my suggestion when coming from the human direction in an evil/serene location.... you need walls. preferably:
outside w inside
w
gggggg ggggggg
g g
ggggggg
or in other words a ditch with ramps removed 3 to 5 wide preferably 2 deep if its soil. with a wall atleast 2 high inside of that. That will stop most things in evil biomes that are outside from pathing (except birds). Humans are great at ranged combat and have some of the most powerful late game ranged combat weapons.
basically start training ranged weapons early adding to your group. along the wall build archer towers that are 1 higher than the wall and roofed with fortifications. spread them out so that the gap is no more than 30 wide. interior I'd continue the grid placing archer towers through out the base. use a guard action for each tower point for 1 required 2 assigned to each tower... you should be able to assign 5 towers to 1 squad this way, and if they are well trained most flying zombie critters will get shot down before they can land and they will probably take out anything approaching outside too. I generally use 9 towers with humans in a 3x3 pattern covering ~60x60 tiles around wherever my caravan trade outpost is... on a zombie embark... I don't know if it would be worth worrying about traders, I'd might limit my surface fort to 40x40 or less (25x25 interior) with only 4 archer towers.
The worst human problem is no magma access. you can get there if you try but your humans will cave sick before you could get it pumped to the surface, so instead of trying to build a pump stack interior dig a 6x6 hole with a staircase in the corners that you are building every level. when you uncover the magma sea, build the walls and the pump stack all the way to the top like you would have dug it in vanilla DF. use that to fill the ditch.... that will deal with the dumb zombies that just can't stand it and want to try and leap the gap to your walls. also will help with disposal of body parts as you can toss them down the shaft to the magma sea.
another thing to note. you can dig a region out, cover it with a cieling and its still considered light inside and not a cave. after you do this every floor you dig down after that will still be considered light inside... and not count as a cave.... in other words you can just build a ceiling over your original opening into the surface and then its protected.... you can do that for areas outside of your fortress walls. when I play humans I general make 11x11 ditches, with a gap of 3 between them, get them down to 3z while trying to cover them. I'll dig cross tunnels at -3z to avoid the water features and the tree root/roof collapse issues. that will gain access to each of these and dig walk around the edge on the floor with the tunnels to it. stairs in the corners of each pit from surface to bottom andd wala open surface dig shafts to the underworld, without making humans sick. if your going deeper than 20z I would suggest taking the time to remove the stairs and replace them as even long internal dark stairways will eventually cause cave sickness.
My best map with humans, 20 humans working 20. I had 2 shafts that made it all the way through cavern 3 and one that was hot with magma beneath when a flying firebreather megabeast attacked the fortress at the top.... Anything is doable.
I noticed a few extra trap components from vanilla, namely the large piston. Are they just as good just different approach to damage (pierce, slash, bludgeon) etc?
large pistons are actually a machine part for a steam engine, I've rarely used them. they have horrible statistics and I would not suggest they be used in traps, but if you do let us know how it works out!
Anyone knows for a cure for my werenoobiness that make sme quit/restart once i reach 30 dwarves, out of stress of not being capable to deal with the number?
simple, breathe, and let it go, let it go.... forts aren't a micromanaging nightmare, I generally set up a few automatic things.
1. military training, 1/4th to 1/2 of my units only have hauler skill set and are in the military training 1 month on, guarding a tower or patrolling a path 1 month, 2 months off that they spend partying and hauling things.
2. use work flow alt-w when you are making tasks... so you want arrows on the ready for your hunters set a workflow to keep 10 stacks of wooden arrows always made.. simple. other ones I would suggest, the mason, the still, and the kitchen... keep enough blocks, beer, and food on hand to get the work done. other than that make an order for 10 of this or 10 of that as you need it.
3. designate a dig in priority numbers, 1 is areas you want fully dug out when your miners reach them, 2 are important paths that need to be dug before you got to the next area 3 are breaks between areas you want dug.... however you want to do it... I set up entire 3x3 floors to be dug by the priority numbers, into whatever I want housing, store rooms, workshops. and then sit back and let the dwarfs do they work.
but beyond that if they idle so what.... if they don't idle some they will get stressed out from overwork... they need some time to party, pray, spend time with the kids. they are more than just worker bees. Food stockpiles full? turn off the hunters and the fishers and let them spend time chasing the kids and their spouses. spend time trying to see what the non workers are doing. you will see them dance with their spouses in the taverns, or make a home together in their assigned rooms... you can watch people go to your leader and make petitions, the funniest thing you will catch a couple of dwarfs standing on a bed together and 9 months later shes dropping a kid and chasing after it.... thats the best damn "dwarf sex simulator" I've ever seen.
You can spend time watching the doctors fix guys you intentionally dropped a rock on.... you can spend time learning minecart physics and building a roller coaster... you can spend time watching your hunters hunt, your fishers fish(the later is as boring as watching real people fish, but some like to do it). you can play with lava, or conquer the caverns. Even go on a vacation to hell and take the family for a picnic there...
The main thing... don't worry about the losses.... dwarf fortress is about the living and the dying, its about simulating a group of dwarfs struggling in the wild to establish a home and settle down. As long as a farm is making plants, a still is making portobella gin, a meeting hall is jumping with life, and little babies are appearing every now and then... that's a win no matter what else is happening....
Loosing is when all the
!!FUN!! is happening, and that's when all that time you spent with them either comes to end or you cheer with them in their victory. In the end remember its just a game and generally whatever bad decisions happen... they will grow back or you can start a new.... my longest running fort went 40+ years had over 100 coffins in the graveyard and was being run by the great grandchild of the original leader. You just have to let it go and it will for the most part do everything on their own.
Is the force damage balanced? Or a peasant still can kill someone because their punch broke someone's neck due to the force?
ummm for the most part yes... what your describing is a vanilla DF issue, that seems to be getting reduced every iteration of the game. Really what I see now is not I broke somones neck, but oh my I bent they neck funny... and they are still fighting lol... weapons are still much better at killing things than fists.