I've started a little challenge game to keep myself amused when I'm not playing Fogcrystal. The rules are:
1, starting area must have aquifer, magma, and usable sand.
2, No serene, mirthful, calm. (I wanted something evil, but no such area met the requirements above, so I had to settle for wilderness).
3, No rock mining except for obsidian. It is permissible to dig through something else to get to the obsidian, but all such stones created must be forbidden and any items made out of them must be dumped. Understand? No rock except obsidian. No rooms in rock that aren't obsidian.
4, You may bring 20 stones of any rock type to do initial construction. I bought Olivine.
5, No metal weapons, other than ammunition, to be made. Captured weapons or those obtained through trade are fair.
6, Other items (armour, well-chains) may be built out of any metal you may optain through trade, capture, or other non-mining methods. Captured armour may be melted down. You may trade for metal armour or metal anything else.
7, Everything that doesn't have to be metal to be built out of your starting stone, obsidian, wood, or glass (soap is permissible). Needless to say, bone, shell, and leather may be used for armour, weapons, or ammunition as applicable.
I'm through till first autumn. Getting the glass furnaces set up took a few false starts, as I kept channeling into the aquifer and causing a burst of steam when the magma hit it, but I eventually found a way through, and am spamming green glass production to make tables, chairs, doors, and walls. I'm going to turn the channel I made into the aquifer into my well source when I can get a chain (which will probably mean getting an anvil first).
The dwarven caravan was a complete wash because of some trees in the way of the trade depot, so they turned up on camels and we couldn't trade our obsidian mechanisms. We ultimately traded a few obsidian crafts for a barrel of booze. We could have afforded more, but they couldn't carry it away. We still got migrants.
Sound interesting?