I stocked up on tons of food before embark, figuring that it would buy me some time to get myself established before I had to go and farm.
I hate farming in this game for some reason.
Anyways, so I bought lots of food and booze, having sold my bronze axes (no more defense and no more wood. Not a good idea) and anvil (I didn't know about metalworking at the time) to get it. I also sold some various other seeds and items that I'd viewed as useless at the time.
I also didn't bother giving my dwarfs any skills save for a single miner/mason and a wood cutter/carpenter (who was half useless).
It actually didn't start off so bad, I dug out my burrow and stockpiles and made makeshift bedrooms so that even if they didn't have beds, they could still sleep somewhere.
Of course, after that I decided to go looking for some stone to mine so I'd have some building materials. I found nothing, even after going about 5+ Z levels down.
After a while we started running low on food and decided to plant some of my plump helmets. I decided to go and try to mine out a medium sized water pocket into a place that I named the "Farming Corridor". I figured that it was big enough to absorb all of the water; I was wrong. So now I have no wood, no stone, a flooded burrow, no beds and limited food and booze supplies.
"C'mon, trade caravans, I need you!" "Wait... Why are we getting immigrants?!"
Now I have more mouths to feed, my dwarfs are running on dwindling food supplies in a half flooded cave and we have no building materials.
Finally, the flood clears up and I'm able to plant some seeds in the mud. "That was easy."
Nope, it wasn't, because then and there for reasons unknown, a couple goblins roam into my fort and attack my unarmed untrained dwarfs. Of the fifteen or so that I had before, my population is now down to ten.
This story ends with a big "Fuck it" and me abandoning my fort.