31.09 Embarked on a hevilly forested area, 7 dwarfs, no skills, no meat, no plants, brought lots of booze, and milk, training axe 1 pick and... snow and ice nearly everywhere, brook frozen solid, no shrubbery, no trees, hmm started digging into the mountain, going slow, built the obglitary beds and set up the starting workshops, everybody hungry, slaughtered the mule, did not have space to place a food stockpile, (vultures were waiting outside, so outside food stockpile would have just fed them) dwarves ate one meat each and the rest rotted. ok! the brook defrosted set everyone to fishing, but they were all busy hunting vermin to eat, then I realized that I had 60 milk and had not built the farmer's workshop to change it into cheese *facepalm* one dwarf finally caught and ate a vermin then went fishing, and another caught a vermin, started making more bronze, removed him from the job, and anter repeating a wew times on the other jobs finally got him to start the building of the farmer's workshop. got the workshop built and first cheese made nobody starved to death, and, "Some migrants have arrived!". <groan>
Ok built some bronze picks and assigned some more dwarves to mine and dug out a tunnel to the brook, 3 spaces away from completion and the brook freezes. It's going to be a rather dry winter if I do not do something so I search the entire map and find some suguaro cati and a few scattered shrubbery at top and bottom left side of this 6x6 embark. I order up all the plants to be picked, despite the giant eagle flying about. Off go all the dwarves and shortly I have a few megre prickle berrys and blade weeds. set the seeds to be cooked and brew the berrys and make dye with the blade weed. Dwarven traders show up but I have not built the trade depot yet and with the scramble to gather plants and make booze no dwarf manages to find the time to build the trade depot, and the dwarven traders depart, taking their 60 plump helmut, and the many barrels of booze they had brought. 5 of my 17 dwarves manage to die of thirst as I make the first barrels of prickle berry wine and longland beer while the traders lounge about watching my dwarves drop dead of thirst.
In the dead of winter more migrants arrive, now have 35 mouths to feed and booze. Got a hunter to finally activate, and She brings in a Giant Juguar. Then the elves show up the depot is open but one of my puppies that a migrant brought is killed my the elves as they make their way in. Thinking that all the elves were in I set the outer door to be kept tightly closed, and proceed to move what few trade goods I had available (some GCS clothing from the 5 deceased dwarves, 10 coke, and a few other cheap items) get the message that they are going to depart soon, notice no broker assigned yet, checked all the dwarves, yup no appraisers in the lot, ok picked one that can judge intent... and set it to anybody can trade, and went away.
Chexked it and *facepalm* had not requested a broker, set that and came back to it in a few min, and trade was lit up, cool, " We're sorry we have not quite finished setting up yet"!!!!!!! ok it's the pet impassible doors... set the doors to let the pets in , and watch one last elf come through the front door and slowly make his way to the depot leading his M(ule) he gets there and they are still unloading, !! wait 30 seconds and try again GOT in! traded my 5 GCS cloathing 10 coke and 2 rock mechanisms for a dromadary camel Dam and some booze and about 60 plants, not too bad for using a random dwarf. 5 seconds after I leave the trading window, the elves pack up and depart! Phew that was SO close! Manage to survive the winter with the hunting, seeds and booze from the elves, no thanks to the dwarves.
Perhaps this fortress will buy out the elven caravans and drown/imprison the dwarven ones.