27th Opal, 208, Mid Winter
Got the first set of bedrooms smoothed (only 8 years in!) and Morul now is a legendary engraver. Realized that animal taming will be fairly challenging to do as it can't be done quickly, so that'll be getting started soon. A breeding wing has been dug out and it's time to get it equipped. The plan will be to train up dogs, butcher all but one of the males and 5 of the females, bring the population back up, and repeat. 15 generations of dead dogs later, animal training, butchery, and tanning should all be done, and enough tallow to take care of soap making.
5th Granite, 209, Early Spring
With a flurry of masterwork beds, Morul attained legendary carpenter status. Also discovered that making a wooden animal trap puts skill toward trapping. Enough trapping is needed for the extraction skills that it's not a necessary way to skill up, but it's an option.
24th Timber, 209, Late Autumn
Fortress expansion demanded stone blocks, so Morul is now a legendary mason. Bins are becoming a major problem. Human caravans get wiped out by orcs every year, so I have to rely on elves and dwarves for all exports. Morul continues to be the sole food and craft provider and has produced about 1.4M in wealth. He has no problem keeping a fortress of 50 fed, even while advancing other skills, but he's created almost 10,000 bolts, which are now stockpiled by the entrance, 300 or so totems, about 300 bone crossbows so far, and as a carpenter he basically only made barrels and bins. There are 724 bars of metal taking up 73 bins, and a hundred or so bins devoted to thread and cloth as he works up through weaver/dyer/clothesmaker. I had budgeted about 3,000 trees, about 600 of which are already used (carpenter) and another 1,000 cut down and ready, but unless I start dumping finished goods, I may need another 500 or so trees just for bins. Barrels are a bit less of a problem because they recycle reasonably well. Milled plants take less space than raw plants and I don't have prepared meals in barrels, though Morul is only making easy meals to speed things up. Still, 2500 booze sitting around and he's still only at Master Brewer. Only about 200 more barrels of booze to go. Only making sunshine at this point, because, well, why not?
13th Opal, 209, Mid-Winter
Broke yet another orc siege and took the opportunity to build another level up on the fortress since it's partially exposed to the outside and compromises the defenses. Needed more bags for more milling and Morul is now a legendary weaver. Dyer should finish in the next push, and clothier after that. Getting very near the end of the first set of food production skills. That also puts an end to pigtail and dimple cup/blade weed farming for quite some time. Morul still has 600 leather bags ahead of him. Those will mainly go to sand collection.
14th Obsidian, 209, Late Winter
Sure enough Morul has become a legendary dyer. Now to make enough bags to finish off clothier and to get through miller and thresher. This was a good year - 4 skills came in. Averaging one per year now, hopefully that will come up closer to two per year on average. Looks like there are approximately 70 skills, and while some to come will be fast, like most of the military ones, the social ones, siege operating, etc. Others will be hoplessly slow - strand extracting, plant gathering, milking, and the two dissection skills, and hunting.
12th Granite, 210, Early Spring
With approximately 300 empty bags ready for the next action, Morul is now a legendary clothesmaker. Still 600 leather bags to produce, however.
Started on the animal training/butcher/tanning and it's gonna be a pain in the ass. The biggest problem is that you have to move quick to effectively do the butcher/tanner cycle. If you mass butcher a bunch of animals, invariably Morul will go take a nap and eat dinner in the middle leaving the skins to rot. The training is a bit frustrating because every now and then an animal won't come to be trained and the task will just stall. I set up a bunch of 2x2 rooms with dually doors and a cage inside. There's a channel above the room so I can dump in my male and 5 females with the door locked and just wait until the population tops out.
Morul will start hunting soon and I've placed a butcher shop in the center of every embark tile so he doesn't have to run back to the fortress. Auto butcher will be turned off so they'll just rot out there, but that's better than having him run 100+ tiles from the edge of the map to the central fortress and back out every kill. For the animal butchering, I've had to forbid all of the other butcher shops which is a pain. I'm going to test putting walls around each one with a door on a lever, that way I can easy mass lock all the buildings for butchery and mass open them for hunting. I'm just afraid that the butchery task may still get assigned to the inaccessible workshop.
Current status:
18th Moonstone, 202, Early Winter - Miner
19th Limestone, 206, Early Autumn - Woodcutter
27th Granite, 207, Early Spring - Appraiser
9th Sandstone, 207, Mid-Autumn - Bone Carver
11th Granite, 208, Early Spring - Furnace Operator
27th Opal, 208, Mid Winter - Engraver
5th Granite, 209, Early Spring - Carpenter
24th Timber, 209, Late Autumn - Mason
13th Opal, 209, Mid-Winter - Weaver
14th Obsidian, 209, Late Winter - Dyer
12th Granite, 210, Early Spring - Clothier