I see that you're taking care to dispose of chunks now. Are you tanning the hides?
Well, I reinstalled to fix whatever I did to the display, so that game was lost. But yeah, I installed the tannery at the same time as the butcher shop - I was trying to organize it so that the buildings/stockpiles/etc. that are related are actually sort of in the same place. I like how all the butchering and tanning happens automatically whenever a hunter brings back a kill.
Hermetically-sealed fortresses. A popular design strategy is to have a wide boulevard for traders and invaders that comes into the bowels of the fort, and then a vertical shaft with stairs that leads to a walled garden on the surface; this area can be used to farm the above-ground crops and harvest wood.
I actually tried that on the fortress I started up today, or something like it anyway. I was originally thinking about how to get a well that was sort of underground; the level I started my fortress on was directly under the surface for a ways in, and there were a bunch of surface lakes that had the water on the level I was building on (you know what I mean?) and I figured that to make a well I would have to dig up to the surface and establish it there, and if I just put walls around it it wouldn't be bothered by sieges. And of course, it means fish too, in the absence of actual subterranean water. I hadn't thought about growing the surface seeds up there, though.
However, the mason that was constructing the wall somehow got stuck mid-construction and died of starvation (I thought he was just fishing in an unauthorized place...) and then some unskilled migrant became possessed and took over the crafts shop, which was the main source of my exports at that point, and started blithering about "rocks....stones" which didn't make any sense since there were stones of all kinds all over the place. Then I hit something by accident and managed to seal off the stockpile where I was keeping all the crafted stuff, and couldn't figure out how to reverse it, and then a caravan showed up. It was getting a little too fun for me, but I did learn some things from that fortress before I gave it up.
What does it mean when a dwarf "gets enraged"? It happened to one of my hunters, and all that happened was the she mauled the hell out of the deer she was hunting and then snapped out of it. Her thought said she was unhappy, I guess because she was out in the rain, since that was the only other thing that was there.
Yes, but he can still lead a happy and productive life as a member of the Royal Guard or as a socializer.
What is the Royal Guard for? Is it another useless thing that nobles demand they must have?
If he levels up his social skills enough, he could gain enough attributes to be a fine marksdwarf. See "Lightning Never Strikes The Same Place Twice".
Heh. Is there actually any benefit to having a dwarf like that, or is it just for fun?