while they've fixed the meat-for-free-barrels thing,
NO! He hasn't! It's just that the NEW types of meat (prepared walrus brain) stack with the OLD meat (walrus meat). But if you have a bunch of types of meat (walrus meat versus seal meat) they will get separate barrels. barrel abuse is alive and well.
evidently creature blood (under extracts) costs only 1 embark point and gives you a free barrel with it. If you can dump the stuff out (lol), you can probably net some pretty cheap barrels still
also, sand is pretty awesome on embark, even in sanded areas, as each point nets you a free bag to go along with the contents
i suspected these but had not investigated yet.
for shame, tarn. -5 dollars from my next donation.
I guess I should say that what I'm used to for barrel/wood abuse is no more. I used to get 1300 extra points from ditching the anvil and one of the two axes which I could then use to max out all dwarf skills, take at least one of every kind of meat, 80-100 drink, 50 turtles, 20 of each seed, and 300 logs. Since weapons and anvils are no longer worth so much more in relation to everything else I can no longer trivialize initial setup with siege-worthy food supplies.
Well I too would definitely ditch the axes. There was absolutely no reason to take them, instead you just take copper bars and make your own axes on arrival.
But I have to say, if you're taking meat that costs more than 4, it's not really barrel abuse. Even taking the 6-point meats isn't really efficient. You can always take wood for 3, right? So any new meat (or any 11th meat) is basically discounted by 3 because you're getting a free wood (ie, the barrel). A 6-point meat is just as nutritious as a 2-point meat. So if you take your 6-point meat and subtract your barrel value (3), you're paying 3-points for a meat. Conclusion: you could have just added a wood and another 2-point food, for a total of 5, instead of adding any meat costing 6 more or more.
Short version: real barrel abuse only uses 2 and 4 point food. After that you take the food you need and you take wood.
I'm also still not taking axes and picks on embark. I'm taking copper bars and fuel and 2 stones, then building the forge and smelter on-site and making fuel and picks and an axe. 100-point anvil is a godsend.
I am taking 16-25 of each seed, though, and of course making dwarf skills.