Huh... chill out, everybody. As many others said, there are the previous versions. The new one literally came out 2 days ago only, and the "bug" is a pretty noticeable one one can catch early on. Plus, it's an alpha. That means the worsening in difficulty
(I can't believe I'm saying DWARF FUCKING FORTRESS could be considered as having been "easy" in some way) is not only unintentional... but very probably gonna get fixed very, very soon.
Remember the 31.17 crashes? Fixed within the week in 31.18. Carps? Weren't supposed to be scaly demi-god of pain, and eventually got fixed. Iron? Wasn't supposed to be (almost) as good as several other metals for armor. Bone artifacts? Were fi... wait, they aren't fixed yet, but I haven't seen that many people outright bitch about it, despite the fact they ruined perfectly good materials in many forts. I should stop the list right now, because the point is that bugs, much like shit, happen, and since I doubt Toady's intention is to force us to fiddle with raws in order to make things remotely playable, it's only a matter of days, weeks at worst, before it's all better again.
Geez.
Shut down the computer. Go out. Walk a bit. Spend your energy for something else than a game which, while it is extremely lifelike already, isn't that important in the grand scheme of your life. Chill. Out.