I... tend to focus on one aspect of my fort while leaving all other aspects horribly underdevelopped. One fort had a vast, prolific farming area and a militia consisting of around 20 hobos with sticks. Or the one time I had every military dwarf clad in steel, each with their own engraved rooms and tombs, while the rest of my dwarves had barely any food or drink and slept in the hospital.
I usually go with the 'quantity over quality' approach to trade goods. Sure, a masterwork platinum scepter encrusted with star sapphires is worth a lot... but a few bins of random stone junk is much easier to make, and will achieve the same effect. I just hate micromanaging my trade goods so Urist McGemsetter won't stick my valuable baubles on ropes and socks.
I love plump helmets. Most of my farms, when not producing pig tails or quarry bushes, will be making plump helmets. This often results in having hundreds and hundreds of plump helmets in my food stockpile, and my dwarves getting sick of dwarven wine. I hardly ever grow sweet pods, dimple cups and cave wheat, even for booze.
While I usually avoid trap gauntlets ( and almost never build cage traps ), I'm not above placing a few here and there to deter goblin thieves, and to potentially soften up invaders before my military descends (ascends? I mean, they're in a cave) upon them.
When I breach the cavern, I usually wall off the ground-accessable parts, but I leave the lakes alone. So while I'm safe from wandering trogs and crundles, Forgotten Beasts and other aquatic/amphibious creatures can still find their way into my fort. This ensures lots of Fun without the common annoyance of having to deal with interrupting cru-
Elth Mysterius, Forumite cancels Post: Interrupted by Crundle x24