I have been playing 2f, built my first ever above-ground fort with some orcs.
Restricting creatures to their natural biomes makes a big difference in the wildlife that wanders through - it used to be that the beer men and sweat men would just wander through and kill everything if I stayed above ground, this game, I was able to hold out against the wildlife long enough to build a simple above-ground fort. It seems that the creatures I had trouble with were from the cavern layer, since I only saw them in the deeps.
I also got the hang of farming this game, though I had such a great herd of beasts, that I never really needed the farms. My fort was well fed on fish, meat and boozebelly rum. I wonder if it would help reduce the power of the meat economy if all the animals were made smaller (so less fat and meat chunks when you killed them). Or alternatively, pet prices were raised across the board, meaning less could be bought at embark or traded for. Then again, more expensive pets means you can get more out of selling off your spare lambs...
If it were possible to make seeds more expensive, that might offer another way of reducing the food surplus in Dwarf Fortress.
In every game I've played since 1.9.5 (the first version I tried a wool industry in) I've not been able to spin the ewe wool and ram wool I've produced by shearing. I am wondering if I am doing something wrong? The way I set up my industries is to shear the sheep in the farmer's workshop, the wool then gets deposited in the corpse stockpile and whenever I try to spin thread, the game says it cannot find the reagent.
fasquardon