http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=6249Here is a ten year fort save, using 1.7.2, Fortress Defense monsters are off, as are Warlocks as I've found that they make things too chaotic due to setting things on fire all the time, then raising and being killed by their own zombies.
First off, performance. I started with a 150 fps cap and currently am down to around 30, this is with 190+ dwarfs and an ass-ton of animals. There is usually a siege in the caverns as well, currently there is an army of Batmen. My computer was a middle of the road machine when I built it two years ago, and in a vanilla game would be moving at perhaps 10 fps if I am lucky, so that is cool.
I've been poking around for Adamantine but something always seems to come up so I haven't actually hit it yet, or even the magma sea. I haven't been able to try out training my own magic users. Though I did have a couple migrants who cast spells, one necromancer type who would raise anything he saw, then shoot it with a blood storm, I eventually had to do away with him as he scared the rest of the guys. And a vampire who would concentrate and move faster, not that it does him any good as he is locked in his office being my manager forever with 2 concubine ghosts accompanying him. The last was a Demonbound dwarf who was a god among fighters, he dual-wielded greataxes(One Sladeamantine, one artifact Iridium) and didn't care about anything, except Gray Langurs, who he would chase across the map to murder, he met his end just this past winter at the hands of Frost Giants.
Speaking of whom, I don't notice any difference in difficulty for them in this version, they still hurt bad and the frost air thing they do makes dwarfs bleed out it seems, no one landed a finger on the fighter but he bled to death mid fight with them. They are pretty hardcore imo.
Concubines are an issue, I mentioned it before but they leave ghosts and aren't slab-able, so if you don't want the spewing out babies and have them butchered, they never leave you alone. On a personal note I find the concubines pretty creepy to include in general and would like an option to turn them off.
Sauropods rock, they are enormous and react with belligerence when enemies approach, if you are taking requests for new stuff, I want to be able to war train these guys. For a while they were the only things that could reliably crack open Frost Giants.
On the same note, I think Dragons maybe should not be purchasable, I love them but they make sieges easy as hell. I have an iron box made of bridges sitting outside my fort, it has 3 War Dragons in it, when a siege arrives that I don't feel like fighting, I close my fort, open the box, and wait till the fires die out. If they start dying that is fine, cause I have ten or so more sitting in cages inside.
White Widow spiders are cool and fun, these are my favorite war animals to assign to my fighters.
Is it intended that both Drow and Elves have all the pets?
Essence Fragments are a bit OP I think, my entire army for 9 years consisted of 2-4 melee dwarfs, I was able to give them whatever legendary skills I desired and they are basically unstoppable, to the point of swatting bullets out of the air. Recently my army went up to 7 because:
The King arrived! First time I have ever got one, came with a full retinue and works just fine, though he seems to want to go outside when it is on fire. He appeared to have ignored the road requirement though, unless bridges count.
Trading becomes a hassle later in the game, the traders come with upwards of 6 wagons, a bunch of mules and such, and a veritable army of escorts, they take forever to load and unload, it was not unknown for a group to be loading in the Depot as the next batch of traders comes onto the map, they haven't run into each other yet though, I hope they fight. The guards are handy sources of defense, as well as trade goods when a couple inevitably die in the fighting.
Excavating stones at the Archaeology workshop is surprisingly lucrative, Masterwork Obsidian weapons and Earthware crafts a pretty easy to get, I've had this on repeat for the last few game years to try to reduce clutter and it has helped my trade, though the elves hate my Obsidian stuff I think.
Clothes are an issue with large forts, cloth rots too much, even wooden bins start to deteriorate eventually. I finally spent the last year smelting all my gold, spinning it into thread, and have started making clothes out of that instead, hopefully won't rot as fast. I've had more than a few of the crazy naked children problem, though many get pants in time. I know this isn't a Masterwork issue but your metal clothes option seems to be a good solution.
What is a Berserker Hide? One of my moods made one of these a while back and I've never heard of it before, it is chest armor and one of my axedwarfs seems to like it but that is all I got.
I like the Temples to Armok, but as the game moves on the armor and weapons get outclassed by your crafters, I use it to deal with unruly nobles.
The Golem nerf saddens me, my Mithril Golem was killed by Orcs, I think they are reasonably powered mind you, I just kind of missed the unstoppable killing machines of previous versions.
I'll come up with more stuff as I reflect on it.
Oh, for anyone interested in checking out the save, it is flat with a Volcano (Using a modified Garden of Gaia), which I haven't personally been able to find before, Tetrahedrite, Hematite and Gold are the main minerals, there is Marble as well so steel is a thing, I have close to 1k bars stockpiled. No flux but tons of trees. All secrets enabled