I often throw most of mine into pits.

I used to use limestone for my construction, then I realized I need it more for steel. Bigger problem is, I need more magnetite. So now I use basalt. And once again, if you are short on rock, you're doing it wrong.

It's not about the number of stones: unless you have a huge number of proficient masons, dwarves take ages, litterally, to build most anything. Also, you've got to remember that I'm playing in challenge fortresses. Y'know, giant glacier, nothing but miles and miles of ice and underground sand. Heck, I've even started building glass furnaces on the first year, since I couldn't find enough rock for building doors for my fortress.

You realize you can build ♥♥♥♥ out of mined out ice, right?

If you dwarves have high agility, skills aren't needed for quick construction.

Building ♥♥♥♥ is no problem, but dwarves can't use ice on stuff like crafts/furniture, so I have to either use the little amounts of obsidian I extract from a magma pipe or make glass, otherwise there would be no chairs, coffers, doors, and so on.

Of course you could create obsidian.

Not for long if it's just a pool.

Except for that I would need water. And the only water source in this map is melting ice. And if I melt the ice, I'll have nothing to build my fortress with. Except obsidian. And if I use the obsidian to build stuff, I'd have nothing to make furniture with, and so on.

obsidian more useful than ice convert ice into obsidian problem solved

But then my fortress would not be icy!

At any rate, I've found a thick cluster of basalt near the magma pipe, so problem solved anyways.

good luck making basalt swords

I couldn't make obsidian ones either, I've got no wood.

If I hear "rude bauble fit only for your kind" again, I'm going to collapse a section of the road as their caravans pass over it. ~1300 profit not enough? Bah.

I have for the first time in my current fort, the haunted beach one. Aquifers are annoying to deal with with 5 dwarves left (no migrants first year ;-;). I'll get it done tonight, but thank god there's been enough wood around to build houses and walls and doors and such. Regardless, i need to punch through it because I'm in pretty dire need of mechanisms.
Last night was fairly hellish though, as I'm at the beach there isn't really much fresh water around, so anyone who gets wounded is generally ♥♥♥♥. I got my brewing operation underway just as one of my tired, dehydrated, unhappy swordsdwarves was taken down by a pack of zombie wolves. He got a fine burial, but damnit there goes a decent cook and hunter <_<
Everyone is back to being fairly happy though what with the booze and food and beds making there way in, (bar the "fine" lover of the swordsdwarf and the "ecstatic" sadist hammerdwarf), so tonight should be aquifer toasting, trap setting, and generally holing up for winter time.
Having zombies and skeletons constantly flooding in makes DF more fun, I've decided. There will be no more wilderness bases for me.

Not only fun, but Fun too. I've long decided to only make fortresses on harsh environments. Feels much more challenging.

On an unrelated sidenote, a female wrestler in my glacier fort got hurt during a sparring session. The other fighter threw a steel axe at her, making her spine break and rip her left lung off. Even winded and stunned, she was able to stop the bloodloss by covering the hole in her chest with a chunk of flesh torn from her upper body. She has been ecstatic lately.