I'm on randy random / merciless / naked whatever and I finally lasted long enough to get a decent base going. Fairly early on my main character got carried off in a raid, but I kept going with the few that remained. A long time later, several months I think, I got the quest for rescue:
It took me ages to figure out how to get my people to go, and I had no idea how to take anything with me. So they showed up half starved. Luckily there were only two primitive guards that I gunned down. Rescued!
This was a funny thing that happened. I built a wall one square over so I could widen the rooms on the east side, and these 2 tards amantilladod themselves. Took me forever to get anyone over there to mine them out.
The game hammered me with raids after that. 2 in a row with 10 enemies each. I was kidnapped again in the second.
RIP little pack of terriers. The fat lady that rescued me the first time died in that fight. It left me with some very big gaps in skills. Nobody had enough construction to fix the hole in the wall or re-arm the traps. Luckily the game left me alone for awhile, and I managed to stabilize and got a wanderer in that could do construction.
Somewhere in there I got this request:
Finally I got the chance at a rescue (again). This time there were turrets. I only had two that could fight, but this time I took a couple days of food.
As soon as my 2 gunners leave, mad antelopes arrive and I just lock the outside doors and wait them out. They spring most of the traps, and then a big raid shows up and starts burning everything.
Meanwhile on the road, one of the fighters gets stuck in a sad wander for what seemed like days. They of course ran out of food and arrived half starved, but managed to rescue me and we stole enough food to make it back. When we got back everything except the walls and a little bit of food was gone. The game threw a couple raids and 2 of those storms that cause fires at me. I got a liver infection in one of the raids and almost died.
The doc that patched me up
With all the chaos I've only managed to research blades and beer. Even being kidnapped most of the game my character is still super awesome: