Bay 12 Games Forum

I've been out since around the time of the steam release. Looking to get back in.
This is kind of a rude question, but what do I need to know, or resources, or pages of things I need to know to get back into things? I've been crawling through the forum, so it looks like Hack and Therapist are back.
I don't need a run down of changes, more of a general over view of how to get back in easily. If I grab Therapist and Hack and the new version (I play ascii) will I be mostly all set?

I know UI has changed, and I'll have a lot to learn about that and content and other changes. I just want to know a good way to jump back in with out making my life harder than it needs to be (even though managing a fort full of dwarves seems to be only about making my life harder than it needs to be, but there's fun harder and lame harder).

Else, this wasn't settled the last time I was around: Is it better to donate $, or buy the Itchio version? I'll only play classic, but I wonder if official purchases have a non-monetary value to Bay12 in terms of numbers, engagement, etc.

I am now bored with trading, it's too easy to abuse and I no longer find it fun.  I realize this is a subjective problem that no one else can actually solve, but I am hoping some of you have suggestions on ways to approach trading that don't feel like I am abusing the system.
My particular experience is that it is trivial to generate excess meaningless value and trade it away. Simply pumping out rock crafts is enough to allow you to trade virtual garbage for useful stuff from the caravan. It's the same with rock mechanisms. It's worse if you make them out of valuable rock like native gold, and if you smelt the gold it's completely absurd. One gold ore makes 4 bars which becomes 8 craft goods and each single craft good can be as valuable as a steel weapon or all the food in a caravan. Don't have gold? There's a bunch of other ores that are just as bad, and plain stone crafts are still a problem all by themselves.
It's easy enough to tell myself I won't do these things, but I need to find some trading I can do that feels right to me.

Unacceptable: craft goods, mechanisms, other virtually unlimited things (doors, tables, etc). Meals because they are so valuable they again make trading trivial. Gems; they're not worth much, but my Manager or Doctor can just sit their churning out gems. Clothes if I am importing leather/cloth. Weapons, armor. Battle loot.

I might try rules like: Only exporting things I actually need, like bars of iron. Or only raw materials my fort produces, barrels of plants or meat or sacks of flour or bolts of cloth.  But in the end I suspect this will simply mean no trading early on and then later end up back at the "I can buy whatever they have" situation.

I'll try no trading at all. Or only trading for things I REALLY need (billion for the baron who likes this metal my dwarves have never heard of). Or things that might be a little different; "yes, I'll take this mated pair of gorillas".

I'll try only trading Artifacts. Then we can see how much I want what the caravan offers.

It would be more fun for me to endure selling a dwarf to the goblins than it is to sell finished goods. Selling finished goods feels like it has no cost to the player. I guess if I sold animals I'd at least have the small risk that I accidentally sell a Titan or other prisoner and have to deal with them getting free. FUN is where the fun comes from.

Are my embarks just too easy? My caravans are rarely threatened. If more got chased off would I be more desperate to trade? Is my military too small? If I had more soldiers I'd have less dwarves available to spit out crafts.

So, IDK. How do any of you handle this problem?

caveat: I am perfectly happy to make craft goods for my dwarves to enjoy. No matter how much I hate a specific dwarf I am happy for them to wear a bracelet or whatever, even if the dwarf sucks and the bracelet is worth 3K.