There are choke points everywhere, laden with cage and serrated blade traps.
Gotta have traps with a low pop, and even with a high pop it's more efficient than a military.
But if you have cage traps already you can just butcher all the captured animals and ignore farming all together.
2nd, carpentry is very important because wooden barrels, bins and cages are much lighter then stone one and you need many many of them. In fact, beside from maybe making few initial chairs and tables, masonry get redundant quickly because carpenters make everything else and later in the game valuable furnitures are best done with more expensive bars with a smith. Honestly, you bother checking mental stats and personalities and not thinking about this?
3rd, negotiators pick up skills quickly, assigning points to them is usually unnecessary. Not to mention, they can be slapped with 1 point in ambusher and get free hunting gear
4th, negotiator is honestly the dwarf that you should pay attention to the most during embark. They should stay as leader and constantly remain as mayors so what they like/dislike should be heavily considered in preparation for mandates and you mentioned nothing of it. Also, for them to achieve as many skills in negotiating as possible they need to be neutral in cooperation, not reserved and neutral or bad in straightfowardness. Depending on straightforwardness stat they need 5 points in consoler or liar because they wont be able to train one of them after embark. I personally prefer consoler over liar, btw.
5th, miner is a very important militia. The most important stats are physical stats. A single miner has always been and shall always be able to mine faster then you ever need. regardless of its ability to focus. or tire or whatever.
I thought I pretty much just said I ignore farming when I said I cook seeds and import booze.
2nd You can't make stone bins/barrels at all, I don't see how they can be heavier if they don't exist. You need wood to make beds and bins and barrels, yes but large cooked meals can't fit in barrels anyways and cooked meals will become your primary food source. So basically barrels will come down to holding booze and seeds. You can make these from high value metals as well and your dwarves will gain happy thoughts from the great craftsman ship.
As for stone, well unless you want clothes littered everywhere, you will be crafting cabinets for each of your dwarves eventually. You also need stone for your floodgates, blocks, doors, things you will need en masse for megaprojects which wouldn't be prudent to replace with metal which also aren't magma proof, though you can get a massive amount of stones that are.
3rd The negotiating skill does not pick up quickly, for your first trades you will want a good negotiator, since even if you do micro transactions for every single item, (and I have tried this), the negotiating skill won't budge much in the first year.
4th Why do I not mention mandates? Because if you have no sheriff, who cares? No dwarves will get punished for failing to meet a mandate, and the myor's happiness is easily won back.
5th A single miner has NEVER been able to dig faster than I want. Why? I like to make projects. Most of the time I wish I had 4 or 5. And if you're the type to lay out fort designs in advance, you will want your miner to dig. A LOT and constantly and not to be bothered by enemies.
