[fennecfoxen]

> It is quite trivial then to get a fortress up and running and produce far more food, drinks, and goods than you ever need and grow your wealth rapidly.

At that point it turns into a big-system management game with a variety of mechanisms to trip you up, starting with the raids and megabeasts attracted by wealth, vampire infiltration, cranky nobility, and other ways that your system turns self-destructive.

That doesn't make it a great game — it can be incredibly tedious — but, it sounds like you played until you reached prosperity, and just declared the first 1/3-of-the-game-tops as too easy.