Hello!

I'm new to dwarf fortress, and this is my first fort (the first that's lasted long enough for me to learn anything about the game anyway), and I'm now very attached and invested in this fortress and its drunken little residents. However, my game crashes seemingly at random, but regularly enough that progressing even a season is a real challenge at this point. No error message displays, the game just closes.

Things that may be causing the issue based on my own investigations:

1. Processing issues - this fort does now have almost 250 dwarves, as well as an animal population of around 90. I have noticed crashing more regularly when attempting projects (an attempt to use a screw pump to empty a pond with just a whole bunch of caged goblins and other rubbish from where the dwarves had been dumping, them from before I had any idea what to do with my captured enemies caused essentially insta-crashes; as did a few other attempts at emptying the same pond using other methods). My hope is that my computer isn't just choking and dying, as my PC still has solid components that should handle the game well enough.


2. Messing up the game somehow by cheating? - I have no evidence for this but it's something I worry about (I'm usually cheat aversive). I have used some DF hack commands to help me out of tough spots now and again (created shell for a strange mood dwarf because I couldn't bear the idea of him going berserk because I was an idiot and used all the shell in the fortress to make armour; occasional "divine intervention" for large enemies, partly because they're very devout dwarves and it fits their story, partly because I had no idea how any of the military functions worked yet and needed the fort to survive long enough for me to work it out; that sort of thing)


3. Woolly Waricorns - I had my SO edit the raw so that unicorns produce wool and can be war trained. I kept accidentally catching unicorns in cage traps, which I let one of my dwarves train for the practice and yeah....after seeing the way they ran around after him, culling the herd didn't feel emotionally viable for the fortress....so...thick coated unicorns, that provide wool, cheese, and a mighty war companion, that the fort hopes to domesticate eventually. I don't know if this could be causing the issue, but thought I'd pop it here just in case.


I'm really invested in this fort and hope to make it the foundation of a whole story arc in this world, so any help that will lead me being able to play it and continue to develop it would be very appreciated!