One should have more reason to attack the dwarves than just "He said my wine tasted like piss!"
As Dwarven cities are located in mountainranges, others would find them unappealing to live in. Argh starvation!
Gold would be a good reason to attack them anyhow.
Dwarf AI should be quite belligerent easy to anger and hold a grudge forever.
Just had a thought about the rise and fall of civs in the WHF world.
Elves and Dwarves had early big empires, battles with orcs devastated them and humans were opportunistic to take the fallow lands.
Attrition
Elves and dwarves have slow reproductive rates, but long lifespans.
Humans and orcs reproduce like rabbits, but have the lifespan of flies.
Lets asume on average this gives a similar populationgrowth.
If longlived races can only create units by conscription, big high attrition wars would mimic the fall of the elven dominance as described in WHF.
Replacement warriors would cut dearly into the populace of D/E .
This costlyness of units, would also merrit their units being stronger early on.
Early advantage in growth (no disease) could be given to E/D from them being non-reliant on irrigation for food.
I like the cavefood idea.
Could it be those mushrooms stunt your growth? (dwarves/goblins are short)
edit: I don't understand: why wait for models, I think the gameplay, unittypes, tech and balance should be correct first. ?