There is an easy solution, make it a second campaign that takes place X years after and have a reason to lose your gear/progress in the previous campaign. Something like “I’ve been in India for 30 years, and my stupid brother got all our guys killed, our stuff stolen/confiscated, and rather than get it back started…

Chess. Any slower and you go back in time.

Didn’t Ravenholdt get burned to the ground by the red dragonflight?

Also, there is a difficult but effective way to farm power-armor suits. be sure to either stock up on stealth-boys, or go for 10 agility 5 sneak and all the sneak books. Or go for slightly less stealth if you don’t want to.

There is a very easy method to get the wood and steel, and the lack of farm-land is likely midigated by using the local leader perk to supply large quantities of food and water to the fort. Here’s how I would construct and feed this behemoth personally.