I've had some experience dealing with communities of gamers and (a little admittedly) online-game communities. Here are some observations I think might transfere well to DF.
The biggest problem I've seen with game progression in DF is that with the HUGE detail available the trade off was that the game didn't scale well once a fortress grew beyond a certain point. Massive stockpiles become unmanagable, trudging through lists of dwarves looking for that -one- broker dwarf, wasting a full ten minutes for a task that should take 10 seconds. DF is littered with hundreds of these types of scaing problems.
I know in the dev thread and suggest threads have "Ease of Use" as an issue and also a "End game" isssue listed. However I think this does qualify as a separate suggestion, dealing with both but with a different mechanic in mind.
Alright... DF scales poorly (not-a-diss) in two areas, items and animals. Now the best way I've learned to deal with scaling issues is to take a hint from economies and create unitary gradation and heirarchies of groupings.
Ok, now that I don't feel like I wasted money on my new thesaurus let me high-light two examples from each sections.
First ItemsThe two items that honestly pile up the quickest are stones and barrels of food (In my forts atleast... I always overplant). Now after a while a fort stops dealing in 1 and 10s of stones and more in 100s and 1000s of stones, maybe even 10,000s of stones. After a certain number of total stones that are actually items in play (not used), the game should trigger a switch-over to a separate counting system, which allows all current stones in play to be gathered in groups of 10 or (if there really is that many 100). Stone piles like these take on a new name of "A Mass of ### Blocks/Rocks/Barrels of Wine". Probability in mining switches over to make producing these masses 10 times more difficult. Carrying is twice as difficult or as long. Workshops store a Mass of Rocks until all are used up or production is switched out for another mass of rocks.
Second ItemThe Organizer could be allowed to create groupings of items to be referenced as a single "item" later on. Lets say you want to create suits of armor to be stored individual in recruit's barracks. Task the organizer with "Assembling the Following..." then set the list of items and the organizer will collect and the item becomes movable and wearable as single item with all the collective effects. Same thing could be applicable to tools if, say, you wanted to keep all those wooden arrows together without the dozens of trips and multiple stockpiles normally required... just create an assembly of arrows and your done!
First CreatureDwarves could really use scalablity. Lets say we want to control groups in sizes of about 5... Decent workable number. All your dwarves once a mayor is reached can be assigned to "squad" like labor crews led by a foreman who now acts as the "preference" of the group... setting the labor preferences and army preferences on him will automatically effect the rest of the group. An easy addition to this would be to allow the grouping of work crews under divisions of labor. All the work crews of hunters/gathers/farmers/brewers/cooks can have labor/rest/recall orders issues from a single head of food management.
Creature SecondAt some point, if a player really focuses, vast herds (say that to yourself -really- fast and imagine calling someone that
) can develop of wee little dogs and annoying horses. Well at some point the numbers grow so large that all non-pet herd/pack animals randomly select a alpha "Male" to be the center of the new herd. The herd can now be slaughtered as one or trained all as one. One herd, once grown to a certain point splits in two and bother now grow individually and so on.
All in all the point is to try and reduce what the player "has" to focus on and allow concentration on prefered topics of interests instead of micromanaging the smallest details of rock removal and herd tending.