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[Anathema]

Well absolutely if you're having fun, you're doing it right, DF is not a competition.

That being said, for me personally, I could never play with invasions off. I do like building sprawling cities and megaprojects (can't claim to have the dedication to follow through on them, but I always try), but doing so just isn't challenging/interesting enough for me without some immediate threat. What little I do accomplish is far more meaningful to me if I had to fend off goblins and zombies and minotaurs with one hand while city building with the other. And if I lose, hey, losing is Fun, and there's always reclaiming.

Although frankly when you get enough practice in and get good at dealing with invasions, you won't lose many forts to them, they're more like a little extra pressure to make your megaproject more difficult, rather than a threat in and of themselves. At that point you need a mod to elevate invasions back to genuine threats rather than distractions, if you're into that kind of thing. Still holding my breath for the day when invaders can dig - things will be different then.

[Eneverforgets]

I also play with invaders turned off.  You can always turn them back on.  I set my child cap at like 5, too.  I have plenty to deal with just in terms of micromanaging a fort, building all kinds of pumps for water or magma, and stuff like that to keep me busy.  I agree that it's helped me understand the depth of the game, because I'm not constantly focused on invaders.  Messing with water pressure, magma pressure, getting my first magma based smelters and forges, learning how stockpiles really worked...there's tons of things that I'm glad I did without invaders on.  Now that those things are more second nature, it makes it so that when I do play with invaders I can focus more on them and less on those other things that now come naturally.

[Carric]

I play with invaders turned on and I don't ever plan to turn invaders off, although I can see the virtues of playing without invaders. As has been said, that's the cool thing about Dwarf Fortress: it accomodates lots of different play styles. Personally I just can't get enough of watching goblins impale themselves on my traps, then on the spears and bolts and axes of my militia, and then after a battle with no dwarven casualties have their last survivor lurking nearby, then when I go to finish him off having him go crazy and single-handedly murder every dwarf in my fort with his morningstar.

[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

I played without invaders when I found I could disabled them, as I was still not too familiar with the game and it helped me learn all the non-combat side of things.

However, it becomes tedious without the threat of battle breaking up the monotony every once in a while. Though it also helps if you want to make a cool castle to explore in Adventure mode. It will be filled with nasties regardless at that point anyway :p

[Dwarfotaur]

I've never played with Invaders off but I have embarked in peaceful areas with no goblin civ. I used to do this all the time when I was starting out as I had NO idea how to use traps/metal/military. I had to get the basics of farming/cooking/brewing first and how to make beds/doors/tables/chairs.

Once I figured that out, I slowly branched outwards. I then tried hunting/fishing, butchery/dissection and growing more types of crops. This lead to Farmer's Workshop for Quarry Bushes and Pig Tail thread. This lead to cloth industry, which got me interested in Leather too (I hadn't realised butchers were giving me hides).

This went on until I knew how to use military and traps, at this point I knew everything I wanted to know and most of the time I embark in Terrifying Biomes with a local Goblin Civ and custom worldgen there to be a lot more titans and megabeasts. Some of my Fortresses never get past the first year still, others fall shortly after (GCS, Semi-megabeast, 2x ambush all at once and I only had about 50 dwarves). The challenge is why I play now.

Though after reading this topic, I might go back to an easier embark and try designing a new Fortress layout. I'm pretty bored of my current one!

[Vercingetorix]

I think I should probably turn invaders off for a bit to clean up all the crap that's accumulated in and around the fort because of them. 

[Valrandir]

Playing without invaders would dull any sense of achievement in my fortresses.

With risk comes greatness and meaning.

[birdy51]

I'll have to try this myself. My last fortress could have been so much more if I wasn't worrying about setting up that perfect defense against Goblins. I've had too many cool projects ruined by an untimely ambush or an invasion. It's good to have invaders at some point... But they can cripple creative ideas sometimes. I'll have to try this some time.