Hi!
Putting aside that Bien was right not to lie, I have to agree that Dwarf Fortress is a really impressive game and highly addictive.
I came across it just a few days ago thanks to a discussion about the future of turn based strategy over at the heaven games boards about Age of Wonders, and I got hooked virtually immediately.
However, I am only a mediocre strategy player, even though I like the genre, so I am still building fortresses just to the point the first major annoyances (read: nobles) appear.
Starvation and the tantrums involved were at first a major problem for me, but I seem to have fined my ideal food source: Fisherdwarves combined with Craftdwarves (I could probably also work without the fishers). Bone, shell, and rock crafts seem to fetch a good price, allowing you to buy quite a lot of food stuff from the caravans. And rock crafts help diminish the ever-growing piles of rocks left over from your expansion of the fortress.
Yesterday, I finally checked out Adventure Mode, but I had a bit of a hard time finding ways to earn money ... I have to get to the wiki and get some more infos about that (my private computer is not connected to the internet, so I can't check on things while playing).
On a strange side note, after getting a stubborn permaflood in an area where I wanted to make an underground forest, I decided to drown my latest fortress. The dwarves that were inside the fortress itself drowned, but those that got caught in the flood while outside in the wilderness - they died of thirst or starved to death (except for one who got melancholic, walked through the flooded wilderness and drowned herself in the river (^_^;; ).
The personalities of the dwarves, the complex, consistant world, and all the small details make this a game that is really a great gaming experience.
Thank you, Toady One.
Deathworks