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[dr_random]

I make little mini forts whenever I have some mountain side and little outcroppings sticking up, usually overlooking a river. I think it's the German in me.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Seriously, these little castles are everywhere on the Rhine. Few are built without the terrain in mind and none are just a box with towers in the corners.

Damn you, robber. It's a plan to set up your own toll extortion racket - I have read your mind.

For me, the first thing I read on the wiki was about "losing is fun". The game is quite basic in graphics and control interface and that would normally turn people away. But if you approach it with a certain attitude it is really funny. And I really don't notice whining and complaining here - kinda unusual, but nice.
So I failed a number of times, turning to call out "NEXT!" when doom stroke again. I spent six hours to find the perfect embark (without actually starting the game) - I'd call that OCD. Now I landed in a flat cold treeland. Brook is frozen, massive clay, no aquifer, all iron ores present, magma not very far down there but it's a sinister land. The first party was slaughtered by harpies and ogres and I reclaimed.
Everything was littered around - a nightmare for an obsessive mind. I got the thing going again, but my intricate hall of death is not working as planned.
Anyway, those times when the ambush nears the gate, everone is actively drinking booze and NOT pulling the trigger - well, it's just bad karma. Don't be perfect, just enjoy it. How? Build somthing complicated with wicked intention and watch it fail.

[captduck]

DF is an inherently messy game. Despite your best laid plans, you're forming a fortress around 'natural' terrain, and you're trying to- in effect- create a living machine that can survive a host of varying unpredictable assaults or circumstances. Furthermore, the peculiar rules of the game dictate certain features of the fortress that may not sit intuitively in your fragile human mind. The fort has not just to be efficient, but aesthetically pleasing and comprehensible.

A fortress is like a digital bonsai tree; albeit one that's grown in radioactive soil and beset by blackfly and aphids. The pleasure of it is not in attaining perfection; if it were, people would buy plastic, symmetrical bonsai trees. The goal is to find pleasure in the balance between the game's rules, yourself, and the form of the fortress as a conceptual unit. There can be no perfect fort, but there can be an optimum pleasure derived from it, as one can derive pleasure from a bonsai meticulously and passionately cared for.

I have had the same issue as the original poster, where I just have too many dwarves, too many things I want to build and get paralyzed with indecision.  I think this post responds to the problem perfectly.  At least I hope it will help me get past my own OCD reservations about fort design.

[Mount]

If you can push past the initial dismay of "OH HOLY CARP, 20-immigrant wave!!" and let the little bastards die, the fortress growth actually seems to stabilize on its own a bit.  If you get an immigrant tsunami, and then lose half of the fortress to thirst or starvation, then you usually seem to get a bad reputation, and generally see a few seasons of "your fortress attracted no immigrants this season."  Providing there's no lethal tantrum spiral.

I've got some OCD problems with DF myself, one of the biggest being the heaps of rock lying EVERYWHERE.  One solution is to make a half underground/half constructed fortress.  Burn some of those rocks with frivolous construction.  Wall in your livestock pasture with a 10-story, triple-thick fortified wall.  Build a giant tree out of schist and olivine.  Find a nice flat spot and make a big mural out of floor tiles.  (The next map I find that has a lot of orthoclase, I'm gonna build a massive "awesomeface" idol from it.)  You can also use quantum stockpiles to put thousands of items in a single square.   

I've also had some success in building a "work camp" for the dwarfs to use while the actual fortress is under construction.  Either construct aboveground buildings for your peons to live in while they work, or dig a small basic fortress in a spot that's going to be removed when your megafortress is complete.  The crappy living conditions can help keep migration waves manageable, and it frees you up to build your perfect fortress without haing to devote too many resources to infrastructure.

[VerdantSF]

I like the way you think, Buttery_Mess!

[crekit]

Oh, it's not the stuff lying around. I can deal with temporary things. (although, I do have my dwarves clean up all the stuff lying around.)

Its permanent stuff. Like, THIS MAP HAS NO SAND (just found sand in my new map that I thought didn't have sand.) Or say, I dug in the wrong place now I have to restart. The land is permanently damaged! (Get out of my head, elf.)

Design stuff. That dorfin bathtub is in THE WRONG HALLWAY.

Also, do jaguars need to eat? Just got me some jaguars.

I tried deserts, but I like wood. Its renewable and that gets in my OCD head. Also I like to burn it.

Getting attacked and going on the defensive really opened my eyes too. Did you know marksdwarves need quivers? And wooden bolts SUCK? And it doesn't matter how good your hammerdwarf is if he doesn't have a hammer? Or armor? Or clothing for the most part?

My new map has metal! Zinc. Thatls the only metal I have found. But my new defenses should actually work, soften up the enemy BEFORE they get to my dwarfs.

[Corneria]

Set dwarves to to reach adulthood after a year or two. No more annoying children!