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[zzedar]

So I was wondering about minor restrictions people like to put on themselves. Not full-on challenges, but minor rules that just make one aspect of the game a bit more interesting. Things like never using artifacts to enhance room value or making all your tables out of one particular color of stone or, I dunno, only assigning certain jobs to dwarves with a "k" in their names. There are a few such rules that are followed by large sections of the playerbase, like not using danger rooms, but do you have any of your own? Personally, I never make pots, instead restricting myself to wooden barrels.

[Pancho Cachondo]

I kill nobles

[slowpokez]

Nice topic
Well. I got like hundreds of these and I don't view the making of a list a viable option
But I could give a few examples

*All dwarf have a "job" that they are 100% devoted to.
*No killing of dwarf or human merchants. I always kill the elves but burn their stuff.
*Don't steal stuff from caravan
*Never use more then 1 weapon in a weapontrap
*Never use cagetraps as a defence only for catching stuff
*No dangerrooms
*No plump helmets
*Always leave an open path into your fortress
*No cooking of booze, seeds or eggs. Dwarfy bonus - Base all of your food production on Sweetpods and honey + cat- and fb-meat
*All military got induvidual names and gear customized after their personality
*Dont use the "hatch glitch" or legendary furniture to stop enemy pathing (exceptions only if !!Science is involved)
*No atom-smashers
*I usually have a leader of the fort that is the mayor, bookkeeper, manager, broker etc. When the leader dies and dosen't have an hier the fort is lost
*The chief medical dwarf is the only doctor and after a while he usually achieves legendary status in all skills.(dropping migrants in pits help)

I could go on all day...

[Elifre]

Some things I like to avoid are weapon traps, cage traps, and traps in general that aren't used to train my military, with the exception of single-use traps for emergencies. I also don't use danger rooms except in rather rare occasions, such as a dwarf that I'm sending on a suicide mission. My military is consistently made up almost purely of miners, with a militia of crossbow dwarves which includes almost the entire population of the fortress.

I also like to make a fortress that never goes outside, though this is a restriction that I only use maybe half the time.

[Loud Whispers]

Every path in your fortress must be at least 5 tiles wide. Looks awesome too

[Itnetlolor]

A fortress shall be treated like an organism.

The input will almost always be the front door, raw material processing (1st stage) is close to the front door as possible, refinement/refined material processing (2nd stage) is deeper in the fortress, Final process (3rd stage) will be near the back end of the fortress, and refuse and un-(re)usable materials exit the back door, or at least stored within a containment zone before mass-dumping.

Along the mid-section, generally within the 2nd stage processing area, there shall be essentially the lungs of the fortress, which includes a light source of sorts, as well as an intake of booze and food. Anything that cannot be used will be relocated into 3rd stage refinement/processing, all others, to the rear disposal units.

CAUTION: Rear disposal may be clouded with tons of miasma. Enter at your own risk.

CHALLENGE: Evolve the fortress to a more complex organism.

BONUS POINTS: Model the fortress after an amoeba cell structure or more complex organism (like a cat; and multiply the amount of fortresses in said manner).

[Lumix]

1: No disassebleing the tradingpost for free loot.
2: Military must live in a tower.
3: Workshops must be organised into wings (Example: Food and farmers wing, Craftsmens wing, ect.)
4: Any noble who puts out a horrible mandate gets a lesson in swimming.

[Teneb]

The current rule for my fort is:
Whenever a dorf joins the military, he/she is put on a squad consisting of himself/herself wearing no armor (but still with weapons) and sent into the caverns. Said dwarf can only return after one kill.

[Lumix]

The current rule for my fort is:
Whenever a dorf joins the military, he/she is put on a squad consisting of himself/herself wearing no armor (but still with weapons) and sent into the caverns. Said dwarf can only return after one kill.

Harsh terms... but i like it.

[Hotaru]

Well, I got back to building fortresses lately after a long break, and so far I'm now always playing with a few rules

- Flat areas with aquifer only
- Either completely walled in, meaning no immigrants, or more commonly, always open access to fort, meaning no camping out sieges
- All workshops and raw material stockpiles will be outside, for that Isengard feel. Especially forges.
- All living will be in houses or towers, not caves.
- The graveyard will be genuinely far away from the fort, like under a distant hill, and fine, even if it means death.
- Outdoor farming only (unless impossible).
- Workers only work the skill they're skilled in, only peasants haul, and no unnecessary action.

To elaborate on that last one: Time is valuable, besides, expanding usually ruins a fort, so everything must be kept at minimum. Anything will only be done with a pre-set goal. For example, if you're finding you need weapons, mine for iron. If not, don't. If you're starving now and then, plant more food. If not, don't. If you seriously need something in trade, only then make things for trade. Else don't. Clothes only if they're getting worn out. And so on. You get the idea. Don't build bedrooms before you have the people to sleep in them, it's not like you're supposed to know the game sends you insane amounts of immigrants. The exception is city walls, which I always build.

The net result is... much of the fortress' population is always hanging out in the meeting hall. Great, right? They're happy, and construction projects usually also get done pretty fast. Lye makers will be lye makers. Usually also die by first siege because that's when the military is formed. It's more enjoyable than being super-safe and effective.

[Nyxalinth]

I don't like digging straight down; I have to dig into a cliffside.  Also, no aquifers.  If I don't like the layout of the terrain when I embark, I pack it up.  I never kill anyone or anything unless they attack/for food or leather/to preserve FPS. 

Dorf bedrooms must be in stone.  If some have to be in soil or sand or whatever, those rooms go to peasants or Soapmaker #23.  Rooms that reveal gems/precious metal are assigned to dorfs I especially like.  The nobles can suck it.

I always buy any exotic animals the elves bring, and make them available as pets.  If no one adopts them, I train them as war animals and assign them to someone.

If caravans bring stuff with images of my artifacts, I have to buy it.  Once in 40d a goblin siege commander had a helmet with an image of my artifact on it.  I kept it in a stockpile.

[King DZA]

No danger rooms.

Only use blocks for constructing.

Aesthetics before efficiency.

Give legendaries custom profession names.

No unnecessary animal slaughter.

Protect all dwarves, animals, and friendly animal people from harm the best I can.

Kill nothing unjustly(Unless it pisses me off)

Steal nothing from caravans(unless the merchants piss me off)

Prisoners are guests, not training dummies.

Starting seven always get custom names.

That's all I can remember at the moment.

[Michaelsoftman]

1 - Never use more than 50 dwarves.  I think having a giant military makes the game too easy for me.
2 - No abusing bugs, glitches, or things considered cheating (stealing from Trade Depot, for example)
3 - If someone useless shows up, I make them an engraver and they SMOOTH THE ENTIRE FORTRESS.  I really hate non smoothed tiles.  I once had a fort that was like 50 years old, 100+ dwarves, spanning 20 or so z levels, and was completely smoothed and engraved by legendary engravers.  Dwarves had so many happy thoughts because nearly every single wall tile or floor panel was a Masterful work of art showing my one dog that killed a dragon somehow.
4 - If there is a whale on the map, it MUST die.

[Name Lips]

It's not much... but I insist on my fortresses looking like actual livable spaces. With discrete hallways, doors, rooms, and so on. I want nice neat hospitals, areas designated for crafting with distinct nearby storage rooms, and so on. You could just stick a bunch of beds in the hallway, or put the furnace in the same room as the hospital, or any number of things that the game doesn't care about. Those forts will function just fine, and the dwarves could care less. But they just don't seem right to me.

[krenshala]

The rules I use are:

• Embark as a civ, and in a location, where you are war with the elves.  Bonus points if you are also at war with gobins (I've only managed this once).
• Use the military for defense (walls count as military)
• Low pop-cap, high baby-cap, so the the fortress grown from children after the first 35-50 dwarves have arrived (32 pop-cap, 1000:1000 baby-cap).

Thats it.