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[guitarxe]

With as many possibilities as DF allows, there's probably tons of different ways people play the game. How do you prefer to play it?

Do you simply embark anywhere and try to survive through all the !!FUN!! ? Do you make it easier for yourself by searching out specific embark spots?

Do you plan out and construct mega-projects?

Do you experiment with !!SIENCE!! ?

Do you mod your game to make it different?

Do you try different challenges to see if you are able to still survive?

[Loud Whispers]

With as many possibilities as DF allows, there's probably tons of different ways people play the game. How do you prefer to play it?

Above ground. Part way evil biome, party way neutral biome. Flat, with maximum elevation so I can build megastructures. Kinda screwed myself over when I decided everything had to be built out of blocks for a while, spent a few seasons and then some destroying existing walls and replacing them with blocks.

Do you simply embark anywhere and try to survive through all the !!FUN!! ? Do you make it easier for yourself by searching out specific embark spots?

No aquifers. What I end up with on embark, I stick with. No cheap abandons.

Do you plan out and construct mega-projects?

Varies. Build here, maybe there, and whatever pops up just pops up. If a plan comes together, a plan comes together. It's a rather nice set up really.

Do you experiment with !!SIENCE!! ?

Lycans ♥

Do you mod your game to make it different?

Everyone gets cities? Makes for better adventure worlds. And... Oh yeah, Elf blood is infectious. Transforms anything it touches into an elf.

Do you try different challenges to see if you are able to still survive?

ABAURVE GROUND. EVERYTHING. Did it without traps, but the undead and their pesky sieges have made this impossible. Traps =/= discouraged. Still digging around for the caverns, but when I find them, the caverns'll be linked to the surface via a spiral rampway.
I enjoy a heavily militiarised society in DF, where pretty much everyone except for maybe a dozen Dwarves (farmers and masons only) are in the military. An unanticipated side effect from this is that my military centered forts actually have lower casualty rates than more conservative forts in the past. My mayor was by himself building a new section of fortress to expand into, when he discovered a goblin ambush. Good ol' Vabok killed almost all of them with an iron spear, decorated and given to Silentthunders by humans. And he did this with a bolt in his upper arm.
And I was actually worried for a moment.
I plan to raise a Dwarf from birth to death in this fort. From old age. Only Dwarves born in this fort can enroll as a member of the fortress
guard. So far, there is no fortress guard. The only mayor is the military commander and expedition leader - the expedition commander. 'Z.B.M. Vabok Expedition Commander.'
The military has to be marksdwarf orientated.
The only digging that is done is to make tunnels, storage or quarrying.
A full squad of every were-creature I find is to be made. (At least 3 Dwarves counts as one squad. Although I'm thinking about raising this to 10).
Every Dwarf gets every item of furniture. Every Dwarf gets a grand bedroom. The prisons are actually worse than the bedrooms.
Every Dwarf is labeled by birth and name OR if they're a migrant, by migrant number.
Every Dwarf is given a title by the largest thing they've killed, if they've killed an Elf (a true feat considering their poisonous blood) and their status in the fort.

And...

For every niche or resource intensive profession, there is a master of it, and a title with it.
Currently there are 4 masters of marksdwarfship (Urists)
One forgemaster, and one 2nd forgemaster (legendary/great in every metalworking trade).
One Jewelmaster (legendary after a mood).
One Military commander
Soon to be one master of the bees
And there's a legendary clothier somewhere which I've appeared to miss. I think one of the doctors.
Masons... There's a lot of legendary masons. So no masters for them just yet sadly. Maybe a master architect later...

So yeah. Military. I don't like problems I can't solve with it.
Every time one of the were-lycans escapes, it attacks a civilian and I get worried someone's going to get bitten, and sure enough, the Lycan gets shot in the head... Leg chopped off... Beaten into unconsciousness...

[Corai]

With as many possibilities as DF allows, there's probably tons of different ways people play the game. How do you prefer to play it?

Do you simply embark anywhere and try to survive through all the !!FUN!! ? Do you make it easier for yourself by searching out specific embark spots?

Do you plan out and construct mega-projects?

Do you experiment with !!SIENCE!! ?

Do you mod your game to make it different?

Do you try different challenges to see if you are able to still survive?

With as many possibilities as DF allows, there's probably tons of different ways people play the game. How do you prefer to play it?

===Majorly above ground, kobolds/humans civ, tower.


Do you simply embark anywhere and try to survive through all the !!FUN!! ? Do you make it easier for yourself by searching out specific embark spots?


===Never aquifer, ever. I wont embark if theres not flux.


Do you plan out and construct mega-projects?


===Not really, but if I get bored I try to make a giant wall, that people live in.


Do you experiment with !!SIENCE!! ?


===If you have one kobold, then add a goblin. What do you get?


Do you mod your game to make it different?


===Everyone but elves get towns. Even kobolds, they tend to wipe out every last civ though...



Do you try different challenges to see if you are able to still survive?


===I tried to play without any form of metal. I lost, to kobolds.

[dwarfhoplite]

I usually dig my fortress on a single z level. I enjoy military aspect but my fortresses aren't military based. I need a lot haulers to support inefficient and irregular city plan.
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-11100-copperchew

[Kofthefens]

1. Do you simply embark anywhere and try to survive through all the !!FUN!! ? Do you make it easier for yourself by searching out specific embark spots?

2. Do you plan out and construct mega-projects?

3. Do you experiment with !!SIENCE!! ?

4. Do you mod your game to make it different?

5. Do you try different challenges to see if you are able to still survive?

1. NO AQUIFERS! I also like to embark where there are a fair bit of metals, though I don't care what kind they are.

2. Yes. I tend to make massive above-ground castles. This time I'm doing the dwarven prison http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Challenge#Dwarven_Prison

3. A bit with minecarts

4. I modded babies to be called Ale Wasters and grow up in half the time.

5. Not usually.

[guitarxe]

2. Yes. I tend to make massive above-ground castles. This time I'm doing the dwarven prison http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Challenge#Dwarven_Prison

Ooh, I tried that one! I tried using this : (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/images/9/97/Raynard1.png) as the design for the cells, and I had a sewer system one z-level below for water for each cell that dwarves would have access to through a floor grate. Above one z-level I had a similar system but this time to dump food through a hatch that could be controlled through levelers.
The sewer system was also quartered using floodgates so that parts of it could be drained for maintenance or other work.

Unfortunately I had to give up on it because it was taking far too long. I had over 80 migrantsinmates arrive by the time I was only half done, and I had to use a very crude and temporary holding area between two bridges to "house" them while my initial 7 dwarves (completely isolated) worked. I had to provide the inmates food through an airlock system to avoid any "social contamination".

At first that all worked out fine, when there were only a handful of inmates, but as more and more came along it became harder and harder to keep them all organized and fed. And then there were two more problems with them..

1) Since I decided not to allow them any booze, I had to give them access to the brook outside the fort so they can drink. This meant they were open to ambushes and sieges. I thought of this before-hand and that's why I had two bridges on each side, one blocking them from my fort and one blocking them from the ambushes and sieges.
Unfortunately it never worked out quite as I thought, and ambushes would always happen when half the inmates were outside drinking, and too often they would get squashed by the bridge that I frantically closed in an effort to at least save the ones still inside.

2) Lacking dwarves and materials I had to rely on trade for some basic things. This meant another airlock, but again that didn't quite work out, because anytime a caravan came on site all inmates would proceed to bumrush it and drink it dry of all booze and gobble up all the food. That meant the caravan was sitting there on the depot and I couldn't access it until all the inmates left. I kind of solved this by designating a meeting area in my main "holding area", but I would still have to wait till all thirsty/hungry dwarves had their fill, or until the caravan was empty of anything edible.

Eventually, during one ambush, a goblin managed to get inside the holding area before I could raise the bridge and proceeded to butcher every inmate. Despairing at the amount of more slabs I would have to carve for all the dead and that maybe all this death would mean that no more inmates came (I still don't know if this is true) I abandoned the fort.


So if you're trying that, my suggestion is to either carve out some functioning, non-fancy and large holding area right away to house all income inmates until you are done, or to do your work in steps, where you can let a few people in the cells right away, and continue working on the other areas.

[AustralianWinter]

I usually dig my fortress on a single z level. I enjoy military aspect but my fortresses aren't military based. I need a lot haulers to support inefficient and irregular city plan.
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-11100-copperchew

I'm gonna do this. Right now. That's awesome. It's really awe-inspiring, the sprawling city in the mountain.

[Kofthefens]

I set the pop cap to zero and accepted the first two waves. I have a reservoir and 50 cells carved (1 dwarf per cell). The main challenge is getting it fully automated with minecarts.

[vjek]

no caravans
no diplomats
no migrants (past the first two waves)
no caverns
no artifacts
no mandates
no humans
no elves
no rivers, oceans, lakes or aquifers
no animals (magma bath for you!)
no FPS issues of any kind (500+, booyah!)
at least 60,000 goblins in the world

[caddybear]

1)Do you simply embark anywhere and try to survive through all the !!FUN!! ? Do you make it easier for yourself by searching out specific embark spots?

I like seasides with cliffs. I also like bauxite, a lot. I also only play as extinct or soon to be extinct civs to have some more pressure about keeping everyone alive.


2)Do you plan out and construct mega-projects?

Sometimes. Most of my fortresses have a story behind them and certain goals, in a sense they are all megaprojects that are always in construction.

Do you experiment with !!SIENCE!! ?

Not as such, I leave it to the more intelligent people here.

Do you mod your game to make it different?

I have Fortress Defense, and I play as Ferric Elves that I've modded to be playable or the Nagas by awesome NW_Kohaku. And buildable fountains, trees, plants, grass to make gardens underground. I couldn't grow any surface grass on muddied cavern floor after channeling 30 levels in 3 years in game time, so I resorted to this. I'll put glass ceilings on them to keep some realism there.

Do you try different challenges to see if you are able to still survive?

Of course. No cage traps for defense, for one. And very few weapon traps. I'll still set some traps to capture wildlife though.

[ThatAussieGuy]

I mentally plan out a basic idea for a megaproject, or something inspires me to do one.  Then I pick a site, or a suitable location in my current fortress, and start building.

[Muddy Mudstone]

Do you make it easier for yourself by searching out specific embark spots?

No, I make it harder for myself by searching out specific embark spots. I always play on aquifers, edge-to-edge ones with no way round them - which is surprisingly difficult to arrange: it seems the site has to be almost perfectly flat (and that means it tends to be a swamp). Up to now I have always played on terrifying levels, though the current game is just neutral savage. The aquifer here was only two levels deep, which was disappointing.

(I am also disappointed by the wildlife being entirely harmless if unprovoked. I mean I can just build things out in the open and animals will wander right past and go away again. I don't really like undead creatures, though, or things resurrecting. Ideally I'd like a map with creepy fierce aggressive wild monsters of the ordinary mortal variety, but I don't know how to arrange that.)

Do you plan out and construct mega-projects?

Only my aquifer shaft. I aim to make a really huge one which goes right to the surface, roof it over, and have a legendary dining room for 200 dwarfs and the bottom of it, with waterfalls. That's what I'd consider "winning" at the moment. If I ever manage it, I'll have to think of something else.

Edit: I also aim to roof in the entire surface and use it for large herds of grazing animals, and for a long-lasting wood supply.

Do you experiment with !!SIENCE!! ?

Not very seriously. Recently I was under the false impression that dwarfs could stand on other dwarf's heads, so I conducted a test game where seven dwarfs were trapped between doors one above the other, and all made to mine out the ground from under their feet. Of course this just caused a cluster of seven dwarfs standing on the same tile at the bottom. I had hoped it would help me establish how tall dwarfs are, because on the face of it, they are half as tall as trees, and no shorter than humans.

Do you mod your game to make it different?

I don't think I've fiddled with the raws much. I made the shades of blue lighter so they show up better. I use a tileset which I modified a bit to make some things clearer. In world gen I got rid of evil rain (might get rid of the dust clouds too) and vampires, and added more evil tiles and some other trivial stuff.

Do you try different challenges to see if you are able to still survive?

No, I invariably try the same challenge. I like testing my schemes for getting through aquifers.

[terko]

Only thing I take care of is an embark site where I got full clay and an aquifer in the same spot. So I can easily dig down without the hassle all the time to breach the aquifer and I can use/abuse the aquifer for all the good things and sometimes fun or !FUN! it provides.

Anything else I don't really care about and take what the game embark site throws at me.

[King DZA]

I embark in whatever location best suits the purpose of the fort in question.

I have a project in mind for every fortress I create.

If the fort lasts long enough, I'll build special facilities for testing and experimentation.

My game contains a variety of little tweaks and modifications. Added words, weapons, items, ect. And of course, bitches. Never play without bitches.

Completing the fort's main project is the challenge.

However, regardless of any challenge, mod, project, or embark, I play to rule.

[slink]

With as many possibilities as DF allows, there's probably tons of different ways people play the game. How do you prefer to play it?

Do you simply embark anywhere and try to survive through all the !!FUN!! ? Do you make it easier for yourself by searching out specific embark spots?

I avoid aquifers, unless the aquifer is only on one biome and I like the site otherwise.
I test for the presence of metals with DFProspect.  Flux is not necessary because iron is not guaranteed.  Sand is a plus, but the current version of DFProspect seems to be very bad at making preliminary estimates of soil layers.
I look for a running water source and some trees.
I don't really like volcanoes.
Neighboring towers can be fun. 
Occasionally I have sought a Sinister biome so I can try out evil weather, but that has usually turned out to be either boring or fatal, when something in-between was what I had hoped for.

Do you plan out and construct mega-projects?

Sometimes.  For that I really have to turn off invasions.  I have been playing 34.x with invasions on until very recently so I have not been building them yet in 34.x.

Do you experiment with !!SIENCE!! ?

Not as I understand it.  Sometimes I try out something stupid architecturally and then reload from a previous save when it fails catastrophically, but I don't carry out experiments involving fried cats, crushed children, or falling dogs.  Since I do my best to homogenize invading goblins and kobolds in stacks of bones, I haven't any war captives to experiment with.  But really, dropping living things to see how big is the splat isn't really my thing.

Do you mod your game to make it different?

I rename prepared food sizes.  Sometimes I rename genders of domestic animals, but some changes to the interface have reduced my need for that.  Once a release is fairly static, which wonderfully has not happened with 34.x, I start fiddling with the crops.  I used to add some custom buildings but have not really felt the desire for those in 34.x.

Do you try different challenges to see if you are able to still survive?

Yes.  As above, sometimes I seek out evil weather.  Sometimes I try hot and/or arid biomes.  I have not sought out frozen biomes recently, because I never figured out how to make a usable quantity of water either using dropped ice or flowing magma.  I might try a glacier again now that I have a better understanding of how to tap cavern water.  I have no further desire to try surviving on biomes where dead things spontaneously rise, having failed miserably at that.  I'm not much attracted to forum challenges that involve not digging in the ground at all, embarking with no supplies at all, or some of the other more extreme conditions.  Occasionally I will download a forum challenge embark, like the Donner Party, just out of curiosity.  Once I completed a forum challenge for a mega-project in which the Dwarves lived with only one level underground.  I enjoyed that one.