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[Mickey Blue]

So ok, I love this game but the more I play and the better I get the easier it gets to the point I'm just going through the motions.  I really love the build up (cause there is real danger there, if you aren't ready for an early siege or forgotten beast, etc) but as I get a stable fort and can repel sieges with limited issue I start to feel.. "Eh".  Now of course one answer is to just keep restarting but with a desire to have a goal of surviving as long as possible I figured a better challenge would be the way to go, before we start a few things:

1) While I love some 'alternative to fortress' challenges (cavern challenge, only one dwarf, etc) and have done them in the past that isn't what I'm looking for here.  I want to build a typical fortress.  I'm also not interested in a challenge that is simply tedious, I want one that is challenging, even impossible, but not 'annoying' (like, for example, only allowed to use chicken meat for food or something).

2) Here are the 'self-imposed challenge rules' I use currently:

-No walling myself in, I can build floodgates or doors or whatever but no complete walls or drawbridges, etc.  This applies to the general world and to caverns.

-No traps of any kind (no typical 'traps' or building a flooding room or anything)

-Cannot 'produce' steel, I can only get it from trading or finding it on enemies, can use other metals.

-No magma (for fuel or offensive attack)

-Unless the situation truly is hopeless, I must do what I can to protect/save all dwarves in battle

-No danger rooms, atom smashers (used on enemies), etc

There are more but those are the main ones; I also use Fortress Defense II Mod (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=62874.0) with all the challenge races in (I thought about just reducing the population cap so I have fewer dwarves to defend with but then I figure all the races won't actually come, since they appear to be tied to population).


Increasing challenge doesn't have to just be related to combat (though that is an obvious way to do it), and it can involve other mods (I'm gonna start a new fort for this). 

I appreciate it, help me find a way to get killed!

(This is not meant to be 'humblebragging', I die plenty, but once I get my military going I can typically repel any siege or forgotten beast (even multi-sieges) with only a few casualties which can be quickly replaced with migrants/children.  I just need to up the challenge some, I want to barely scrape by, or even have some virtually impossible goal, rather than just have a powerhouse of a fortress.

Some obvious ideas that I have come up with are:

1) An incredibly difficult biome, no metal, no water, super cold, super hot, etc.

2) An 'evil' biome, as they are difficult again. 

Those are both good, but they limit where you can go, I'd love some ideas that can be applied to any embark (like most of my rules above) rather than things that limit me to certain points on the map.

-Mike

[dwarfhoplite]

Build your fortress on a single z- level. To add extra challenge try some logistically demanding design or something.

http://postimage.org/image/rivs330pb/

I abandoned that fortress because I got fed up with endless spiral famine and crime caused by failed logistics. The challenge for me was to build giant farm near the entrance and haul food deeper in to the fortress with minecart.

[XXSockXX]

No drawbridges and no traps at all should be pretty challenging, especially in the first few years. I had my whole starting 7 killed by a giant wolverine once cause I could not lock it out.
No steel should not be too hard, if you don't have to fight a BC or a FB made out of steel or something.
Magma for fuel makes everything a lot easier, but is not absolutely necessary, especially if you don't make steel. Everything else I do myself anyway (protecting all dwarfs, no danger rooms, no magma / atom smashers as weapons) and it is not that hard.
I also try to keep all dwarfs as happy as possible and don't kill migrants and children. While I don't find that very difficult, it seems to be challenging for many people in this forum .

[Mickey Blue]

That's sort of what I'm saying, I already use all of those above (I build walls to funnel the enemies to certain points in my base, I suppose I could get rid of walls all together) and I find that dropping magma and using wood for fuel forces you to prioritize what you make (if wood is scarce) or at the very least delays production of weapons/armor.

I dropped traps because I find them too anticlimactic (pretty much after I trapped a forgotten beast in a poorly made wooden cage). 

I try to keep my dwarves happy for survival and, I guess, cause I just find it more interesting to imagine them all going about their day and trying to keep things nice.  But realistically, barring major death or something, a nice dining room, bedroom, and some pretty statues around seems to be about all I need. 

[Loud Whispers]

Embarking within a tower is good. Unfortunately towers pretty much require a few decent traps, which would mess that up a bit.

As for walling yourself in, what exactly does that pertain to? I'd hope you mean that very angry things should have a path to your civilians 100% of the time, because I'm going to suggest my favourite self inflicted rule - Above ground fortresses.

They make very impressive structures if they survive AND are difficult to defend in their early years. Even then, you have to build higher to get anything done, and to do that, you have to dig deeper. It all works out in the end.

[Mickey Blue]

Yes, I mean there is always a clear path to my fortress and once inside all that exists to stop the enemy are regular doors (which even if I lock them can be opened by building destroyers).  Basically I use the walls to guide the enemies to one spot so I can keep from being surrounded).

I have also set up a floodgate system so I can lock the enemy in so I can take them all out (I hate them escaping...) but I seldom use that for defense.

[XXSockXX]

No metal sounds challenging, but I would find that boring. Without obsidian you'd be limited to training weapons and crossbows.

Some day I'm going to try an embark in a world where my civ has died out. No migrants / no dwarven caravan would be something completely different from what I've done so far.

[Loud Whispers]

No metal sounds challenging, but I would find that boring. Without obsidian you'd be limited to training weapons and crossbows.

1. It's very fun. If you conscript a hefty size of your population into a large wrestler army that is.
2. Limited to AWESOME CROSSBOWS & looted weapons, trade metals, goblinite...

[XXSockXX]

I understood no metal as "no metal at all, not even looted/traded or goblinite".

[Replica]

Arctic Oceans are impossible.

Have fun.

[Mickey Blue]

Do you mean on the coast next to the ocean or the actual ocean? If it's the former why would that be impossible? If it's the latter how do you embark on an ocean?

[GoombaGeek]

Haunted glacier. Or, even better, toss all your picks into magma and never make any more 

[Replica]

There are oceans which are completely frozen over similar to glaciers, the difference is that there is no rock, soil or drinkable water underneath the layer of ice and reaching the ocean floor to reach the stone layer is impossible.

Embarking on these areas should spawn your wagon on top of the layer of ice, I wouldn't know since I only embarked on an arctic ocean once and I accidentally included a tiny bit of above sealevel glacier, I've never paid attention to wether DF allows embarking on arctic oceans or if you need embark anywhere to do it.

Fun includes:

Inability to properly grow food
Lack of easily obtainable drinkable water
Very limited space (not that you need it considering that you wont actually have an industry)
No plantlife (trade for wood), no magma safe rock (need to import it)
Surface completely devoid of all life and movement

If you are a manly man and expert you could embark with some building materials, estabilish a small outpost of isolated dwarven monks or whatever and hold out forever trading for what you really really need.
Be absolutely sure that there is access to hostile civs and the motherland or it will be an incredibly boring and quiet slow death.

If embarking on an arctic ocean doesn't work for some reason a glacier will do too as long as you don't mine the rock beneath the layer of ice.

[Mickey Blue]

Interesting.. Well I cannot embark directly on the frozen ocean (perhaps I need to have embark anywhere) so I'll find a nice glacier..

Ok here we go.. A Haunted Glacier.

Rules same as my normal ones (listed in the OP) and now will include no digging below the ice level.

[weenog]

Maybe try going lower tech.  No mechanical or complex anything, if it has moving parts it's beyond you, this includes crossbows.  No bars or blocks.  You build with animal products, plant products, and raw stone only.  You will not farm, that's a concept too advanced for you.  You live on hunting and gathering.

You can embark with a pick or two, call them strange gifts from the gods if you like, but you will certainly not be making any more of them, so guard them carefully.

Your weapons are restricted to the mace, the knife or dagger, the spear, and the bow, though except for wooden training versions they'll all need be be imported.  Did I say imported?  I meant looted.  Your primitive tribe is far too savage and territorial to trade with foreigners; if they look weaker they're challenged, if they look stronger they'd hidden from and avoided.

Rule-breaking items brought in by migrants or enemies are anathema and must be discarded, preferably by throwing them into a volcano, or dumping them in some faraway corner of the caverns and forbidding them.  Rule-breaking items brought in via strange mood are gifts from the gods, and may be used (though if you prefer, they may be too divine for humble stupid mortals like your dorfs, in which case you can build small shrines for them, place them there and forbid them).