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[TheOnlySolitaire]

As I think most of us have, I have played this game to death. I love it.
I have embarked on mountains, beaches, tundra's, deserts and swamps with aquifers. I have taken a leaf out of Sphalerites book of farming the ocean (specifically for sea serpents) with cage traps, and half-successfully colonised the Circus (eventually ended with !FUN!), I've even done a one military dwarf at a time challenges. I have done a few one pick challenges, and a bunch of above-ground only forts. But now I spend most of my time making forts just for use in Adventure mode. I need a new challenge to attempt (and hopefully fail many times at).

I'm currently embarking on an Evil Glacier biome, but can any of you suggest any new ways of playing?

Challenging, or just interesting and fun, all suggestions are very welcome and encouraged.



EDIT: Also, can anyone suggest interesting things to try, or methods of play, like making above ground forts, surface-only farming/food gathering, cavern-colinising, domestic animals only, etc?

[Lost in Nowhere]

How about bringing 1 food item and 1 drink for each dwarf and no more than that?
Or even no food or drink...

[TheOnlySolitaire]

In certain biomes that certainly would be a challenge. I've brought 1 drink and 1 food for all my dwarves before by accidentally hitting [e]mbark before I had finished selecting items to take, survival involved foraging and hunting, which works fine in non-evil biomes.

Doing the above AND forgetting an anvil, pick or axe would be a sadistic challenge.

I'll add that to the list - a birth of civilization/recover from catastrophe style embark.

Keep them coming people!

[Vyro]

My, isn't that obvious? After you've successfully done each individual challenge, it's time to combine stuff!
Go for the Terrifying Glacier, above ground with one pick and one military. If it sounds boring, "forget" all but said pick, release the Circus to the surface in a month or two and do all that while... while making no mechanisms. Is that FUN enough?

[ShadowHammer]

No danger rooms, lockdown lever, war animals, seige engine, long range weaponry, lava cannons, minecart shotguns, drowning rooms, traps, or anything involving mechanisms, or any armor or weapons made from steel or cotton candy. This is sparta.

[DS]

Savage glacier embark. Invest 100% of your embark points in cats. Good luck.

[chaosgear]

Look to the RAWs! Make beestings inflict forgotten beast syndromes! Make cat combust! Give dwarves magic!

[TheOnlySolitaire]

Haha the 'Sparta' Challenge does sound fun to be honest! I'll add that to the list..

And of course mixing and matching aspects together is a must for added flavour.

I have to admit, that is what I've been doing, turning to the Raws to introduce new things, but at the moment I'm not confident that I could make syndromes work without going wrong, but I am modding Masterwork mod, so there are syndrome bearing creatures already, you just normally only see them in Adventure mode.
I am thinking of making a mod with several variations of each race with their own unique flavours (read cultural weapons and armour etc), and bashing together some creatures that will just be wandering bandit/raider/adventurer equivalents of each race, and then weapon master versions of those bandits for semi/mega-beasts etc.


How about only being allowed to use animals for defence and economy? So having to trade for booze or drink water/milk(is milk drinkable?), using bones for weapons crafts etc and training animals or capturing the odd megabeast/GCS/semi-megabeast for defence. Would that be interesting do you think? (I ask because I want to finish my current fort before jumping into a new one)

 

[Ravendarksky]

No (raised) bridges or traps.

NO WEAPONS.

I'm currently trying this with my monk embark. We have hollowed out a tall spire mountain where enemies have to circle round it's sides to gain entrance and hopefully be wrestled to their deaths by my dwarfs.

Note: you may use weapons but only to fight forgotten beasts.

Bonus points for severely cross training your monks to make them super agile, strong and intelligent.

Being monks I fully expect some sort of rituals, statues to cats or a general obsession with something.

My monks have a yearly pilgrimage to the top of our mountain carrying buckets of water which are then dumped into our "holy" bathing area.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Build an open city, either in the desert or in a frozen waste. No gate. No doors.

You can put up a wall if you choose, but ensure that it is open to all four cardinal directions.

Dwarves may only reside in constructed houses (having clay will help here)

You may burrow for farming, storage and cavern exploration.

No magma.

[wierd]

No pick, no axe, 1 stone challenge.
You may only have 1 axe, that you either make yourself, or buy.
You may never have a pick. If a migrant brings one, it must be melted or sold.
No digging at all.
Must be on a terrifying embark
There can't be surface water
Autozombie is a plus.
There must be evil weather of some kind.
The fortress has to be built from either traded materials, or materials harvested on site.
You may being 1 non-economic, firesafe stone. All other stone must be traded for.

Build a thriving metropolis, and become the mountainhome.

[PDF urist master]

have you played hermit?

[TheOnlySolitaire]

I have not played hermit, however, I played one fort with only one soldier at a time, this soldier was taken from the population and isolated from the rest of the fort once it was his/her time - given legendary rooms furniture burial etc. So a bit like hermit, but not, if that makes sense.

I see that challenges seem to revolve around not taking things you normally use, which is fine, I've done this accidentally and on purpose many times - sometimes it works out, many times more it fails.

But what about suggestions for interesting ways to play? Like limiting yourself to one industry and trading(or not) for other stuff. Or for war: complete pacifism? ie, cage-traps etc only, no butchering etc. Any suggestions? What weird or interesting ways do you play to retain the !!FUN!! for you?

[kero42]

Because I can't think of anything that hasn't already been mentioned I'll just recommend checking the wiki (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Challenges) .

Perhaps also try building/using some of these at the same time for added challenge? (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Megaprojects, http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Stupid_dwarf_trick)

[wierd]

For me, the challenge is in devising the challenge.

It has to be at least theoretically possible, but be nearly impossible.

Eg, "no surface water" coupled with "you can't dig", and "it rains blistering filth", with "you haveto actually build the fortress from traded material" results in lots of dwarves having contaminants all over every inch of their bodies, resulting in a cascading spiral of deterioration, rotting limbs, infections, tantrums, and FUN, even before the gobbos show up, and when they do, you can't use axes, and the stones you have to trade for are too valuable to waste on making mechanisms.

Eventually, you have a fortress filled with ghosts you can't bury or slab, several of which can end up being killer ghosts, if your happiness levels are low enough, possibly zombies of every sort, puss, and all manner of FUN.

My last fort was untenable, because the freezing biome didn't permit surface farming, and without surface water, I couldn't get enough booze and plant materials to keep 150 dwarves drunk.

When they started dieing and becoming zombies, and tantruming, it deteriorated quick.