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[pamelrabo]

I've found I enjoy the game a lot more when I have a goal tomy fort. Usually I dig into Legends Viewer to find an old feud, an atrocity to avenge or a personal motivation from my liege to start a new city focused on something in particular. When I achieve the city goal (that's it, if I don't fail miserably) I retire, feeling the deed is done and history moves on.

But sometimes I just like to think about new ideas and write down the ones I feel can be a good storytelling start. Not megaprojects, just enticing ideas
I cannot be the only one doing this, so, fellow players, what are your ideas for interesting fortress projects? I'll start myself:

Roleplaying winning conditions:

- MINING COLONY: The mountainhome needs gold, silver and most of all, iron and steel. Your task is to mine dry every metal vein (not counting adamantine), smelt the ore and send the metal bars to to your liege AS OFFERING. Once the metals are exhausted, you can retire.

- MANY MOUTHS TO FEED: Your civilization needs a stable income of food, and there's too many wars and other worries to deal with. Create a new city centered only in food production. The moment you are raised to a barony, send at least 50 barrels of raw food, 50 barrels of prepared food and 50 barrels of booze yearly, AS OFFERING. Once you hit 20 legendary cooks and 20 legendary brewers and send 100 barrels of raw / prepared / booze yearly you can retire.

- COASTAL FORTRESS: Pick a strategical spot on the coast and build a fortress focused on sea defense. It must have a a line of catapults across the curtain wall and battlements looking at the sea, a lighthouse tower and a dock for friendly ships.

- PYRAMID: Your king has the desire for a tomb like no other has been built, defying the skies and meant to last forever. Build a pyramid as high as possible in-game, with a hidden, impossibly luxurious burial chamber for the king and queen, and some others for their closest nobility. Stuff it with pedestals displaying artifacts, weapons, armor and the posessions needed for the afterlife. Also, a lot of masterful traps to discourage tomb robbers. Once the pyramid is finished, become the mountainhomes. When the king arrives, provide for his needs and retire.

- CLEANSE THE LAND: Necromancers are a plague that needs to be expurged from this world. Create a fort devoted to military purposes and train your warriors. The moment you are offered a barony, start sending raids to destroy every necromancer tower. Books and slabs carrying the secrets of life and death must be thrown in a magma chute set in a temple of your Life God. When every necromancer tower has fallen and their legacy destroyed, you can retire.

- TRAVELER'S HAVEN: pick a location next to a road belonging to you civilization, and build an outside tavern with 40 rooms for visitors, serving only drinks made by legendary brewers, with a stock of every instrument known in the world and a 10*10 dance hall. To grant order and security for the visitors and travelers, a jail and a well trained garrison of 20 soldiers is also required.
- HOLE IN THE WORLD: Your fort is built around a 10 radius hole that goes straight to the magma layer. Access to the lower levels is only descending a downward spiral ramp from the surface. If there's a river nearby, divert the stream to create an artificial waterfall.

- CITY OF GLASS: in an embark with enough sand, cover every tile of the map in green glass. Everything must be made of glass, from city walls to buildings to food containers to coffins, workshops and statues. If you build stuff underground you must cover the floors and make walls from glass. When you hit 200 citizens and you can retire the wonder city is finished and you can retire.

- MILITARY OUTPOST: The city is built with only one idea in mind: war. Every citizen must be part of a squad, with iron / steel equipment, and train to be a professional soldier. When you are granted a barony, you must start raiding enemy towns, either conquering them or razing them to the ground. When your raids or your defense against sieges hits a killcount of 1000 enemies (not counting war animals) you can retire.

[Superdorf]

Hey, this is fun-- I'll bite. Here's three:

Spoiler: Destruction from within (click to show/hide)

The mountainhome seeks to break its ancient enemy once and for all. Build a fortress as close to the settlements of your civ's greatest enemy, be they goblins or elves, and from it conquer those settlements. Once the enemy civ no longer has any settlements under its control, you can retire.

Spoiler: Necromancer's delight (click to show/hide)

Seven dwarves set out from the mountainhome, determined to render death forever meaningless to their kind. Build an above-ground tower greater than any necromantic spire built before, with a sumptuous library within. Obtain the necessary reading material, and teach your citizens the secrets of life and death. Having done so, you can retire.

Bonus: raise a zombie army to do all your fighting for you.

Spoiler: Project Boatmurdered (click to show/hide)

A mad architect sets out with his six lackeys to cleanse his continent of all life. Embark in the highest place you can find, then build a self-powered apparatus to flood the continent with magma. Having done so, you can retire, content in the knowledge that your apocalypse will spread forth over the land forever.

Bonus: Involve the HFS somehow.

[Telgin]

- MILITARY OUTPOST: The city is built with only one idea in mind: war. Every citizen must be part of a squad, with iron / steel equipment, and train to be a professional soldier. When you are granted a barony, you must start raiding enemy towns, either conquering them or razing them to the ground. When your raids or your defense against sieges hits a killcount of 1000 enemies (not counting war animals) you can retire.

I did something like this in an older version of the game, before raiding was a thing, and it was pretty fun.  I didn't put miners and woodcutters in the militia though due to bugs, but everyone else was stationed in squads with something approaching modern military ranks.  Each squad had a sergeant as the leader, and squads were organized captains.  I only wish I'd renamed militia captains to be lieutenants.

The fort was fun but I got bored with it not long after a webbing titan murdered like 20 legendary soldiers.  I opened up Hell afterward and killed like 40 demons before they overtook the last soldiers.

[pamelrabo]

[ Build an above-ground tower greater than any necromantic spire built before ]

Hahah, ¡that's easy! I visited a necromancer "tower" in adventure mode. It is 2 z-levels tall, with a tiny cellar. Most of my taverns end up being 5 floors high.

But then, the idea of a Lighthouse Library with hundreds of volumes and lodgings for scholars and visitors is really beautiful. I'll keep that one... Without the zombie army, if you don't mind.

[Superdorf]

Hahah, ¡that's easy!

Sure, but those dinky things'll hold what, 10 necromancers? You're trying to build something for 100, 200! The bigger the better!

Without the zombie army, if you don't mind.

D'aww... but that's half the point!
Ah well. Lighthouse library is cool too I guess.

[Untrustedlife]

[ Build an above-ground tower greater than any necromantic spire built before ]

Hahah, ¡that's easy! I visited a necromancer "tower" in adventure mode. It is 2 z-levels tall, with a tiny cellar. Most of my taverns end up being 5 floors high.

But then, the idea of a Lighthouse Library with hundreds of volumes and lodgings for scholars and visitors is really beautiful. I'll keep that one... Without the zombie army, if you don't mind.

Whats extra fun is building your OWN necromancer tower in adventure mode like i did:

[Sanctume]

Roleplaying winning conditions:
- MANY MOUTHS TO FEED: Your civilization needs a stable income of food, and there's too many wars and other worries to deal with. Create a new city centered only in food production. The moment you are raised to a barony, send at least 50 barrels of raw food, 50 barrels of prepared food and 50 barrels of booze yearly, AS OFFERING. Once you hit 20 legendary cooks and 20 legendary brewers and send 100 barrels of raw / prepared / booze yearly you can retire.

May I suggest reading Breadbowl where some of the rules are no below-ground plants, all plants and drinks are traded to caravan (for the civilization).

I like the others you listed too. 

I did a Martial Arts Colony, trained everyone unarmed combat up to 5.

I also did Ironborn (from Game of Thrones) influenced theme fort.

[snow dwarf]

My general roleplaying goal is building an outpost to the unexplored wilds. Usually there's always a continent that is barely settled by any civs. I would start building grand military fortresses all around it to claim it for the motherland. Long live the mountainhome! Although making entrances to underground fortresses look grand, especially on flat plains, is a challenge on it's own. I'd imagine that dwarfs would rather channel down the land around to make an entrance than build up, think Petra.

Fun fact! Dwarfs in one specific civs tend to look similarly. I try to base my architectural style on what the race of my dwarfs in real life would represent. Darker dwarfs would build in the islamic or more tribal style, while paler dwarfs would do general castles and tend to do rooms closer to each other to reinforce the stronghold feel. Now that I think about it, I should be more consistent with it.

[Dunamisdeos]

My current roleplaying goal is saving the world from goblins. I've got about 50% of my fort involved in the military, and am systematically razing their settlements.

Most successful military action was a surprise attack on a newly-discovered goblin civ, wherein five settlements were razed to the ground in a single day.

[George_Chickens]

My win condition is always to control the circus. He who tames the clowns, tames the world.

[pamelrabo]

Of course, military goals are more obvious and flashy, but rhere's a certain appeal in, say,

PURESTRAIN: The court is not happy with the overall quality, breed and training of their animals. Scouts talk about strong, wild breeds not that far from court, and an expedition is sent there to caoture and tame the finest exemplars.
Capture, tame and send 100 of the bigger, strongest  animals in your embark and send them with the caravan AS OFFERING. Think elephants, hippos and Giant Animals more than boars or ostriches.
Once the 100th animal is sent to the court, you can retire.

The game is full of stuff to do, and I suck at military management, so I try to avoid military roleplay goals.

[Hanslanda]

The Gauntlet

Build a vast, deep, and deviously dangerous labyrinth, filled with brutal traps, captured monsters, fiendish obstacle courses, and of course a lavishly filled treasure room with an easy backdoor to the surface. Then become an adventurer and try to survive it. Also keep the fort in minimal maintenance spaces separated from the actual maze for additional difficulty.

The Menagerie
Capture and house two of every creature you can, preferably male and female, inside small enclosures with viewing areas, fresh water access, and dumped food, for that realistic zoo feel.

[Dunamisdeos]

My win condition is always to control the circus. He who tames the clowns, tames the world.

This is another current goal of mine.

[scourge728]

ptw

[Minstrel]

One of my most favourite fortresses I made was basically "the last homely house": build a great tavern on a tile bordering an evil biome (whether the evil biome is in the settlement area depends on how you feel, but I had it be my northern border) and host as many beast hunters and monster slayers as you can.