I had an idea for an ambition system to replace the goals that characters can have in the current game. The idea is to separate mayor ambitions, which would be more long term goals and should be limited to one at a time, and minor ambitions, which would be easier and more short term goals that may or may not be related to the current mayor ambition. These could be limited to up to 3 at the same time, giving characters some variety in what they are currently working on in their lives.
Examples for mayor ambitions would be many of the current goals like immortality or mastering a skill.
Minor ambitions related to that could be stuff, for example, learning magic or becomming a disciple to a necromancer if you want immortality. Or if your mayor ambition is to master a skill, you could have a minor ambition for reaching a lower skill level first, finding a mentor, or accomplishing a great deed with that skill.
Minor ambitions could also be used to encourage social stuff, which is currently kind of underwhelming in both game modes. For example a dwarf could have the minor ambition to make a friend/rival, interact with friend/rival, duell a rival, make a lover, get married, have a son/daughter, have 3/5/10 children, stuff like that. I feel like currently in fort mode, marriage and making kids is not common enough, so your population ends up relying to much on migrants. Using minor ambitions could make dwarfs go out of their way to socialize, solving that and making you fort feel more alive.