i am going to repost some choice words along with my original comment on this from the UD diversity thread -
Penguin, that's not what I was thinking. You don't know you're mining into a turtle until you wake it up by mining into it's internal workings. Not sure if I like the rope ladders, though.
You have struck a layer of Giant Turtle Shell!
no comment
just.... no comment
as unbeleivably awesome it would be to have your fort suddenly get up and go wandering away, to plonk down in new homes with new stuff to mine and new things to kill, i just dont see it making it into the game...
however, it would be great. imagine controlling your turtle (on land = tortoise?) by choosing a new place on the world map to plonk your fort. with associated random encounters along the way. you could stick yourself right next to a goblin fort and pillage it. then go stick yourself next to a dwarven or human civ and sell the proceeds for stacks of steel ignots and gems, or whatever it is you want. the world would be your oyster...
now that would be great. seriously, any kind of moveable fort would be great. even if your civ is just a nomadic bunch of barbarians with horses and wagons who has to plunder to gain resorces.... anyhow, off topic. someone go start a threat about this already.
the giant turtle itea came from mining into fossilized or sleeping creatures buried underground. and perhaps making them angy and waking them up.
sir honeybadger rightfully said in the UD thread that as awesome as this would be, it would be difficult and very time consuming to implement, and this would take time that toady and threetoe could be using to add other stuff into DF. stuff that really needs to be there, like better interface.
but, this is still an incredibly awesome idea. and its awfully fun to talk about. seriously, roaming around on a mobile animal attacking random civs and looting them. like that little pirate building in whatever that monty python movie was. even the idea of multi tile creatures that arent wagons is fun.
apart from civilization raiding, you could go spend summer on an island somewhere, farming up some food and booze supplies. then migrate to some hostile mountains to mine up minerals and metals to wage war while your turtle sleeps away the winter. then you could smash up a few cities you dont like, do some trading, and go back to your summer home to clear the unicorns and pixies out of your fields and replenish your supplies again.
imagine your turtle city fighting other turtle cities. hostile bording, or being borded back. and having to defend your mobile home from hungry megabeasts of truly titanic size, using catapaults and ballistas. would give you a reason to actually tip your ballista bolts with steel or adamantium. although i really think that sort of thing is a little beyond the DF engine to display.
and your giant turtles blood would totally have to be magma. who cares about cold bloodedness, its a freaking turtle the size of my local shopping centre that roams the world with 200 angry little hairy men living on its back.