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[RandomNumberGenerator]

Well, so far I've made several fortresses that worked pretty well, in nice sports too(one had sand+magma for glassmaking fun). I do pretty well with the original 7, and can handle up to 25 dwarves pretty well. However, at this point my forts tend to stagnate, for several reasons:

1) I run out of ideas/things to do. When I get to this point, with a strong food production and craftdwarf's shops churning out trinkets, I end up thinking "now what?". I have a nice fortress with the supplies needed to fund a giant project, but... I don't have any giant projects to fun. The fortress WAS the project, and now it's done.
 
2) I can't find enough jobs for my dwarfs. With 15 or so skilled dwarfs, and couple haulers, a few militayr for guard here and there, I have all the basic needs met. When I get new immigriants, they do nothing but take up space and empty my food stockpiles(not that it matters since I'm making enough food to feed twice as many). I need something to do with these guys, so I'm actually looking forward to the next migrant wave instead of resenting it.

3) My FPS starts dropping. At this point, he game starts slowing down, which when combined with the above two and a lack of a clear goal, only makes me more likely to abandon this fortress and start a new one.

I've never actually faced any sieges/megabeasts, because I ever have the motivation to get that far with a game. The only Fun I've had is when I flood a fortress on purpose. I need some help on sticking with it and making something worthwhile enough to be invaded.

[ein]

Try building a very large room near the entrance as a barracks.
Any unwanted immigrants can be drafted, and placed into a very large squad.
It's better to have everybody in one squad to make squad management easier.
The constant sparring should help with pathfinding a bit.
You might want to have a couple people on health care duty though.

[Goose in a jar]

If you run out of project ideas you can always resort to redundancy.

[HAMMERMILL]

Yeah, I've never found use for more then 100 dwarves in a fortress. Most of your needs and production goals can be met with just a handful of highly skilled dwarves.

One thing I did with my lastest fortress, was create a massive, well-equipped Army. All 100 of them were given training, good weapons and armor. After preparing my fortress, I conscripted them all, and abandoned the fortess.

When you abandon your fortress, your entire population creates groups that wonder the world map and you can visit them in Adventure mode. I created a bad-ass adventurer, geared him up with stuff left over at the abandoned fortress and proceeded to slaughter the Dwarf Army I had created that was out in the world-map.


A MUCH harder challenge then simply depopulating a normal NPC settlement with its weaksauce guards and soldiers.

[They Got Leader]

If you got stagnant forts that you want to abandon and restart, give them to me. Im on the reverse side of the coin of you. I HATE starting new fortresses over and over each time I come up with a new idea i want to try. If you were to somehow give your "stagnant forts" to me, Id gladly take them.

[Quatch]

It's better to have everybody in one squad to make squad management easier.

Oooh, bad idea, unless you like Fun. You see, the squad will follow the leader. To war, to dinner, to bed. Many small squads may take a wee bit more effort, but you're much more likely to have them respond.

[Rowanas]

Pfff. My military is large enough that there will always be loads of guards drinking or eating at my gatehouse inn (my first and largest food stockpile) to stop invasions and thefts and such at any time. While the majority will be with the head honcho, a lot of them will still be on call.

[Hyndis]

If you have too many dwarves, your projects are obviously not ambitious enough!

Me? 150 skilled masons. 20 mason workshops churning out rock blocks endlessly with the rest of them laying stonework as fast as possible, and projects still take decades to finish.

[RandomNumberGenerator]

If you have too many dwarves, your projects are obviously not ambitious enough!

Me? 150 skilled masons. 20 mason workshops churning out rock blocks endlessly with the rest of them laying stonework as fast as possible, and projects still take decades to finish.

Heh, well you were right. I made a new fortress, and instead of going with the ultra-functional approach, I decided to go with a more aesthetic approach. Damn. Most of my dwarves are miners, masons, or haulers(carrying all that annoying stone out of the way), and I'm not even making a real megaproject, it's just a regular old fort that looks nice. So much to do... so few dwarves...

[Skorpion]

If you have nothing to use the dwarves for, expand industries. Make stockpiles more efficient, haul the goblin junk in from outside, or make a huge construction.

Or just draft every useless idler into a huge squad, make them cave-adapt, then walk them around the map above-ground to write things in vomit.

[Elvin]

Usually my largest industries are the clothing and metalworking industries.

Plant one field, about 6x6 but change it to suit your needs, of pig tail. This gives your planters work. These pig tails then need to be made into thread, work for plant processors at a farmer's workshop. Then the cloth needs to be woven, giving more work for weavers at a loom. Optionally, the cloth can then be dyed, giving yet more jobs as both a dyer and a miller are needed, the latter being to create dye from ground up dimple cups. Then finally you can have Clothesmakers make whatever you want. If all else fails just set bags and images to repeat.
This can take pretty much as many dwarfs as you want, but my usual size of three of each workshop consumes about 15 professional dwarves and keeps a further 15 or so on hauling duties.

Metalworking consumes large numbers as well. Set your miners to explore for minerals, set up some magma smelters, set up magma forges, and you can even trade for more/rarer minerals with the Dwarves.

[Uber dwarf2.0]

You could always try my bandit camp challenge , just make a wooden trading fort. Get alot of wealth and pillage everything that comes by,and fight with the many migrants you get.

[Cogsmith]

Use no traps or doors. Floodgates and hatches for use to control the flow of water only. Go to war with the elves. Do not tie up animals to act as sentries. The ONLY sentries you may use are dwarfs going about their business. You will need those extra 100 in a hurry when 11 or so Legendary Archer Elves  and a rabble of  Legendary melee types(Is it just my bad luck or does every hostile elven group always contain at least 2 legendaries?) show up in your barracks and kill off your under-equipped army in the first year. You will be begging for reinforcements by the 2nd year of constant ambushes that somehow get into your dining hall with no one noticing.

[detinith]

build fortresses with the intent of exploring them later with an adventurer. you'll never run out of weird things to put in it. that also justifies long, narrow corridors and completely out-of-the-way points of interest.

[KaziArmada]

You sound like me...soon as the larger amount of dwarves start to rush in, I get fed up...Though mostly because i dont like constantly reassigning a flock of new recruits.

Try playing on this map - http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=551
Im playing a game there now..Its a touch annoying to be stuck with seven dwarves, but work is progressing smoothly for my fort, and Im quite enjoying the game..Figure you might to, since You wont get any new worker dwarves for a minimum of 12-14 years-ish


Cant wait till i get a few more and can setup a bunch of masons..I got what will hopefully be a megaproject on the mind..