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[Sinergistic]

Apparently we don't have a dedicated topic for house rules yet (at least, nothing apparent on search).

I enjoy playing with various (and sometimes odd) house rules. They make forts fun (and sometimes 'fun'), and provide challenges that neither vanilla nor modded games can bring you.

So! What are YOUR house rules?
The objective of this thread is a central place for people to post their own house rules, so that players looking for new experiences have an easier time of finding new things to try out.

I AM AWARE OF: http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Challenge , this isn't quite what I'm after, since it defines a specific fort you need to build, rather than general (house) rules to follow while building any fort.

I'll go ahead and start off with a set I've found to be very satisfying:

In my last fort I used several 'house rules'...I found that they complicate things in an interesting and fun way:
- a maximum of 5 cage and 8 stonefall traps
- there must always be one main access into the fort that is not closed off.
- enemies may only be killed by siege engines or the military. Thus no drowning rooms, invader smashing bridges or other means of mass murder.
- moats must be at least 3 wide and 2 deep before enclosing something
- all moveable bridges need to to be 'powered'. Powered means that you may only raise or lower a bridge if it has an engaged (pulsating) mechanism next to its base (to the side or below). This means you need to construct a lot of complicated power transfer tunnels...it was a lot of fun to rout power all over my fortress while trying to keep access to the 'powersystem' as restricted as possible....
- I used the  goblin mod (neither the thoughest now the weakest goblins...somewhere in between). I was amazed how much this added to the enjoyment (combined with the 'open access')...I had to scramble to train up my military which led to a lot of overall urgency
- workshops: Must be powered (same as bridges) to allow a dorf who is better than 'novice' to use it (=unpowered workshops may only be used by novices or lower)
[...]
here is the link to the map archive if anyone is interested...
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-2928-firegateofmenace

Post away!

[Duke 2.0]

 -All major roads need to be three-tiles wide, and a wagon should be able to reach every major part of the fortress.
 -All crops my people eat must take at least two seasons to make. There could be some berries grown in the spring/summer that could take a season, but for the most part I'll need some large fields and prepare a massive stockpile 'else face starvation.
 -Underground is for graves, quarrying, mines for specific minerals and storage basements. Everything else shall reach into the sky.
 -I need a nice rock to make things from. I cannot make a fortress from some brown stone with teal bits thrown in. It needs to be all one good color, like black, white, red or even green if Olivine will ever come my way.

[Doomshifter]

I play kobold camp.

- Never higher than two z-levels (ground floor and fortifications up top)
- Use stone sparingly, and don't dig any further than the first stone layer.
- All housing is above-ground.
- No convoluted traps or megastructures
- Randomly built buildings, rather than careful planning.

[Skorpion]

- No 'cheap' means of disposing of enemies. No atom-smashing them, no trap corridors.
- Traps only as an emergency.
- Some military always on station. No unguarded door!
- Mostly melee military. Only 1/4th marksdwarves.
- No armour or weapons to be used that are below exceptional.
- Artifact weapons must be used.
- Fort/royal guard must be filled.
- All goblin junk must be hauled SOMEWHERE. Even if it's hauled in from outside, all the way through the fort, and straight into the magma pipe.

- Outdoors must only be used if it's safe. This means fortifications, walls, and so forth. And Dwarven Terraforming.
- Everything must be tidy. No vomit trails if I can help it.
- The gods must be appeased. Material sacrifices to fire and earth, which means trade goods thrown into the magma pipe and chasm/pit, respectively. Actual sacrifices, which means value to me, personally, rather than dorfbucks.
- No mods, no extra reactions, no utilities, no peeking.
- At least a season's food and booze on hand. Variety of both. This means outdoor farming, in order to get more plants.
- Dwarven Food Stamps. Meat, plants, and fish on hand so the poorer haulers can eat AND sleep in a bed. Not one or the other.

[Iverum]

Just recently started playing, but I have a few rules I try to follow.

1. No buildings outside except for wells. If I need more space I dig.
2. Each floor has a specific purpose. My current fort has five levels.
   a. 1st level, entrance and depot.
   b. 2nd level, apartments
   c. 3rd level, barracks and meeting rooms with a control room
   d. 4th level, stockpiles
   e. 5th level, workshops and farms
3. All levers must be labeled with a note.
4. All walls must be smoothed at least, floors too.
5. Only one entrance ever.
6. No traps except cage traps.
7. No atom smashing.

[orbcontrolled]

An interesting set of rules I've been trying out recently:

The human town of [reallylongname] is in danger, and has made a request of their dwarven allies: Bring your legendary construction and defense skills to bear, and fortify the town against any threat.

The goal:
Build the town with a defensive system that will keep them safe long after you leave. Something that will withstand the test of time (or would, if the humans actually had the AI to use/maintain it after abandon).

The rules:
-Keep as many humans alive as possible.
     -(and try to avoid using cheap tricks like locking them inside their homes)
-It's ok if a few humans die while hunting local wildlife, but if they start dying to sieges or ambushes, then you have failed.
-Don't steal human resources. This includes anything from eating their food, to demolishing the temple for raw materials. You are guests, not invaders!
    -Exception 1: Maybe they will let you stay in the inn for a few weeks until you get lodging set up, if you are nice.
    -Exception 2: If your plans really do require the demolition of a human structure, you have to build an equal-or-better replacement elsewhere.
-Your defenses should disrupt village life as little as possible while still being effective. Things to avoid include paving the streets with magma, disrupting people's ability to path freely amongst structures, turning the town into a charred and barren hellscape, and anything that involves blocking out the sun.
-Keep your fortress utilitarian, you aren't trying to get a king or become the mountainhome or anything, you have a job to do. Pointless luxuries are a waste of effort.
-Don't anger the other races. The town doesn't need more enemies.

Bonuses:
-Try to leave the town better off than you left it. If the only water source is a carp-infested river, build a well for them. Instead of putting your trade depot deep in the fortress, build the humans an aboveground trading hall. Maybe add some windows to the temple, that sort of thing. Leave them in your debt.

[nil]

My only real rule is to only kill with dwarves.  My current, biggest fort actually has the ability to both drown and drop enemies on a large scale, but I only use it for moving the equipment of dead invaders around.  In about 30 game years I've only built three traps, one to capture a river creature and the others to capture an enemy to sacrifice for the christening of a new cathedral.

[denito]

An interesting set of rules I've been trying out recently:

The human town of [reallylongname] is in danger, and has made a request of their dwarven allies: Bring your legendary construction and defense skills to bear, and fortify the town against any threat.

The goal:
Build the town with a defensive system that will keep them safe long after you leave. Something that will withstand the test of time (or would, if the humans actually had the AI to use/maintain it after abandon).

The rules:
-Keep as many humans alive as possible.
     -(and try to avoid using cheap tricks like locking them inside their homes)
-It's ok if a few humans die while hunting local wildlife, but if they start dying to sieges or ambushes, then you have failed.
-Don't steal human resources. This includes anything from eating their food, to demolishing the temple for raw materials. You are guests, not invaders!
    -Exception 1: Maybe they will let you stay in the inn for a few weeks until you get lodging set up, if you are nice.
    -Exception 2: If your plans really do require the demolition of a human structure, you have to build an equal-or-better replacement elsewhere.
-Your defenses should disrupt village life as little as possible while still being effective. Things to avoid include paving the streets with magma, disrupting people's ability to path freely amongst structures, turning the town into a charred and barren hellscape, and anything that involves blocking out the sun.
-Keep your fortress utilitarian, you aren't trying to get a king or become the mountainhome or anything, you have a job to do. Pointless luxuries are a waste of effort.
-Don't anger the other races. The town doesn't need more enemies.

Bonuses:
-Try to leave the town better off than you left it. If the only water source is a carp-infested river, build a well for them. Instead of putting your trade depot deep in the fortress, build the humans an aboveground trading hall. Maybe add some windows to the temple, that sort of thing. Leave them in your debt.

I like this.  This will be my new policy from now on if I embark in a human town.  It's much better than what I did the first time I encountered a human town, which was to undermine and collapse all their buildings to see how they'd react.

[Telcontar]

Along with the various modding I've done to make the game harder (armor and weaponry are harder to make, growing food takes much more time, etc)

-I don't use traps except for in remote access corridors, because having filling a well-traveled hallway with traps SHOULD kill your own dwarves by accident a lot.
-I don't use finders or anything to locate good sites. I attempt to find a site based entirely on the stock info.
-I don't seal off my fortress.
-Limited marksdwarves (also modded their capabilities vis a vis damage)
-ALL constructions inside the fortress proper are made from stone blocks, not just stone.

Probably a few others that don't come to mind unless I'm actually playing.

[Reese]

A few things I tend to do, not so much house rules as my own tendencies:

I aim for a realistic above ground castle-layout fort protecting the entrance to my fortress.

some basic traps(ie: traps that are built with a mechanism) are OK for defense against minor pests or as an early warning system, but any traps or trap corridors have to be built using pressure plates, levers, and links... in other words, They tend to be just as dangerous to my dorfs as to invaders when active.

the more gears and power required, the better.  complexity is a goal unless simplicity will achieve better results, even if, especially if, it has nothing to do with the function or defense of the fortress; making U-spike traps trigger in patterns counts as non defense because it makes them less likely to trigger when the square is occupied; more impressive, but less efficient.

No atom smashing except by accident.  It just isn't fun, IMO, because it doesn't cause damage, just pops them out of existence.

[TauQuebb]

1: no traps, ever.
2: atom smashing only used in rubbish compactors to solve frame rate issues.
3: burial only at the base of the mountain.
4: only use above ground plants, farming underground is entropically false.
5: no huge caverns, roofs need some support.
6: brooks need vertical bars to pass through walls.
7: avoid reclaiming, start a new fort.
8: rotational symmetry is always preferable.
9: make double, triple thick castle walls, if sieges stay outside, there must be a reason they don't break the walls down.

[Skorpion]

An interesting set of rules I've been trying out recently:

The human town of [reallylongname] is in danger, and has made a request of their dwarven allies: Bring your legendary construction and defense skills to bear, and fortify the town against any threat.

The goal:
Build the town with a defensive system that will keep them safe long after you leave. Something that will withstand the test of time (or would, if the humans actually had the AI to use/maintain it after abandon).

The rules:
-Keep as many humans alive as possible.
     -(and try to avoid using cheap tricks like locking them inside their homes)
-It's ok if a few humans die while hunting local wildlife, but if they start dying to sieges or ambushes, then you have failed.
-Don't steal human resources. This includes anything from eating their food, to demolishing the temple for raw materials. You are guests, not invaders!
    -Exception 1: Maybe they will let you stay in the inn for a few weeks until you get lodging set up, if you are nice.
    -Exception 2: If your plans really do require the demolition of a human structure, you have to build an equal-or-better replacement elsewhere.
-Your defenses should disrupt village life as little as possible while still being effective. Things to avoid include paving the streets with magma, disrupting people's ability to path freely amongst structures, turning the town into a charred and barren hellscape, and anything that involves blocking out the sun.
-Keep your fortress utilitarian, you aren't trying to get a king or become the mountainhome or anything, you have a job to do. Pointless luxuries are a waste of effort.
-Don't anger the other races. The town doesn't need more enemies.

Bonuses:
-Try to leave the town better off than you left it. If the only water source is a carp-infested river, build a well for them. Instead of putting your trade depot deep in the fortress, build the humans an aboveground trading hall. Maybe add some windows to the temple, that sort of thing. Leave them in your debt.

You know what? This gives me an idea. A passive-agressive, totally dwarven war on a human town. Make their life hell, WITHOUT killing them. Block out the sun. Put dangerous pets in their houses. Trap their doors. Demolish the temple. Put magma channels through the streets, or route the moat through their houses. Maybe even force the caravans to parade through the town to remind them of what they don't have.

[Satarus]

Rule 1: No Poofters!
Rule 2: No member of the faculty is to maltreat the Abbos in any way at all -- if there's anybody watching
Rule 3: No Poofters!!
Rule 4: I don't want to catch anybody not drinking.
Rule 5: No Poofters!
Rule 6: There is NO Rule 6.
Rule 7: No Poofters!!

[Myroc]

1. All noble demands shall be met one way or another. No killing them off. Not even the hammerer.
2. No stealing. Never ever ever seize goods or dismantle a trade depot while merchants are in there. (If they are killed by something else though, for example goblins, it's all okay. We need it more than they do.)
3. All roads and bridges must be constructed out of blocks. No rough roads here!

[UristMcGunsmith]

An interesting set of rules I've been trying out recently:

The human town of [reallylongname] is in danger, and has made a request of their dwarven allies: Bring your legendary construction and defense skills to bear, and fortify the town against any threat.

The goal:
Build the town with a defensive system that will keep them safe long after you leave. Something that will withstand the test of time (or would, if the humans actually had the AI to use/maintain it after abandon).

The rules:
-Keep as many humans alive as possible.
     -(and try to avoid using cheap tricks like locking them inside their homes)
-It's ok if a few humans die while hunting local wildlife, but if they start dying to sieges or ambushes, then you have failed.
-Don't steal human resources. This includes anything from eating their food, to demolishing the temple for raw materials. You are guests, not invaders!
    -Exception 1: Maybe they will let you stay in the inn for a few weeks until you get lodging set up, if you are nice.
    -Exception 2: If your plans really do require the demolition of a human structure, you have to build an equal-or-better replacement elsewhere.
-Your defenses should disrupt village life as little as possible while still being effective. Things to avoid include paving the streets with magma, disrupting people's ability to path freely amongst structures, turning the town into a charred and barren hellscape, and anything that involves blocking out the sun.
-Keep your fortress utilitarian, you aren't trying to get a king or become the mountainhome or anything, you have a job to do. Pointless luxuries are a waste of effort.
-Don't anger the other races. The town doesn't need more enemies.

Bonuses:
-Try to leave the town better off than you left it. If the only water source is a carp-infested river, build a well for them. Instead of putting your trade depot deep in the fortress, build the humans an aboveground trading hall. Maybe add some windows to the temple, that sort of thing. Leave them in your debt.

   This is bitching. You should come up with more scenarios and rules.