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[DaJonkel]

So people, I've been playing DF on and off for years, but I'm almost ashamed to say, but I may have spend more than 3000 hours generating worlds, and embarking on all sorts of different spots and then playing not more than an hour on that spot. 99% of the time I reach the point where I either dig out, or wall of a large square section, fill it with some basic workshops to build beds and other furniture, set up basic farming and maybe some other food source like eggs, butchering or fishing, and maybe some sort of further processing of earlier mentioned food/booze production or crafts for some trading and that's it. Basically the pre-"Now I can actually start playing" setup. I know I've never experienced a huge part of the game, like the entire 2010 military, dyeing of clothes, I've never done anything with gems, never reached the economy stage, and the list goes on.

I'm just one of those people who is easily content, once I see my dwarfs are happy with the basics, I just can't push myself to ruin their perfect little lives, nor my own work of getting there (5 hours of generating and finding that perfect spot), plus if I try think about how to go further I get locked into such a "perfect world" idea that the first moment something goes wrong or realize I miss that one little thing in my embark spot, I abandon and start planning/genning again. This leads to me eventually spending 10K embark points on all sorts of stuff and spending hours on trying to find that absolute perfect spot till I either find it and do a basic build again and don't want to ruin it, or give up on that idea completely which resets the cycle.

Could someone please generate a map for me in .25, select an embark spot, and tell me what you want me to build there. I really need this outside request to push my boundaries and complete a "mega project" for once and force me to coop with everything that happens while doing so. Oh I know how to do almost everything in DF (except for hardcore modding/intense use of third party programs), I just have never done it.

Thanks a lot in advance.

[Andrew425]

How good would you say you are when it comes to building?

Would a skyscraper pose a problem for you? How about modelling one after a real life city? With paved streets, statues and outdoor parks with apartment buildings with rooms for each dwarf? Before starting perhaps level the entire map and make it one Z plane for the entire surface.

[thijser]

Well it might be best if you simply take the new rule: you aren't allowed to build any walls or hatches or doors. That way you are forced to come up with something good.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Or bridges.

[slink]

Just my two cents worth.

If you are content playing the way you do now, why wreck that?  I can certainly relate to spending hours generating worlds and choosing sites, and many fewer hours actually playing fortresses.  Just because people like you and I don't get as much pleasure from destruction as we do from contruction doesn't make it wrong for us to play differently from the way some other people play.

Something that may not be obvious to you, because I know it wasn't obvious to me, is that most mega-projects get built in an artificial environment.  Invasions are certainly turned off.  For the one challange I completed, I turned off caravans for most of the game because it was just too much of a nuisance to deal with three interruptions a year.  People often mod the game for higher speed for the Dwarves, resulting in them warping around the map.  They kill off the children and pets to prevent lag from high populations.  They mod in a smelter reaction to get rid of excess stone.  In my opionion. none of these things contribute to a feeling of having experienced more fully the features of DF.

The economy didn't work completely satisfactorily in 40d and it doesn't work at all now.  They don't even clothe themselves properly now, once their old clothing wears to tatters.  You will have to wait a while before experiencing that portion of the game.  Also, because of the clothing issue, there isn't any point in dyeing cloth and making clothing now.
 
I would say that the best bet is to try to experience the military aspect.  Pretend you are building a military outpost.  Design a uniform.  Create the pieces for the uniform.  Create the weapons.  Equip the Dwarves and train them.  Then turn on the invasions and see how well you succeeded, or invade the caverns and conquer them.  The problem with this is that you will need piles of trees for the coke, because coal is apparently vanishingly rare these days.  Ideally you will need magma for fuel so that you can reserve the available trees for that coke, which means that you will already have breached all the caverns before you actually even begin creating a military unless you find a site with a volcano.
 
So you see, the fact that you have not fully experienced all of the features of DF, and spend hours generating worlds in search of the ideal site, may not be due to any failing in your personality, but rather because DF isn't fully developed yet.  It isn't possible yet to depend upon trade for missing materials, for instance.  When maximizing your request for steel gets you two entire bars per year from the Autumn caravan, developing a military isn't really possible on that basis.
 
Well, my two cents became two dollars.   
 

[DaJonkel]

How good would you say you are when it comes to building?

Would a skyscraper pose a problem for you? How about modelling one after a real life city? With paved streets, statues and outdoor parks with apartment buildings with rooms for each dwarf? Before starting perhaps level the entire map and make it one Z plane for the entire surface.

I suppose I can pretty much build anything, my problem though will start with what kind of stones to use for the walls, floors, windows, doors, furniture, or what kind of wood, and what kind of quality, and do I try to build a "realistic" building, with wooden frames and such or accept the dwarf laws of physics.  Also should it be actively used by my dwarfs, or just be a pretty building to look at.

For example, perfect would be if someone ran DFprospector on a site and like told me like, use the 5K gold to pave streets, the 15K silver to build 10 houses which should by at least 3 floor levels and have 5 rooms each and have oaken wooden floors, build a temple out of obsidian at least XX by YY by ZZ size with marble floors and gem encrusted high wood masterwork furniture, ect ect, make sure all buildings are connected by an underground maze leading to a safe room with a lever able to flood the maze and destroy the stockpiles with lewt which are kept at at least 100K worth. ect ect.  And then give me further instructions as I post screenshots of the fort.  "Ahh could you please move the entire temple about 5 tiles to the north, so you can add a small garden to the side of the temple, oh and while you're at it, how about you reroute the river around this open field here and build me a [insert your idea here]".

I completely understand I'm a really weird guy, needing someone else to tell me me to get over the minimum, and write down objectives and rules that would ruin someone else's imagination, but yeah that's just how I am.  (Autism ftw?).   If I had been the sole decider of human progression, we'd still be living the simple farmer life in the year 5000.


I'm also open for a duo-succession game, where you tell me each turn what to have ready for when it's your turn again.

[Ancre]

I'm also open for a duo-succession game, where you tell me each turn what to have ready for when it's your turn again.

Try a succession fort in the community games ? Preferably a mature one so you have a year to rearrange the mess your predecessors did or something

I have the same problem as you, and that's what I intend to do.

[Haspen]

Start writing a journal seen in eyes of one dwarf, leader perhaps?

If you will write down their lives and events, there's always a chance you will want to see 'how badly this year will go compared to previous invasion of skeleton alligators' or something I have problems de-taching myself from this old 40d fort just because I can't leave 15 game years of journals and stuff.

Embark on difficult places - no iron nor flux + terrifying region with skeletal sturgeons.

Start with nothing else than a single pick. And using that one tool, try to make your dorfs survive and thrive.

[DaJonkel]

Just my two cents worth.

If you are content playing the way you do now, why wreck that?  I can certainly relate to spending hours generating worlds and choosing sites, and many fewer hours actually playing fortresses.  Just because people like you and I don't get as much pleasure from destruction as we do from contruction doesn't make it wrong for us to play differently from the way some other people play.

Something that may not be obvious to you, because I know it wasn't obvious to me, is that most mega-projects get built in an artificial environment.  Invasions are certainly turned off.  For the one challange I completed, I turned off caravans for most of the game because it was just too much of a nuisance to deal with three interruptions a year.  People often mod the game for higher speed for the Dwarves, resulting in them warping around the map.  They kill off the children and pets to prevent lag from high populations.  They mod in a smelter reaction to get rid of excess stone.  In my opionion. none of these things contribute to a feeling of having experienced more fully the features of DF.

The economy didn't work completely satisfactorily in 40d and it doesn't work at all now.  They don't even clothe themselves properly now, once their old clothing wears to tatters.  You will have to wait a while before experiencing that portion of the game.  Also, because of the clothing issue, there isn't any point in dyeing cloth and making clothing now.
 
I would say that the best bet is to try to experience the military aspect.  Pretend you are building a military outpost.  Design a uniform.  Create the pieces for the uniform.  Create the weapons.  Equip the Dwarves and train them.  Then turn on the invasions and see how well you succeeded, or invade the caverns and conquer them.  The problem with this is that you will need piles of trees for the coke, because coal is apparently vanishingly rare these days.  Ideally you will need magma for fuel so that you can reserve the available trees for that coke, which means that you will already have breached all the caverns before you actually even begin creating a military unless you find a site with a volcano.
 
So you see, the fact that you have not fully experienced all of the features of DF, and spend hours generating worlds in search of the ideal site, may not be due to any failing in your personality, but rather because DF isn't fully developed yet.  It isn't possible yet to depend upon trade for missing materials, for instance.  When maximizing your request for steel gets you two entire bars per year from the Autumn caravan, developing a military isn't really possible on that basis.
 
Well, my two cents became two dollars.   

Inspired by your post I will try to build another military outpost.   I have (as always) decided to split my units up in casts, and have the different casts handle the combat in a different way.   I will be making a ranger cast; leather wearing archers who do everything wood related as well, the core; heavily armored melee dwarfs who do everything with iron, the arcanists; siege equipment and who deal with rock and stones but also doctors, ect, the civilians; everything else such as hauling and food production.

Let's see how far I'll get... maybe starting this thread will help me push it..

actually I'll add some screenshots and the prospector report so you guys can maybe decide some stuff for me.
Edit: I'm using the Civilization Forge Mod at 2.41 btw.
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[slink]

Hey, nice site.     You could base each type of warrior in a separate mound.  The iron-working ones should live in the one next to the magma, I think.  Then you can connect the mounds either by sub-surface tunnels or by roofed-over surface corridors.  The miscellaneous civilians can live either in another mound or in rooms off the tunnels or corridors.  Probably off tunnels, because you'd want them to stay safe?

[Strant]

I'd recommend building a monument to your own hubris. 

It's basically half of what I do in Dwarf Fortress.

[Nidokoenig]

Dig down to the magma and build an artificial volcano out of wood. Bonus points for putting the living quarters and booze stockpile inside it.

[Jacob/Lee]

Build a giant space station 100 z-levels in the sky, complete with all things needed to run a Space Station 13 style station. Needed parts are maintenance tunnels, kitchen, bar, bridge, "atmospherics", a cargo bay where ships can "dock" to drop off food and booze, an escape shuttle which is dropped via a lever pull dropping it out of the sky, a security room and everything else you can think of.

Then, build random floors + walls in the sky held by supports that are connected to a lever, pull the lever and simulate a meteor storm.

[Sutremaine]

For example, perfect would be if someone ran DFprospector on a site and like told me like, use the 5K gold to pave streets, the 15K silver to build 10 houses which should by at least 3 floor levels and have 5 rooms each and have oaken wooden floors, build a temple out of obsidian at least XX by YY by ZZ size with marble floors and gem encrusted high wood masterwork furniture, ect ect, make sure all buildings are connected by an underground maze leading to a safe room with a lever able to flood the maze and destroy the stockpiles with lewt which are kept at at least 100K worth. ect ect.  And then give me further instructions as I post screenshots of the fort.  "Ahh could you please move the entire temple about 5 tiles to the north, so you can add a small garden to the side of the temple, oh and while you're at it, how about you reroute the river around this open field here and build me a [insert your idea here]".

So do that then, except replacing the material names with whatever it is you have on your map. Plan it out in Paint, and if any caverns get in the way of your design just build right through them. I prefer using dark stone because it's easier on the eyes and allows you to build things that really pop out, but slate and shale are impossible to find without looking at the site first. I'm not even asking for steel + that stuff (I can get by with tetrahedrite. You've got your organ piercing and your armour piercing, sorted), just something that isn't grotty old diorite.

[Reelyanoob]

My suggestion is not a fortress goal etc (though I have plenty of those). My suggestion is you play around with the raws that affect world generation. You get heaps more sites which match your expectations. You can change advanced worldgen params, or do modding. I won't cover the params, but these are the modding things I have tried, amongst others:-

- Remove AQUIFER tags from all substances. So all sites are aquifer-free. No more site rejections just on this quality, ever.

- Remove all soil types which are not sand or clay - guaranteed of getting either one, or both.

- Change some minerals / metals to be [METAMORPHIC], [SEDIMENTARY], [IGNEOUS_INTRUSIVE], [IGNEOUS_EXTRUSIVE], and deleted the 'normal' ugly grey rocks. You could have worlds made of diamond, adamantine, and platinum if you want. All-metal worlds were overkill for me, so I just played a world like that once.

- modify uncommon substances to be CLUSTER rather than VEIN, and set the ENVIRONMENT to be ALL_STONE. Guaranteed coal and iron everywhere for example.

With these mods, you can be pretty sure of the mineral content of any site. I'm on email btw if you want step-by-step assistance. Modding is a heap of fun. You don't need any tools except notepad.

Also, good advice might be to start each fortress with a small goal, not a megaproject, just an achievement you've never personally done.