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[DoctorMonch]

I had this problem when I first started playing.

The way I managed to work through this was to get more personally attached to my little dorfs.

I individually named the dwarves, spent time really paying attention to each one, and grew attached to them.

When the fortress eventually fell to a dual forgotten beast attack, I was in shock that I had managed to play through a fort that passed by 5 years.

Next time I played I made it to 12 years.

It's all about getting attached and WANTING to see the fort through.

[crekit]

I started by naming my dwarves, going OCD on all of them. That ended badly.

I refuse to 'prepare carefully' anymore. Come desert or glacier.

I attempt to look at dwarves as fodder, so as not to get too attached to them.

On another note, it turns out that trapper migrant is also a high master armorsmith!

[Crustypeanut]

Do you use Dwarf Therapist Crekit? If you don't, you should.  Its amazing.  I'm a perfectionist myself (though it shows mostly in fort design), and before I tried DT, I was going nuts beyond belief.. took ages just to figure out what everyone's job was, that I almost didn't get into the game. 

But now.. the Therapist is always behind me, helping me.. talking to me.. what do you mean theres no one there? I'M NOT INSANE!

[Inglonias]

I refuse to 'prepare carefully' anymore. Come desert or glacier.

Yeah... You aren't going to last very long, then...

[crekit]

Got lazy newb pack.

I got most of the basics I think. Haven't had a fort long enough to have to deal with any siege problems, but i'm setting up defenses and wutnot.

Iv read just about everything on the wiki and spent a ridiculous amount of time on these forums... Information is my drug I guess.

... I should probably set up at least ONE militia member about now.

[C0NNULL]

Here's a thought.

I'm a bit of a nut, in that I'd like a reasonable stable fortress. So I have one. (You can now see why I call myself a nut - I actually think I have a stable fortress. But this fortress now has 260 drunks, so you can see why I am lulled into thinking all is good.)

I also have a region that I play Adventure Mode in, another where I tried/am trying the Cave Challenge, (twice so far, great stuff,) and a few more where I go in and say something like, "Well, let us try this [particularly] bad idea."

I've never save-scummed or whatever. I do keep backups, kinda, just in case. But one of the first things I read here was that losing is fun, and so my semi-OCD self figured it might do well to:

A. Get used to it. (Losing is fun.)
B. Get used to it.
C. Complain to no one. Or everyone that'll listen. Same same.
D. Get over it.
E. Refer to A-D.
F. Post sometimes on the forums.
G. ? ? ?
F. Profit.
7. Learn the alphabet.

This has worked for me. I offer it to others that may find help in my words. 

[Ter13]

Here's a thought.

I'm a bit of a nut, in that I'd like a reasonable stable fortress. So I have one. (You can now see why I call myself a nut - I actually think I have a stable fortress. But this fortress now has 260 drunks, so you can see why I am lulled into thinking all is good.)

I also have a region that I play Adventure Mode in, another where I tried/am trying the Cave Challenge, (twice so far, great stuff,) and a few more where I go in and say something like, "Well, let us try this [particularly] bad idea."

I've never save-scummed or whatever. I do keep backups, kinda, just in case. But one of the first things I read here was that losing is fun, and so my semi-OCD self figured it might do well to:

A. Get used to it. (Losing is fun.)
B. Get used to it.
C. Complain to no one. Or everyone that'll listen. Same same.
D. Get over it.
E. Refer to A-D.
F. Post sometimes on the forums.
G. ? ? ?
F. Profit.
7. Learn the alphabet.

This has worked for me. I offer it to others that may find help in my words.

I scum a bit, particularly when prototyping trap systems, etc. Just so I can experiment with things, like trying to capture GCSes or things like that.

[BigD145]

Sit down and play the game!   http://www.budster.net/videos/south-park-adhd.htm

[crekit]

Well here comes my first test! Well, after learning to ya know.. farm and stuff. A giant ettin with two heads!

What timing! I had just set up a military and was messing with commands, sending my 6 dabbling crossbowdwarfs with wooden bolts after badgers. So I actually know how to get them to move!

Me: "GTFO AND BEHIND PAINSTAKINGLY BUILT FORTIFICATIONS! RAISE THE BRIDGE IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT'S UNHOLY!"

[Saladman]

This is all good, but truth be told I haven't even gotten that far. xD. I just OCD about where to put things, and usually quit about the time I set up the hospital. Its mostly just me being insane... I'll get over it eventually.

I did this when I was learning the game.  I kept restarting to avoid my painful errors of placement and unnecessary loss of dorf.  I finally just deleted everything, re-started with one clean world, and determined to play it through.  It helps to realize your first burrow doesn't have to be part of your permanent fort.  You can move into better-planned stone quarters a few years later, and either close the first section off entirely or keep it as an outpost but with some defensible space between it and your new main section.  (At the expense of travel time though.)

[Buttery_Mess]

DF is an inherently messy game. Despite your best laid plans, you're forming a fortress around 'natural' terrain, and you're trying to- in effect- create a living machine that can survive a host of varying unpredictable assaults or circumstances. Furthermore, the peculiar rules of the game dictate certain features of the fortress that may not sit intuitively in your fragile human mind. The fort has not just to be efficient, but aesthetically pleasing and comprehensible.

A fortress is like a digital bonsai tree; albeit one that's grown in radioactive soil and beset by blackfly and aphids. The pleasure of it is not in attaining perfection; if it were, people would buy plastic, symmetrical bonsai trees. The goal is to find pleasure in the balance between the game's rules, yourself, and the form of the fortress as a conceptual unit. There can be no perfect fort, but there can be an optimum pleasure derived from it, as one can derive pleasure from a bonsai meticulously and passionately cared for.

[BigD145]

This is all good, but truth be told I haven't even gotten that far. xD. I just OCD about where to put things, and usually quit about the time I set up the hospital. Its mostly just me being insane... I'll get over it eventually.

I did this when I was learning the game.  I kept restarting to avoid my painful errors of placement and unnecessary loss of dorf.  I finally just deleted everything, re-started with one clean world, and determined to play it through.  It helps to realize your first burrow doesn't have to be part of your permanent fort.  You can move into better-planned stone quarters a few years later, and either close the first section off entirely or keep it as an outpost but with some defensible space between it and your new main section.  (At the expense of travel time though.)

I make little mini forts whenever I have some mountain side and little outcroppings sticking up, usually overlooking a river. I think it's the German in me.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Seriously, these little castles are everywhere on the Rhine. Few are built without the terrain in mind and none are just a box with towers in the corners.

[Ter13]

This is all good, but truth be told I haven't even gotten that far. xD. I just OCD about where to put things, and usually quit about the time I set up the hospital. Its mostly just me being insane... I'll get over it eventually.

I did this when I was learning the game.  I kept restarting to avoid my painful errors of placement and unnecessary loss of dorf.  I finally just deleted everything, re-started with one clean world, and determined to play it through.  It helps to realize your first burrow doesn't have to be part of your permanent fort.  You can move into better-planned stone quarters a few years later, and either close the first section off entirely or keep it as an outpost but with some defensible space between it and your new main section.  (At the expense of travel time though.)

I make little mini forts whenever I have some mountain side and little outcroppings sticking up, usually overlooking a river. I think it's the German in me.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Seriously, these little castles are everywhere on the Rhine. Few are built without the terrain in mind and none are just a box with towers in the corners.

No water/magma features, no fortress. Nuff said.

[crekit]

Well, that ended well.

Militia "We killed the ettin! Now how about make us some armor and weapons?"
Me "with what metal?" (map said it had lots of metal and no flux. It is made entirely of flux, with no metal.)
Migrants "Hey guizsh!"
Goblin hammerman + bowman ambush "Lol we just face rolled that entire militia without one casualty (the bowman got hit once by a lucky shot)"

Srs I don't think its ever year 2 yet, 80 dwarves (now 72 with no militia)

<<Edit>> I think I may have built a giant fortress with awesome defenses. Except the defenses were made with the assumption that they would be garrisoned with archers. AKA : they are useless. My initial trap hallway is nicely placed BEHIND defensive lines, as a backup.

And this map has no metal... So ONE MORE RE-EMBARK.

[RTiger]

I love to embark in desert maps, especially with aquifers. Of course I plan carefully for it, or your setting up for failure.

The map before this however, the desert was haunted. I didn't last more then one season... (Blasted nightwing)