After seeing Toady One talk about hill dwarves I've started wondering: What will those settlements look like? They aren't fortresses, but are they underground? A mix of above and below?
Eventually they'll get into the game and we'll get to see them, but in the meantime I thought it'd be neat to start up a challenge. You have to build a Hill Dwarf settlement.
Basic rules
1) You must embark fairly close to an existing Mountainhome of your Civ. Preferably on the border between it and the surrounding non-mountain countryside.
2) The focus of a Hill Dwarf settlement is to provide the mountainhomes with raw materials and goods that they don't have. Therefore, the settlement should be fairly specialized. The exact specialization is up to you. You could export food, cloth, wood, metal, gems, whatever your embark site has most abundant. But the focus should be on export.
3) This is a settlement and not a military stronghold. While you can have a military, the focus should be on ways to keep the civilians alive and you should try to keep many more civilians than you have soldiers. Try not to dig too deep. If you wish to turn off invaders for this challenge, you may do so. (This simulates an above-world army from the Mountainhomes keeping you safe)
4) Mods are allowed, but should be restricted to ones that don't change the overall tone of DF too much. Civilization Forge, Genisis, and the like are fine. Total conversions, Fortress Defense, and the like are probably ill suited to this challenge.
I'm open to any other rules, but this is mostly an optional challenge and the goal is to see what people come up with. Please post journals and screen shots so we can see what you come up with! If you participate, please let us know what your focus is and what restrictions you're putting on yourself.
I'll be doing one of my own, although I won't start for a bit. I need to get some kinks worked out of my mod first.