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[FrankMcFuzz]

I've been playing Dwarf Fortress for around a year now and I still think it's nearly the best thing ever. However, I've never really tried any mods, just always play it vanilla and unmodded. I've never even had fortresses that are that interesting, I usually just rely on the exact same layout and formula, and delete the entire world if something goes a bit boring or load it if I screw up.

I realize now that I've been playing Dwarf Fortress wrong the entire time and I need some ideas to help me spice it up some. I've fiddled around with pumps, farming, architecture, the circus, etc, most of the features to be able to attempt anything anyone comes up with. Any suggestions would be appreciated, and I'll post the results here if they turn out Dwarfly.

I don't mind what ideas you come up with, be in megaproject or some kind of challenge, or even suggested mods or anything, I just need something to help enrich the Awesome Dwarfliness that is Dwarf Fortress.

[King DZA]

Go hunter/gatherer with a fortress. No farms(except maybe for booze production) or livestock, no buy buying food from caravans, and no food brought with you on embark. All food must be obtained via hunting,fishing, plant gathering, and the like.

Not the most difficult thing in the world, but it's a nice way to break from routine.

[FrankMcFuzz]

I like the whole "Adam and Eve"/lone dwarf idea, but I've never tried it because I don't like having to kill all my migrants, although it's more of a pain to take care of them.

What's the best way to kill a horde of migrants?

[King DZA]

Can't help you with that one. In the several months I've played Dwarf Fortress, I have never attempted to intentionally kill one of my dwarves.

[FrankMcFuzz]

I know, it's hard to actually think about that one. I can't think of anything other than drawbridges and atom smashing, or river fun. I'm attempting a dwarf couple, one great fighter and one great crasftwomandwarfthing. It's a shame you can't assassinate the migrants that still have the big flashing X over them, because not every fort needs them.

[FrankMcFuzz]

For anyone else looking for a similar challenge or interesting idea, try this thread. http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=96902.0

Personally I'm going to go for a Dwarf hermit couple with a chosen one child Heh.

[Wirevix]

One great way is to build a wall in front of your door and be using the Monster Hunter Universe mod.  Embarking in the middle of a massive pack of Bulldromes means anyone who's not prepared is going to die.  Then the migrants are mostly monster food.

But if you want to do an Adam and Eve scenario without slaughtering dwarves, you could always see about running two separate forts.  Force the migrants to build an above-ground shanty town while your "true" dwarves venture the depths, and ne'er the two shall meet.

[FrankMcFuzz]

Well everyone got atom smashed, and Dwarf A and Dwarf B are both unhappy, building theirselves a nice home made of stone, with access to copper, rocks and gems.

[dragoncurse]

Fortress Defense.

You can automatically dump useless assign courageous immigrants to military and let them train until a siege comes.

[FrankMcFuzz]

What are you talking about? I need every thresher and wax worker I can get, not mention soapers or lye makers.

I once saw a miner migrant.

[dreadmullet]

Dwarf Fortress became so much better after I started using Fortress Defense. I'm actually losing forts now, instead of just abandoning them out of boredom.

[Iton Ibrukrithzam]

I've been playing Dwarf Fortress for around a year now and I still think it's nearly the best thing ever. However, I've never really tried any mods, just always play it vanilla and unmodded. I've never even had fortresses that are that interesting, I usually just rely on the exact same layout and formula, and delete the entire world if something goes a bit boring or load it if I screw up.

I realize now that I've been playing Dwarf Fortress wrong the entire time and I need some ideas to help me spice it up some. I've fiddled around with pumps, farming, architecture, the circus, etc, most of the features to be able to attempt anything anyone comes up with. Any suggestions would be appreciated, and I'll post the results here if they turn out Dwarfly.

I don't mind what ideas you come up with, be in megaproject or some kind of challenge, or even suggested mods or anything, I just need something to help enrich the Awesome Dwarfliness that is Dwarf Fortress.

Any of these strike you?
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Challenge

If not, you can always try choosing one material type and never using/making it.  Bonus points if you don't bring any of it on embark.  I did a metal-less fort awhile back.  Only took a copper pick on embark and nothing else metal, ever.  I made the whole fort out of glass.

You can try farming or ranching for specific plants or animals that are hard to obtain.  I still fondly recall my cave crocodile breeding fort.

You can force yourself out of your rut by modeling forts after a concept.  Like, instead of making "Uh, a fort" make a huge ziggurat, or an above-ground castle, or a sky city balanced on a tiny spire.  Try playing one fort like your dwarves are savage barbarians, wearing bone and leather armor and putting totems everywhere.  Or immediately dig down to the caverns and move your entire operation down there, living in the caverns.

You can also throw in little goals that can bring you out of a rut without being Fort-Defining.  Like finding an embark with magnetite and making absolutely every bedroom in hollowed out magnetite.  Even for the Lye Maker.  Or making individual tomb complexes outside the main fort walls for each and every noble.  Include traps to foil thieves.  Pick an industry you haven't done before.  Rely on it for all your trading.

Do something extravagant and wasteful.  Embark in a scorching desert and make decorative ponds out in front of your base.  Keep them full.  Give every single dwarf a masterwork gold statue in their bedroom. Or a platinum one.  Choose an expensive material, and slowly replace every item in your fort with new versions made of that material.

[FrankMcFuzz]

Each of my fortresses are getting slowly more wasteful, including a solid gold plated tomb for a soldier I kitted in full adamantine who I singlehanded sent into a 100+ goblin siege. The fortress had no walls, and I had this sole dwarf out there. She would cleave what felt like 10 of them in 5 seconds and the entire siege would flee in terror. Pretty much deserves all the clownite stuff I gave her for her room and tomb.

I keep embarking at places that only have copper, lol You have some very good ideas. I'm working on an arena fortress at the moment, yet still relying on my old habits of room making and crafting. My favourite fortress was one with access to iron but no steel, so I just used the original fort as a mine, building a massive spraling cityscape outside the gates with 20+ buildings, and a massive castle that had NO GOD DAMN DWARF KING. Elf king rocks up, and I'm like, Elf off, and he just chilled in the kennels with the dogs. No way near as cool as Cacame.

I'm very military based, rarely relying on traps or complicated death trap. As such, my mausoleums are pretty well crafted these days. Got a lot of experience with that.

[Ieb]

I once had a pretty simple idea for a fort, which could be expanded on to make it seem more dwarf-like.

It was basically two forts. One on the left side of the map and entirely on the soil-levels, one huge mined cavern where there were 50 or so beds, some tables and a whole lot of workshops.

The other side was mined into the stone proper, royal bedrooms and dining rooms for each of the inhabitants and a selection of fine alcohol and lavish meals.

Now this other side, with all the good living, was for the starting 7 dwarves and everyone who proved to be worthy to move in. Which meant anyone who made an artifact. Be it fey, secretive or possession that churned out some craft worthy of legends, they were given pass into the good life, not having to worry about working for the rest of their life, each day spent kicking back and enjoying booze and food.

Meanwhile the working dwarves sustained on plump helmets for food and water from a well, making crafts from whatever they could. Migrants without special skills were employed in whatever field required workers or just trained as back-up workers for clothier, weaver, thresher and so on. Sometimes they even had the chance to sip up on some actual alcohol, whenever traders came by and some was traded. Afterwards though, it was all packed into the airlock that led to the more fortunate dwarves, who added all the alcohol and food to their own stockpiles.

It was okay, learned that you can keep a workforce content even if they live in poor conditions and have very little variety in food and drink. In the end though, a dragon showed up. Those that didn't die from the fire beat each other to death after the smoke cleared and most of the soldiers were dead.

I've been thinking of making a fort like that again, but actually mining deep this time rather than keeping it all in the first few layers. Shanty town in the first cavern layer for the haulers and crap-job workers, proper rooms for smiths and other capable workers and royal rooms for the nobles and legendary workers.

Hell, I should get started on it. Been a while since I last played DF.

[Quantumtroll]

I like to make up a purpose for my fortresses, which direct their development.  Why did your founders leave, why did they choose to settle *here*, what is the settlement for, etc?   My current fortress started off as the beachhead of the dwarven reclamation of a large zombie desert island.  The zombies turned out to be a nuisance, no more, but the bedrock contained a surprising amount of gold. So much so that a monument to Gold was to be built as a new residence for the king and a new golden age (pun intended) for Dwarvenkind could start on the secure soil of the island.   The fact that the surface of the island is a terrible and putrid desert of death doesn't at all affect dwarves that spend their entire lives underground.