I've been playing DF on and off for around 6 years now (albeit only
really making any progress in the most recent 3 years). I've always been a fan of complex games like Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, which I used to play on the school's computer EDIT: and Caves of Qud, how could I forget! These days, a question popped into my head: "why do people play these games?" And so here I am, asking the question of why do we play Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress Fortress Mode? (quite a mouthful, eh?).
I'll start:
- Building things just the way I want, but having to organically adapt my design as new situations come up. Also, when my designs work, it's very satisfying to see it all come together (i.e. designing the most elegant dining hall, over and over again).
- The challenge of having to manage the dwarves' immediate needs while also taking care of future issues, such as sieges or trading with other civilizations.
- Collecting a bazillion of finished goods and obsessively collecting wealth and artifacts (gotta love me some fungiwood anvils).
- How sometimes you just have to invent a solution that wasn't planned by the devs (i.e. the double slit method).
- EDIT: Something I've never seen in other games... for us the game is hours (or perhaps days?) of gameplay, while for the dwarves months, years pass as you play. I don't think that there's any other game that simulates the passage of time like this, without going too fast or too slow.
Thank you beforehand for answering, and I wish you all a good 2019.
