Bay 12 Games Forum

Perhaps this question wasn't asked well enough. It's feels as though it is suggesting Dwarf Fortress is a game that _must_ be modded. Also it does not ask to what degree people would like to mod. I believe most do use mods, because there is a massive legion of utility mods out there that are widely spread and shared with friends to help play the base game more easily.

You have the LazyNewbPack and others that allow people to quickly change little and big details to how they would prefer. With a bunch of self contained mods like Dfhack and DwarfTherapist that comes with it. That is easily considered a modded experience.

Almost everyone I think mods their game to some degree, and it is very clear that after literal decades of development that Dwarf Fortress has enough base features to feel like its own completeish* (currently simulates 47% of reality) game. I am still not sure whether or not OP is asking that people must use complete overhaul mods, or something in-between because apparently Dwarf Fortress is bland without massive mods?

Fortress mode question!
The blog mentions being able to "track down" and "send somebody after them" when it comes to villains. Does this mean sending one dwarf, or a military squad to capture a villain? If they can be captured, will they be escorted to one of your dungeon cells?
I'd find it really fun to capture my fortress's nemesis and put him on display somewhere. To ultimately give him some creative dwarven justice.

If there is an actual dead civ, in my experience they're always available to embark under. The trick is to use a utility like Legends Viewer to find what dwarven civ has been destroyed.
Besides a utility, you can also tell if one is dead if you see no colored territories on the map. I'm not entirely sure on this though... there might be a bug where a dead civ does have a town left but it's only filled with pets (sad).

Whether you're getting defeated civilizations at all is different issue.
In order to make dead civs more frequent, I would increase the Megabeast and Semibeast cap of the world by like 30% (advanced world parameters is actually pretty easy to use). This will make town attacks much more frequent and can lead to a somewhat barren world if you increase it even further. By year 100 on a Medium world, I usually have at least 2 dead civilizations for each race. I don't know if all will show up as an embark option but I know one of them will.

Basically food and drinks for variety. Since my dwarves commonly complain for  eating the same stuff.
Usually a lot of backpacks, quivers, and the like for my military since I rarely focus on leatherworking.
And I trade for steel stuff for the heck of it, so I can smelt it for raw ingots.

With the new expedition/mission feature coming up. I plan on rehashing my old Spartan Program to keep only the strongest dwarves in the fortress. It used to be just having migrants brave the caverns with nothing but iron tools and water to drink. Those who survived the various dangerous beasts would be glorified as full-citizens.
Now for whenever new dwarves have "come of age" at 12 (or at 6, I'll probably mod it) I'll send the promising young adults into the wide open world to grab an important item of value and bring it back. Of course if they succeed, they'll be welcomed into the fort with open arms... if not... they're either dead from the attempt or will be banished to the caverns to prove themselves in another way.
I don't know how exactly expeditions will work yet, either I could send out bands of these youngsters or individually.
It should make a good story.

Do you guys have similar plans to use the new features coming around?

Edit: Also I will look at the personalities of the dwarves going on the expeditions and use that to judge how difficult of a quest to send them on. Cowardly dwarves will only try to take an artifact from a "weaker" historical figure and so on.

can you give some screenshots of your schedule/military screen?

Some notes on it
* Try activating your squad by putting them on the Active Alert
* In the squad's ammo screen, make sure there are at least [100] bolts assigned to (T)raining
* Do they actually have quivers and crossbows? Do they have bolts?

Mainly in response to ToadyOne's recent post.

I hope after you send a raiding party to rescue children from the goblins, that they can be officially adopted. Imagine a 4 year old girl being brought to the fortress, scared and alone. Surrounded by strangers. Then a nice couple appears, who have no children of their own, decides to take her in.
While parenting isn't in yet, it would be cool to see the good moods from family interaction.

I've once told a dwarf to mine a bit of "Hot" rock for my forges.
And he actually did it. The mad man!

He didn't get to regret his mistake long.