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[Spoogy]

I have a general question regarding the typical gameplay loop in this game. Here is a short background description that may be necessary to be aware of in order to be able to answer accurately.

I am a new player to dwarf fortress coming from civ 4 and factorio that has completed the new tutorial and am now playing my first fort. Haven’t followed any specific guides but play with google open on the second monitor and probably spend more time there than the actual game. The impression I got from reading forum posts and game reviews is overwhelmingly positive, to the point that while I am enjoying this game very much, I’m not quite sure im doing it right and getting the most out of the game. I therefore  would appreciate the input of the veterans.

From my understanding, most forts don’t stand the test of time and eventually fall, especially a players first few forts, “Losing is fun” threads being a testament to that. This is not happening in my case, and I have even started to take steps in order to promote threats. Digging deep enough to find a cavern and chopping down enough trees has now led to being attacked in frequent waves by cave dwellers, mythical creatures (not sure im using the right term here) from below, and elves from ground level. This has caused a gameplay loop that looks as follows:
My population drops from roughly 120 dwarves to 40-60 after each attack. I then proceed to replace fallen squad members and nobles, pop grows back to around 120, rinse and repeat.
General production of the fort has dropped by around 80% since these waves started, and has been ongoing for the last 4 in game years. No further meaningful progression is being made both in construction, industry and production. In addition, as the population now fluctuates so frequently, I no longer follow each individuals story, feelings, backgrounds ect.
Managing the fort at this point seems rather repetitive and somewhat pointless, and the main reason I keep going is that my initial goal was to survive for as long as I could.
Is this the typical gameplay loop? Am I doing something wrong? Or did I simply get incredibly lucky?

I’d also like to state that I come off rather cocky and arrogant with this question and is worth mentioning that I am not at all a good player and have only put in 40 hours into DF.

World information:
-Default world generation settings
-Peacefull wildlife
-No soil/clay/sand
-Nothing to hunt (I just have birds which I read cannot be hunted)
-Dense forest
-River
-No aquifer
-No necro towers, goblin civilization 1 days travel away
-No flux

Fort information:
-Duration is 8 in game years
-Population fluctuates between 40-120
-4 squads of 5, 2 leather and 2 metal, all on staggered training schedules. Leather squads are fully armed and metal squads are missing trousers and gloves
-Economy (the goods I trade) consists entirely on digging and then cutting gems
-Nobles have their requirements (bedroom, dinning hall, office ect) met
Functioning and stocked hospital (have a doctor but no specialization in surgery, diagnostics ect)
-90% of dwarves happiness is on the red face status mainly due to seeing dead bodies everywhere. Another contributing factor could also be that they have unmet religious needs despite having temples for each of their desired gods but im not sure about that one
-Drinks and food are plentiful but non varied, drink from plump helmets and food from lavish meals via fish
-Additional facilities that perhaps might be worth mentioning are jail, library, graveyard (with engraved slabs for each dwarf that dies), barracks for each squad.

Thanks in advance for any input and happy digging.

[TurboDwarf]

There's not really a "wrong" way to play Dwarf Fortress imo. That said, that is an extremely safe embark. DF is only as hard as you make it. Still, if you want !!fun!!, taking on any project involving mechanisms, floodgates, drawbridges, minecarts etc. is a way to find it.

[Mungrul]

To be honest, making a fortress that is able to take care of itself is pretty easy these days.
But for me, and this is going to sound cliched, the fun of the game is in the stories your fortress generates. It's not about winning; it's about experiencing.
It's quite easy to look behind the curtain and see the systems generating the stories behind the scenes, but the fun comes if you suspend your disbelief and use your imagination to posit why things happen.

For example, in my current fortress, we get regular werebeasts, but my military is so overpowered, they get smeared in seconds before getting a chance to spread the curse.
But more than a few of these werebeasts have been "Representatives". So I've spun out a story for myself that the local werebeast community really wants to trade and become friends. But unfortunately for them, every time they send a diplomat for trade talks, they warp out as soon as they arrive, so we can only negotiate with violence.

A lot of the engravings and statues in my fortress are of a reptile man. He was in a pond when winter came, so got flash-frozen; every artwork about him puts its own spin on this death.
My story is that the dwarves loved him so much because early on in the fortress' life, we had a lot of undead invasions, and he fought quite a few of them. So the dwarves have ended up honouring him as a respected protector who died in a freak accident.

These connections don't really exist if you peer too closely, but the fun is in constructing a narrative around them.

While it would at first appear that games like Civ, Factorio and other base-builders seem to share a lot of their DNA with DF, quite often, those games have specific win conditions and end games.
DF doesn't, and that gives it a very different flavour to those games, being more along the lines of a creativity toy than a game.
I play guitar (badly), but I get a similar creative kick out of playing Dwarf Fortress. I don't get that same kick from Civ, Factorio or even Rimworld.

[aSpatula66]

I don't like contradicting the actual reasons things are happening when creating stories.
Werebeast representatives would be representatives of a criminal organization, merchant company, or guild that have be been cursed. Not sure how that would happen so often but it makes more sense than a community of werebeasts interested in diplomacy.
There are reasons why things happen, you don't need to make them up. It can be hard to find the reasons for things happening but that's what Legends mode is for (although Legends doesn't really tell you everything but generally its enough.) Toady has also said that partial Legends Mode integration into Fortress Mode and Adventure Mode is planned to be added soon.

[Spoogy]

Thank you for the stellar answers, especially Mungrul, this clears up my uncertainties.

To satisfy having a tactical and strategic challenge, a barren, harsh and hostile embark is required.
To experience the depth, complexity and charm many players share and cherish, one needs to understand the mechanisms that produced the various outcomes. Resulting in a scaffolding blueprint of a story unwritten, and is tasked unto the player to fill, colour and appreciate.

This represents an entirely different approach and experience to gaming for me personally, i'll give it an honest and fair attempt, and fingers crossed, it's my cup of tea.

Happy digging

[aradar]

LOL you may read that losing is fun here and there, but it's no secret winning is fun too, some times very fun. 

Though winning in dwarf fortress can be a little different sometimes.

Managing dwarven moods in vanilla can be a little difficult, few tips to help with moods, build fancy things like wood screw pumps, wind mills even if your not going to use them cause dwarfs love looking at them LOL, engrave everything, build water fall machines, dwarfs love waterfalls.  Save some precious metal to plate floors with plating a floor is I think the easiest way to jack room value way up...

[Salmeuk]

if you aren't telling a story to yourself in your head when you play this game, there isn't much of a game to play imo . its like you said, the gameplay mechanics, as approached by a modern competitive gamer, are outdated, and even considering their contemporaries of the time they were a bit iffy. things like the ease of turtling inside walls, or the fact that many of the mechanics simply result in more tedious upkeep for the player...

you have to see beyond these things and make the simulation work for your own personal goals.

[sodafoutain]

Engaging in a wonderful amount of true-scotsmanism is par for the course with DF, I think. The game is ideally meant to recreate the stories of dwarves delving far too greedily and far too deep, leading to their ruin. In order to have fun like a dwarf, you have to think like a dwarf. Once you get to a position you consider 'unlosable' (bar user error), you can try some of the megaprojects on DFWiki (here!), or engage with an aspect of the game you haven't yet. I personally love messing around with water, because it can cause infinite amounts of fun with very little actual destruction.

[Robsoie]

In term of difficulty curve, Dwarf Fortress became noticably easier when DF2014 came as several new features hugely toned down the opposition or ressources needs (especially the emotions system, passive bandits, etc.. and goblins invasions became less threatening, etc..., wood became a too easily renewable ressource, etc...).
Basically once you reach the point (and you reach it fast) in which your fortress is mostly self-sufficient, there's no challenge anymore and losing is not fun because the only way to lose would just be to abandon the fortress, so your only way is to create your own challenges (usually what's called megaproject) but if you wait for the game to challenge you it will not happen unfortunately.

If you can stomach the previous UI, you can go play the version just before ( DF 34.11 or earlier ) and you'll quickly notice that surviving will become harder , the opposition much more willing to end you, dwarves will riot again due to the good old "loyalty cascade" reintroducing the "losing is fun" that disappeared from the game. It's still a lot of fun a modded 34.11 is what i play nowadays when it comes to DF

The most famous Dwarf Fortress tale that was what contributed a lot to DF early popularity spreading was "Boatmurdered" and was played on an even older and more difficult version( between 0.22.110.22f and 0.23.130.23a ) in which elephants were "Powered by the Devil himself, these beasts take only eight seconds to devour an adult dwarf, spit out the teeth and make off with his car"

If you have trouble getting used to a pre-DF2014 version, fortunately there are still way to make the game harder by embarking on purpose on difficult locations (evil biomes, extreme cold biome, etc...
Or check some mods that may improve the survival and difficulty aspect.