Out of Pod Experience

So, the last topic about Dwarf Fortress is locked for being too old. Given that the late 2014 version is out and has had some time to have the utilities updated and some of the major bugs worked out, what say you all?

My current fortress, Spearportal, is a jolly place where its leader sits atop a huge pile of electrum coins while peasants are chased down and impaled by enraged unicorns and children get carried off by giant crows. And everything is a lovely shade of green, because olivine is fun and I like bright colors.

Tell me of the waters dwarflore of your homeworld, Usul OOPE.

Tried playing dwarf fortress a long time ago. I really hated the visual style for some reason and stopped.

Nope. Which ones do you recommend?

Its deep simulation with a lot of crazy quirks and procedurally generated content, but it is tragically composed graphically and in the means of UI. You can learn how to use UI, but even after the graphic mods its still graphically like a game from 80's, and more fun you can have just imagining what your dorfs are doing, than actually watching them doing it. A lot of reading makes this game more like a book writing itself before your eyes.

Behold, the fortress of Ke$hanerith, "Flamelabored!"

I was just going to post some screenshots with puush, but I decided to make local copies and annotate them instead. You're welcome!

Surface Level:

My corpse and refuse stockpiles are clean because that level links to a garbage crusher, also known as a Dwarven Atom Smasher. Atom Smashers can be a liiiiittle exploit-y but I am a tidy person and I don't like garbage everywhere. I don't use them for defense, just smashing useless body parts and vermin corpses and whatnot.

Second Level:

Not much to say about this one. Clay, sand, or soil layers are quick to dig out for your miners and don't require irrigation to grow crops, so I usually have the huge stockpile room and farms situated in them. The Xs are wooden bins; they hold trade goods and bars/blocks of materials. At the top are a bunch of barrels and pots containing food and drink. You can see some doors, bags, boulders, and a couple of other random items scattered about as well.

Third Level:

Bedrooms! I didn't annotate this because it's pretty self-explanatory. Pretty easy to see the beds, cabinets, and chests for dwarves to store their belongings in. All of the bedrooms are engraved and almost all of the walls have exceptional or masterwork engravings - it makes dwarves very happy to have nice bedrooms.

Fourth Level:

Ah, the smell of commerce. This is the main workshop level, with almost every workshop imaginable, and the dining room and offices for my manager. The workshop rooms are where my engravers got the practice necessary to engrave exceptional/masterwork engravings in the bedroom level and in the office/dining rooms. It takes a VERY long time, but it's worth it for the happiness. Good food, good drink, and good accommodations will make your population very resistant to tantrum spirals.

For anyone wondering, the graphics pack is Phoebus, and I can provide a link to the custom color scheme as well. The only utility program I use is Dwarf Therapist, included in the Starter Pack. It makes designating labors take a lot less time.