[throw_me_5555]

Well this is the one I point to when someone claims that Dwarf Fortress is hard - that is simply not true - ONI is actually hard.

DF has many systems that generate cool history and artifact/art descriptions but have tiny impact on actual game. As long as you place few farm plots, you can produce enough food to buy out whole caravans. The game balance simply was never the focus. Same for performance of large forts.

[Fradow]

I'm going to respectfully disagree. ONI is not hard. At least the first asteroid with normal settings (called "Survival") is not hard.

What's hard is the steep difficulty curve when you are first picking up the game, especially if you play without outside resources. The game itself does a poor job at explaining what you are supposed to do and in which order, which means frequent restarts because you didn't anticipate something you didn't know about yet.

When you overcome that initial curve, the game is actually quite easy, though it can become a bit boring after a while because there is no random event to spice things up.

[randomcarbloke]

DF now may not be hard but five/ten years ago it was very hard to prevent or stop tantrum sprials, your first twenty or so fortresses had a very short shelf-life.