Stupid dwarf trick

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A stupid dwarf trick is any project that requires a large amount of time and/or effort. They may provide a practical benefit, but are frequently done for the sake of doing them; they exist primarily as a challenge for experienced players.

Adventure mode fortress

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in adventure mode. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a smörgåsbord of masterpiece adamantine weapons and armor. Possibly both. Breaching the caverns or hidden fun stuff should ensure the fortress is occupied. Building a fortress is now possible inside of adventure mode as of DF v0.43.

Difficulty: The sky's the limit.

Usefulness: None for fortress mode, but filling it with high-quality equipment can certainly be useful for adventure mode.

Alarm clock

Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, if you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

Difficulty: Low.

Usefulness: Limited. They'll sleep through anything the noise. Although they have been known to awaken when drenched in water, possibly due to thinking it's alcohol. This means an alarm clock is not impossible if carefully prepared.

Alphabet cages

Use captured monsters in cages to spell messages.

Difficulty: Medium. Vowels are hard to come by.

Usefulness: Absolutely none whatsoever. Even less if using sprites. (Easy reminders in case you're too lazy to use notes?)

Altar of Armok

Build a large altar made out of adamantine, clear glass, magma, and obsidian. The main altar should be hollow adamantine with clear glass "windows." It should have magma inside. The altar should be adorned with large obsidian spikes, as it pleases Armok.

Difficulty: Medium, raising with the amount (and respective difficulty) of bonuses you add.

Usefulness: Low to medium. If the chamber containing the altar is consecrated as a temple, dwarves will go there to pray, and may gain additional happy thoughts for admiring the altar's materials and craftsdwarfship.

• Bonus: Guard the altar with a megabeast.
• Bonus: Cover the altar with blood of a Titan.
  • MegaBonus: Cover the altar with blood of a denizen of the HFS.
    • ArmokBonus: Build the altar in the HFS.
• MegaBonus: Cover the altar in a temporarily lasting strength inducing extract.
• BerserkBonus: Cover the altar in a nausea-inducing extract.
• BloodBonus: Also cover the altar in an extract inducing slow death.
  • SychronizationBonus: Make it so that a dwarf that goes into contact with the altar dies the moment the strength runs out.
• SacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a dwarf to the altar every day.
  • MegaSacrificialBonus: Sacrifice an elf to the altar every day.
  • HistorySacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a human to the altar every day
    • MegaArmokBonus: Sacrifice all three species to the altar every day!
• MonarchBonus: Build the altar in the monarch's throne room! Yes, this stacks with the ArmokBonus up above.

Aqueduct power

If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be Fun. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

Difficulty: High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels.
Aquifers will absorb any amount of water at any rate. Using an aquifer as drain for the reservoir will nullify the risk of flooding the fortress due to the drain not keeping up with the supply.

Usefulness: High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

Aquifer power

Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheels.

Difficulty: High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very Fun. It is now very rare to find a powerful enough aquifer.

Usefulness: High.

Archaeological excavation

A Fortress in the Caverns, built by the first dwarf tribes. Build the Fortress however you see fit for those prehistoric Dwarves (e.g. only primitive metals, elaborate tombs for the chieftains with burial objects, cave art, etc.) and abandon it. Then, embark with modern Dwarves, and excavate the ancient Fortress. Sort of like the Adventure Fortress above, only for Reclaim Mode

Difficulty: As High as you want.

Usefulness: Variable. Carving a premade fort or building controlled access to caverns can potentially be useful for a Reclaim effort, effectively making the first wave dispoable setup so your would-be archologists to dig up and exploit their new home. The more Fun you leave behind, the harder it will be for your second wave to repurpose the place.

• Bonus: A museum detailing the lives of those early dwarves.
• Bonus: Create a save with your First Tribe fort collapsed/flooded/etc, for other users to explore. Leave them some Fun what-does-this-lever-do problems to solve.
• EncinoDwarfBonus: Some of those early dwarves frozen in a block of ice.
• FunBonus: Breach the HFS.
  • MegaBonus: Do a cave in to the HFS after fighting it leaving multiple signs of battle in the fortress, to be dug by your modern dwarves.

Artificial waterfall

To keep the waterfall going, you need a pump stack, preferably powered by a windmill or water wheel. Alternatively, an aquifer, or other limitless water source, makes for a waterfall entirely underground.

Difficulty: Moderate (Low if there is an aquifer above pouring down).

Usefulness: Dwarves love waterfalls. Putting a waterfall in your meeting hall will give your dwarves good thoughts, although it can significantly lower frame rate.

• Bonus: Build it in a "Warm" or hotter climate so it does not freeze.
• DwarfBonus: Build it in a freezing/cold/temperate climate and keep it going entire year!
• MegaDwarfBonus: Use magma. It does not freeze, even in a freezing climate!
• MegaDwarfBonusEXTREME+: Use magma and water in the same waterfall. The results will enshrine you in dwarf history! Possibly permanently.

Ballista battery

Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

Difficulty: Low. If you insist on highly trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

Usefulness: A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

Bastion

Construct an isolated burrow containing a farmer and some labourers, containing at least an uncontaminated well (an aquifer is great for this) and some farms. Use whatever elaborate mechanism you wish to seal it off from the rest of the fortress. Congratulations; your bastioned dwarves and their descendants will keep your fortress alive forever until one of them goes nuts.

• Bonus: Build your bastion at least in part in a clay or sand layer, add a little magma, and continue manufacturing useless crap even as the world crumbles around you!
  • StonksBonus: Rig a way for your bastion to transfer supplies to the outside world without exposing themselves to danger, so they can be somewhat useful to the rest of your fort before their inevitable downfall. Doubles as a way to restock the bastion with fresh supplies and/or bodies, or a way to let the apocalypse in a little at a time if your survivors get too comfortable.
• Bonus: Build it on top of a tower outside, and then deconstruct the stairs up.
• Bonus: Fill it exclusively with vampires, to avoid having to worry about food, children, and aging.
• MegaDwarfBonus