Dwarf Fortress has sold half a million copies
I love Dwarf Fortress and it's the inspiration for many modern simulators (and I put my $30 for Tarn with this release), but I do think that Oxygen Not Included, Rimworld, Factorio, et.al. have surpassed it.<p>My main issue with DF is that the main challenge of the game, combat, is pretty boring and rife with issues. For example, let's say I'm new to the game and want to put some XBow dwarfs behind a few fortifications in my base. Will the dwarfs intelligently do this when a siege happens? Is there a specific way to tell the AI that specific spots are where the Dwarfs should stand to defend? No and No.<p>Instead I will either have to painstakingly set up individual zones / burrows for each individual defender or the dwarfs will just ignore the fortifications, even if they are in a burrow! And they'll just sit there and ignore invaders breaking through your kill zone unless you specifically micromanage them into 1-wide spaces with fortifications facing the kill zone, and even then they might just run outside your fortress on the <i>other</i> side of the fortifications so they're close to where you ordered them to.<p>Rimworld on the other hand, (for all of its flaws around random and explosive damage), will at least let you draft a pawn, order it to stand behind a wall, and the pawn will get a significant cover bonus even without fortifications. They're smart enough to lean out and attack on their own too.<p>I say all this not to criticize DF but to say that the genre has come a long way, and I hope that with this success they're looking at weaknesses like this in the gameplay loop so that folks don't just take 20+ years of goodwill as a replacement for the possibilities ahead.<p>PS: Fuck cancer