What Dwarf Fortress Taught Me About Startups

I'm really surprised that the author didn't get into one of the main ways a fortress fails. It's humming along smoothly and then suddenly the population doubles in size when a group of settlers (VC cash) arrives and the whole place goes to hell from disorganization and growing pains.

Fun analogy. One of my favorite mechanics in Dwarf Fortress is stress. Dwarves have thoughts which are contingent upon outside influences (fatigue, other dwarves, etc.) [1]. Failure to keep your dwarves happy results in a loss of productivity. Left untreated, your dwarves can eventually go insane and destroy everything you&#x27;ve built [2].<p>Fortunately, I&#x27;ve never seen this manifest in a startup before my own eyes (at least in an extreme way), but I&#x27;m sure someone else has a story to share.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dwarffortresswiki.org&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;DF2014:Thought" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dwarffortresswiki.org&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;DF2014:Thought</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dwarffortresswiki.org&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;v0.34:Insanity" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dwarffortresswiki.org&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;v0.34:Insanity</a>

What&#x27;s great about this analogy is that Unicorns are officially Bad News for dwarfs, and will frequently gore and trample everyone in your fortress to death.

&gt; and the gameplay is brutally difficult.<p>Dwarf Fortress is not particularly difficult once you figure out the obtuse interface. It&#x27;s only a little bit more difficult than Minecraft without the boss fights. I got bored in a few months. Admittedly, much of this was the tendency of the game to slow my machine to a dead crawl. Once you&#x27;re proficient at avoiding the pitfalls, the only really interesting thing to do is to keep growing the fortress. Sadly, the performance cliff is steep.

Interesting analogy.<p>I&#x27;d guess that the average Dwarf Fortress erm, Fortress, and the average startup fail at about the same rate. For, basically, the same reasons: too many unknowns, random events and morale.

1) Name everything silly random things.<p>2) Have a super complex UI.<p>3) Cats will end the world.<p>4) Kill the rich nobles (management) asap.

OT, but for those of use who know kids into Minecraft, is DF a good thing for them to graduate to? KSP maybe better? Seems like there&#x27;s a family of games here that have a progression of sophistication.

There&#x27;s no Fun that good old fashioned Risk Management can&#x27;t ruin.