Ah I see Dwarf Fortress is not a type of issue but a specific package. I have been looking at it and indeed it is somewhat along the same lines. I think where they want it to be *is* the same thing except that they haven't got there. Here is a link to their dev list:

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html

Now unless I am mistaken almost all of that is not complete. Am I reading that right ? So if that is the case then they have not got it such that people will plant crops, harvest them, possibly eat them or mill them and cook into bread. So these are the things that I would like to tackle first. I'm not getting the idea from their write up that they are using economics as well. For instance does the price of crops or bread drop when there is a surplus of them ? Also I can see more similarities where you get henchmen. This I would like to model but not in the same way. It looks like you get them somehow in their game whereas I would like for people to hire henchmen because they are cheap and offer services in the same way that people will trade for goods and they will use a paranoia or neurotics desire factor and they wealth sum to drive their need for more protection. So yeah, certainly parallels but I don't know enough about what they are doing to see whether its the same thing. It seems subtly different to me based on the things they are concentrating on. It seems like they are going at it from the point of view of a game whereas I am looking to make the map and list of people in it. I don't want it to be like a game. I would like it so that you enter the base map in and then let it rip for a few hours and come back to see a fully populated built up city with all the professions and people listed for it. Practically no user input at all. Then you can RPG in it to your hearts content afterward.

Anyone played it a lot ? Can anyone summarize if it does indeed have people planting, growing, farming, building etc ?