It is actually really a blast, enough so to cause these sort of really frustrated "it's awesome but it's awful" threads. It is a weird combination of open world architecture combined with really stupid minions. What is in reality probably an AI mistake really feels like massive stupidity the twentieth time your mason seals himself on the wrong side of a floodgate. You spend hours getting things set up just so and then a megabeast comes and seals you in your fortress and your dwarves go mad and start murdering each other for lack of a sock. Or you decide what the world really needs is pressurized magma cannon and spend a couple of real life weeks and countless in-game years and dwarf lives getting the pump stack to work, only to find out the first time you try and use it that the pressure system doesn't work and what is supposed to be a raging torrent of molten rock is actually sort of a sprinkler system. Of molten rock. And you haven't devised a purge system yet, so your half working masterpiece is going to have to be taken apart very, very carefully by a bunch of idiots. (This is not hypothetical; it happened to a succession fort that went by "FailCannon")

Not for nothing is the community devoted to megaprojects. Not only are they cool they offer countless ways to introduce Fun into your boring, dreary existence. And sometimes they even work; the "minecart shotgun loaded with gold bars (because, why not?) complete with optional F.R.O.G.G.E.R. system is just a gorgeous thing to watch happen, and it's viscerally satisfying to watch some goblin take a gold bar going a good 30, 40 mph to the face.