Not about just the number of dwarves, the map you pick matters just as much. Pick a small map with nothing special (even running water) and you'll have a bit tougher time surviving and possibility for bigger population.

Stonesense
Finally something for those who can't live without a comically colourful GUI:

now I am truely interested.

Holy zomg
So wait i see it like this all the time?or it can just build a screenshot?

Interesting... might have to customize/improve the set.

gave it a try... haven't actually played around with it (my PC is acting as a media-server right now) but it looks exceedingly promising...

(duel monitors at 1280x1024)

Can you use same saves with both that tileset and the original? For clarity the original is better but I guess it could be nice to take a look around your fort with that sometime...

There is no control on the Stonesense beyond looking around, so you need to have both games open at the same-time for it to work.

Ah ok I thought you could actually play normally with that thing on...

Fail...why cant they allow you to play with those tiles...fail fail.

this is what they are trying to achieve. for now its just an alpha

you can't play with those tiles because they are isometric and "3D" (multiple simultaneous layers) while the normal game is fully 2D... at some point perhaps the "official" devs of the game will allow for this type of display but as of now it simply reads the memory space used by the game to read in the map.

If this thing is finished and youll be able to play the game with it FD will probably become very popular.

tbh id rather have a more intuitive interface and like being able to use a mouse to do everything rather than a graphical overhaul..

A mouse would be awesome...
This project needs more devs.
I understand from DF website that chances are u will not be able to play with this 3d tileset ever.

Mouse is not needed... Its like in rts, keyboard is faster once you know the keys. Problem is that in DF the layout of all the menus is totally fucked up.

Haha, like they're going to split the $2000 they get from donations per month.

Toady has discussed the problem multiple times, besides the money, he never wants to relinquish creative control.

what would be awesome would be if he made it so the brain of the thing was decoupled from the input and display interface... maybe a dll or some such... then a ui could be built by the community to replace the official one without interfering with the truly unique and creative programming that toady excels at.

Suggest it on df