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But I'd guess you'll probably like this one more, if you don't mind bugs, UI issues, and you're not looking for a hardcore challenge for survival, while instead being more worried about stories and personalities then DF should be the perfect game for you.
Of course, as someone graduated in game development as well I know you'll still face issues connecting with dwarves just like in RW, and the fact that the numerical values for mood, preferences, etc... Are hidden from you, as the player, won't stop you from understanding how it's probably working and seeing them all as a simple number's game anyway, but at least this game has more of it than RW on that department, and dwarves can keep remembering stuff, positive and negative, for many, many years after they have happened, giving them additional mood boosts or penalties, so there's more persistence in that regard.
The world is also actually alive, and even though it may be almost impossible to track down every character, where they came from, where they are going and their goals due to UI issues, you'll know that those factors exist, they don't just spawn to attack you then get deleted once they are no longer relevant.
The world has more interactions in some areas, less in others, but from what you have said, the areas in which the DF world is more interactive are the only areas you actually care about, so yes, you can send parties around to raid, steal animals, free captives, make tributaries and vassals, or hear rumors of ancient relics and then try to send people to steal them, or, perhaps, steal back a relic that was stolen from you.
I think my experience with Rimworld was similar to yours. The focus on gameplay over realism/simulation kept breaking immersion for me and it made it hard to care about the stories or events. I also found the gameplay itself fairly lacking.
DF has a lot of narratives that emerge from disperate systems interacting and there's more of an attempt to tie gameplay features to the wider world. For example, in RW raids and sieges spawn attackers on your map as needed, while in DF they are pulled from other sites and travel across the map to attack. Killing them reduces the population of the enemy civ, and potentially leaves their sites open to raids of your own.
In terms of characters, dwarven psychology is much more complex. They have long and short term memories, and their personalities can even be changed by their experiences. They have much more indendence and you can't control them directly. Some may even be turned against you by malicious actors...
You could always check out the free version of the game on the bay12 site, it's identical apart from the graphics. Maybe just generate a world and read up on its legends a bit to get a feel for what the game is putting out there
Analyzing people as "Explorers" / "Achievers" / etc will always sound a bit simplistic to me but I do certainly have that Explorer trait and also needs some realism/depth in my fiction.
You have convinced me DF will be something that will keep making my imagination "drool over", keeping me always wondering what I will discover next. So for now it's a big +3 in favor.
if you want unique "colonists" with their psyche, behavior, and personality, then try DF
if you want some story generated ingame by combination of world, specific dwarf personality and things what happen... try DF
RW is fun, but lack of depth.
then if you are looking for something more complex, you can find it in DF.
there is lot of stories what brings this game...
like when someone by accident locked dwarf in cavern and after year find it... that dwarf was alive.. whole year surviving, fighting with enemies there, eating vermins, drinking water what was there... change his personality, get new skills and changed his psyche. he evolve on his own, without player.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/107drog/one_year_ago_i_accidentally_locked_this_dwarf_in/
it is something what is not possible in RW.
it feels "living". and whole world is living too.. not only your small fortress. you can have impact on world, world can have impact on you.
on other hand, in DF you will have hundreds of dwarfs and not only 10-15 colonists like in RW... then maybe you will not connect with each of them, but there will be some worthy to remember....
and DF have bugs here and there, is not user friendly sometime,.
if this is what you are looking for and why you didnt like RW, i guess this game can bring you what you want.
In regards to Rimworld I have 2 comments on that. I did not like vanilla Rimworld, it was meh. But i did love modded Rimworld (4K hrs modded) but then Tynan started releasing overpriced meh "DLC" that I found to be nothing more than meh unfinished mods loaded with bugs that I did not like and did not want to use in my modded games.
What makes it stand out from Rimworld ... thats easy ... 100+ Z levels and world depth that drowns Rimworld.
Welp, on that note I'll leave you with my DF review.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198007178612/recommended/975370?snr=1_5_9__402
Good luck making up your mind. Have fun.
Keep in mind the videogame is not magic. Some things are clearly exaggerations by community and media. It's still a videogame so it has to obey it's own rules and can only pick from a list of possible interactions, but it does try to be very fluid and grounded with that system. Until adventure mode drops, what you are buying is a colony builder that encourages grand scale, extravagance and over-engineering. Which is to say... The main survival loop is actually very simple.
At the end of the day I just like building a cool city for my little beardy friends to run around and do things in.
It ain't perfect. But I like it. I hope you like it too. But if you don't, that is fine too.
https://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=7622
Dwarves have a lot more time to "live their life" doing things like relaxing in a tavern, socializing and making friends/family, praying at their temple, etc. Rimworld pawns simply do things like "going for a walk" just to fill up the bar, it's nothing interesting.
You can see their thoughts and feelings about the world around them in their description, which helps you take actions to improve their quality of life. They're also fine surviving on necessities instead of having mental breaks because their bedroom isn't the size of a house, or because they had to eat a meal without a table. But you do get benefits for providing awesome things to your dwarves like big fancy bedrooms, high quality meals, decorations around the fort, etc
DF is also highly moddable, like Rimworld. I have a collection of simpler mods I've made on my Steam page but there are larger ones that let you do things like play as an entirely different race (human and kobold mods are popular).
I'd say the one problem with DF, especially the new Steam release, is the fact that it's way less polished than Rimworld. People regularly make posts in the discussion board asking for help with an annoying bug like crossbow dwarves refusing to equip ammo, and you'll find little in-game help to guide you with a certain feature if you don't understand it. There is tons of out-of-game help available though, I particularly enjoy the DF Wiki's guides.
Kenshi's world isn't very well simulated but it's a big sandbox, and a rather unique experience, worth checking out, but you command everyone in that game.
Amazing Cultivation Simulator has way more content than every other colony builder ever made, combined, and just understanding the mechanics of every feature in that game would require reading thousands of pages from actual game guides, it's worth checking out sometime, but it's also not about stories or having a strong simulation.
Plus, OP said he doesn't like Rimworld, and ACS is as Rimlike as it gets, until they start flying around on swords and the snake starts thinking about ginkgo trees lol.
Nearly every named character is born, lives in, and dies in the world (except in very rare edge cases). Their history isn't random; it's what actually happened to them.
You could embark onto some serene plains by a river to start your civs newest settlement, and discover an artifact mace laying amongst the weeds. You check the history of the mace (through legends mode) and can trace who made it, what their history was, and the history of the mace itself and how it ended up in that battlefield.
The caveat?
A lot of reading, a lot of (metaphorical) digging, and a lot of creativity needs to go into the connections the game gives you to truly create and connect with the story being told.
I'd strongly recommend watching any of the series by Kruggsmash to get an idea of how DF's "stories" play out.