40d:Stupid dwarf trick

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A stupid dwarf trick is any project that that requires a large amount time and effort, for little or no practical benefit. They exist only as a challenge for experienced players.

Monumental Statue

Difficulty: Depends on how big you want the statue to be.

Usefulness: None.

Artificial Waterfall

To keep the waterfall going, you need a pump stack, preferably powered by a windmill or water wheel.

Difficulty: Moderate.

Usefulness: Dwarves love waterfalls. Putting a waterfall in your meeting hall will give your dwarves good thoughts, although it can significantly lower framerate.

Execution Tower

Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

Difficulty: Easy.

Usefulness: Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones.

Bridge-a-pult

A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

Difficulty: The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

Usefulness: There are a lot more effective ways to defend a fortress, but not as entertaining.

Dam

Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

Difficulty: On a map that freezes in the winter, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult.

Usefulness: Dubious.

Tower-cap Farm

You absolutely need to break into an underground river or lake. Make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

Difficulty: Moderate.

Usefulness: Yes, if it's big enough.

Magma Pumping

It's a lot like pumping water, only more dangerous, and requires the pumps to use magma-proof pipes and screws in their construction.

Difficulty: The difficult part is making all those iron or steel pumps and bauxite floodgates. Very high risk.

Usefulness: Magma is fun, but impractical.

Booze Bomb

If you set barrels of booze on fire they explode. Can possibly be used as a complex trap. About the only way to start a fire on demand is magma. Possibly caged fire imps or magma men.

Difficulty: High.

Usefulness: There many easier ways to kill goblins, but few that set them on fire.

Greenhouse

A greenhouse is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For the maximum style, build a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

Difficulty: Low.

Usefulness: Surface plants are not so much more useful than underground crops. Rope reed can be grown year round.

Gladiator Arena

Difficulty: Moderate, but time consuming.

Usefulness: The most difficult way to dispose of prisoners. It does give your soldiers a little bit of experience.

Self Destruct Lever

Difficulty: Very high. Extremely dangerous.

Usefulness: None. By definition.

Flood the World

Difficulty: High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

Usefulness: Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else.

Ballista Battery

Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

Difficulty: Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

Usefulness: A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor.

Swimming pool

It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain swimming skill.

Difficulty: Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

Usefulness: The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there.

Ice tower

Difficulty: Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull it off.

Usefulness: None.

Obsidian factory

You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool and mine.

Difficulty: Medium.

Usefulness: High.

Drowning Chamber

Difficulty: Moderate.

Usefulness: You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untrainable animals, or anything else.

Magma Chamber

Difficulty: Dangerous as any magma project.

Usefulness: It's like a drowning chamber, but you can't recover most of the victim's stuff.

Labyrinth

Difficulty: It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful.

Usefulness: It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it.

Adventure Mode Fortress

Difficulty: The sky's the limit.

Usefulness: Not applicable.

Vomitorium

It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's meeting hall. Prevents cave adaption.

Difficulty: Low.

Usefulness: Low.

Pit o' Doom

Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Spike traps are a must.

Difficulty: Low. You want it nice and deep though.

Usefulness: Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally.

Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant

Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

Difficulty: High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times.

Usefulness: Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.