Rimworld is basically Dwarf Fortress (simplified).
Minecraft is similar in the way you get to build your world and are only limited by your imagination.
CK3 is similar in the way it tells a story that isn't predetermined but develops based on your choices, on chance, and the interactions between characters.
Setting up Arch Linux with a tiling window manager is similar in how you're completely lost in the beginning but if you read the documentation it's fun when it starts to behave the way you want to.

If you've played any Rimworld, you'd likely feel pretty comfortable with it, after the major UI update a year or two back.

I've played DF off and on for years. The UI overhaul it had recently makes the game much easier to play, and get into and really enjoy. The learning curve is way softer. Previously, I'd load the game up once or twice a year, build a fort, get to the point where I'd be wiped out and be like, okay, that was fun and then not play it again for months, or years. With the updated UI... I've put in 700 hours since it came out.

It's still a game where you basically have the wiki on alt-tab, and you still have to google some crap to learn how to do intricate stuff. That said, I also find youtube is much easier to follow along with the new graphics set, so that helps too. TwistedLogic gaming, Blind, and few others have great tutorials on youtube. If you want to watch some fun stories, Kruggsmash and Hoodie Hair put up some fantastic videos as well - and they've honestly kind of inspired how I approach playing DF sometimes.

It's kind of nice to play, and it scratches the same itch for me that Cities: Skylines used to, wherein I can go "one more thing, need to do one more thing, one more thing, ooh a forgotten beast gotta deal with that, then one more thing" BUT if I have to, I can just hit pause and walk away for a bit, or, if my fort is in a good state with no monsters or armies running around, I can walk away with it running while the dorfs just do their thing for a bit.

About 8 months ago I finally started using DFHack, which despite the name is really just a collection of really awesome tools, while it has the potential to make the game very easy (and that's fine too!) it does include many quality of life things if some process is just too tedious. I'd say it's upped my enjoyment another notch because it's just so well implemented. When I feel like easy mode, I turn on things like fastdwarf, and when I'm ready to just challenge myself I can turn it off.

DF is very much a game of play at your own pace. Even without DFHack, if you're getting overrun by werewolves and goblin armies, just turn the settings for that stuff down or off. But the main thing to remember with this game: Losing is FUN!

cdda is similar but wuite diffrent you can read up on it orr caves of qud

I just want them to fix the cavern dweller hidden spawn performance tanking. Killed a save of mine and I've barely tried it since.

No Dwarf Hack didn't fix it, or maybe I'm not sure how to.

I picked up DF to support the devs because as I mentioned in another post here, I played the free game off and on for years. Now it's practically the only game I play because the steam version just added so many quality of life things.

I'd love to spread some democracy as well, but I've gotta invest in some PC upgrades to make that game run. :(

The free version of the game still exists! The paid version literally only gets you the new tileset and music but is otherwise the exact same game and still updated! And if the ASCII tileset is a big turn off, people had made free tilesets years ago you could use instead (it was the only way I could play the game myself back in pre-steam days).

https://bay12games.com/dwarves/

The text based version is still free

Gotta save that money for Factorio Expansion

You can download the game for free in its original form here: https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

IIRC there used to be custom tilesets/graphics packs, not sure if they're still maintained after the game launched on Steam.