Higher resolutions do make a significant difference, I too lack pictures, however am surrounded by several monitors. My laptop has a 17" screen at 1920*1200, and compared to my G4 the picture is significantly better, and then when we compare to a JAI crt monitor I have at 1600*1200 the picture is much crisper, but the colour are worse (imho it's very difficult to beat a good CRT monitor for colours, downside is the monitors decay over time).

[QUOTE="Grodus5"]

Its sad, if Dwarf Fortress had a non clunky interface it would be such an amazing game. It still is an amazing game, but its just too clunky for me to get into.

Arcain48

I've spent a considerable amount of time trying to find what you're looking for, Dawn of Discovery isn't bad but it doesn't have it all. Sim City 2000 was always quite a lot of fun, but god games are part of a seriously underdeveloped genre. If you want the best get a clean nonclunky tileset for Dwarf fortress, that does away with most of the ascii. That way the game make clear sense and you don't loose the awesome capabilities. Furthermore if you tend to roleplay in a managerial manner nothing surpasses dwarf fortress due to its open ended gameplay, leaving much up to the player compared to limiting possibilities.

If you do like the atmosphere of Dwarf fortress I would recommend you look at minecraft - it is not a strategy game, however it has much the same feeling of exploration and open ended creation.