I really wanted to love banished, and I did love it for a while, but I found that once you learn how to create a stable town, you can apply almost the exact same strategies in every single game played no matter what the land looks like, as well as every time you branch off to expand an existing town into a new piece of land.

The mods didn't really do anything for me either, I felt like they just increased complexity and unbalance without really adding challenge or fun.

I haven't ever actually played dwarf fortress, but from what I've read, the inherent unpredictability of the world, your dwarves, and other creatures seems like nothing that any other game can even dream of.