I spent significant time in DF in the early part of 2010s, but in the end found that it's just too much to micromanage - the game (at the time, at least) didn't offer much help with it, and after awhile, all the clutter really got in the way.

If you like this kind of game, but would want something not as demanding, try Rimworld. Out of all dwarffortresslikes (I don't think that calling them Dward Fortress clones is fair), it's got a good amount of polish, reasonable 2d graphics (nothing too fancy, but looks nice) and most importantly, you don't feel as if you have to manually tweak every little thing. You still can, you just don't have to.