I've never seen other games where people use that as a reason to study geology, farming, beekeeping or whatnot. One person, not satisfied with the material properties of Saguaro wood and unable to find good data online went so far as to track down a sample and measure them.
One person even mentioned that they neglected to study for their geology test and played Dwarf Fortress instead. They got an extremely high score because so many of the questions were relevant to DF, such as asking for the names of common iron ores. Any good DF player can list at least magnetite, limonite and hematite without any trouble.
I know of several people who have gotten history degrees because of an interest sparked by the Europa Universalis series (usually either EU2 or EU3), and of course some people have become fighter pilots after playing flight sims. But the sheer breadth of DF is different from anything I've seen.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=77736.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=82309.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=76007.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=80022.0
I've never seen other games where people use that as a reason to study geology, farming, beekeeping or whatnot. One person, not satisfied with the material properties of Saguaro wood and unable to find good data online went so far as to track down a sample and measure them.
One person even mentioned that they neglected to study for their geology test and played Dwarf Fortress instead. They got an extremely high score because so many of the questions were relevant to DF, such as asking for the names of common iron ores. Any good DF player can list at least magnetite, limonite and hematite without any trouble.