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[RedWick]

This is how my forts tend to turn out:  Coalcircle

That is to say, I let my forts grow organically and based on current needs, with an additional focus on developing a thematic feel for the whole map.  I'd rather build a fortress I'd have fun exploring later as an adventurer, than on building something that would be super efficient.  I also tend to build around interesting natural landscape features.

[Henrik Undrgrim]

I started by building a series of pillars in a 9x9 area near a river. Once finished I channeled around the pillars leaving a 3x3 in the middle surounded by water where I dug down two z levels. Keeping some pillars beside the 3x3 square I put a ramp up and built a floor on top which acted as the entrance to the fortress after I built a bridge out and connected it to a ramp outside. The extra pillars allowed me to build out over the 3x3 ground area.

To enter the fortress you had to climb the ramp onto the bridge, cross into the first floor of what was a tower when I added two more levels up, decend back to ground level and then enter through a hatch. As an added feature the first floor was also the training area for soldiers so off duty soldiers guarded the entrance. Marksdwarves covered the bridge from the third floor giving them an unobstructed view around the fortress and it seems increacing their range.

Survived six sieges so far without needing to retract the bridge. Having soldiers guarding the entrance while off duty means they become champions really quickly.

[Polar_Atom]

I find it a good idea to plan out my Fortress before I start digging, but not connect the different pieces so I can mine them out as needed, but so they are still according to some kind of grand plan.

PS: Soz for the sliiight necro.

[AWellTrainedFerret]

For me, I'm surgically anal about maximum efficiency.
I use a compact vertical design, with input stockpiles>workshops>output stockpiles in a fractal design; connecting input and output stockpiles to workshop chains.
This is spread over 3 levels with a z-level layout of -1 (0 being water source) Farm/Food -2 Stone/Wood Crafting -3 Magma Forge/Glass-works.
There is a central 5x5 up ramp/down ramp staircase and on the peripheral is four 2x2 staircases and booze stockpiles.
The rest of the fort is terrain specific; but I use 4z-levels of fractal individual bedrooms and a standard 3z-level dinning room with integrated waterfalls. Connecting in the 4 cardinal directions from the dinning room is a Throne Room / individually flood-able noble housing, Burial Catacombs, the "A.I. Dwarf" in his sealed-off control room, and the last path leads to a always flowing washroom that separates the fort from the nasty barracks/hospital/entrance. Of coarse the barracks/hospital/entry hall are also all flood-able.

[Uristocrat]

I have a trade depot, and the roof to it is a retracting bridge.  I have that bridge area as my stockpile for finished crafts.  When traders come, I rain my crafts from the heavens unto them, making for fast trading.

You can put stockpile on bridge? Thought they are both considered buildings O.o

I tried it.  It doesn't work.  I do, however, use an extra bridge in my atom smasher.  Dwarves dump things onto a retracting bridge that sits above the atom smasher.  That way, I can reclaim any items that got dumped by mistake, then use the retracting bridge to dump everything onto the atom smasher.

[Shogger]

I always start off with a winding 3-wide hallway into the fortress, covered with cage traps in case of early attack.

Later on though, it becomes obsolete, since I like to make a fairly large above-ground keep in order to protect dwarves on the surfaces and have a battlements for my marksdwarves to shoot from. It's also a great way of getting rid of excess stone.

I never really bother with pump stacks, instead I like to dig out living quarters for my forge workers deep down near the magma. It just seems more dwarfy to me as well, having the blacksmiths live so deep in the earth and dedicated to their jobs.

I used to build one large room to house most of my workshops, but now I've taken to building individual compartments for each of them with related stockpiles directly beneath them, it seems much more organized and cuts down on travel time significantly.

I'm not very disciplined when it comes to building bedrooms. I usually rely on scattered dormitories at first, and later on I squeeze bedrooms into any unmined layers
I might have after the fortress has matured somewhat. I don't bother planning out the exact dimensions of housing complexes.

[Buttery_Mess]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I explained earlier in my thread my basic 11x11 layout and how I can deviate from it. Brown is door, grey is staircase, red is open space/channel over a magma pool (which is where I'd set up my magma forges.) I wouldn't actually lay out a fort like this, it's just to show you how I can deviate from the basic plan.

There are *lots* of advantages to this layout. It's easy to use and quick to designate, much harder to screw up when designating, keeps workshops close together, doesn't require corridors but doesn't make it difficult to use them if you want, allows you to forgo rooms or use them as you please, with a wide range of room widths and sizes (3x1, 3x3, 3x5, 3x7 and 3x11 all especially easy). Workshops need never block off access, it's very easy to stack stockpiles above and below a fort, it never causes traffic bottlenecks whilst not providing sufficient freedom to confuse the pathfinding algorithm. This layout makes it very easy to identify the function of a particular room, seperate rooms of different functions, is visually pleasing, symmetrical, and keeps the functioning parts of a fortress close together whilst also efficiently remove a great deal of stone. Exploratory corridors can easily be expanded into without impeding the overall design of the fortress. It's also easy to make wagon friendly.

Designing such a room is easy. For example, I can designate a room according to this plan like this;

Code: [Select]

[Enter][Shift + Right][Shift + Up][Enter][Left][Left][Left][Down][Down][Down][i][Enter][Enter][Down][Down][Down][Down][Enter][Enter][Left][Left][Left][Left][Enter][Enter][Up][Up][Up][Up][Enter][Enter]. I can replicate this room easily across a z-level by picking the bottom left corner and

Code: [Select]

[Shift + Direction][Direction][Direction] and repeating the whole process.

I can't not design forts according to this plan now. I really recommend this to everyone, I'm so stoked about this.

[ral]

I'm relatively new to this but I've been doing something like:

Large mined out overflow storage in a practice dirt layer, if any
Military level with main outside entrance and depot
stockpiles
workshops + stockpiles
stockpiles
agriculture and dining area
apartment complex of 1x4 rooms in blocks of 20 (10 on each side of a hallway, easy to make with shift)
mined-out level with coffins/tombs in random places
lower gatehouse with 10-20 tile hallway outside leading into a main mineshaft
tunnels for mining which enter caverns through a main mineshaft separated from the main stairwell by the gatehouse

all with a big stairwell in the center running up from the lower gatehouse. Somewhere in there I try to dedicate a level to plumbing depending on where the water is. I usually divide production into metal, wood, textile, and stone and put those on four corners of the main stairwell on the workshop level. if magma near the surface have a magma plumbing level under the workshops

I also typically build an archery tower, a walled outside garden/greenhouse with berries and statues, and a 20+ tile disconnected trap-lined dead-end hallway tunneled into a hill that ends where a kitten is chained up. Lots of cage traps and an arena/live-creature-experimentation chamber.

I'm more organic than efficient....

[Nekudotayim]

As I am planning to build a giant tower, I need a level design for giong upstairs.

So far I made this one:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...
 20   Kings Burial Chambers
 19   Nobel Burial Chambers
 18   Mayor Burial Chambers
 17   Memorial Halls
 16   Burial Chambers
 15   Kings Hall
 14   Fractal Nobel Rooms   / Central Dining Room / 1 Drink & 1 Food Stockpile
 13   Fractal Bedrooms [72]   / Central Dining Room / 2 Drink & 2 Food Stockpiles
 12   Fractal Bedrooms [72]   / Central Dining Room / 2 Drink & 2 Food Stockpiles
 11   Fractal Bedrooms [72]   / Central Dining Room / 2 Drink & 2 Food Stockpiles
 10   Fractal Bedrooms [72]   / Central Dining Room / 2 Drink & 2 Food Stockpiles
  9   Fractal Bedrooms [72]   / Central Dining Room / 2 Drink & 2 Food Stockpiles / Archers Def. Platform / Siege Def. Platform
  8   Entrance Hall / Gate / Statues / Wells / Trading Depot / Extra Dining Room / Long Drawbridge Road
  7   Barracks / Training Rooms / Ammunition Stockpile / Lever Room / Hospital / Dormitory
  6   Arena (Audience Level)
  5   Arena (Battlefield)
  4   Stockpiles / Atom Smasher / Self cleaning magma refuse stockpile
  3   Workshops
  2   Death Pit / Magma Sea below Drawbridge Road
  1   Death Pit End (Magma Room)
  0   River / Trees / Outside Farms
 -1   Inside Farms / Reactors (<- River)
 -2   Prison
 -3   Dungeon / Labyrinth (for Dungeon Master)
 -4   Hell Defense System
...   Digging Sites

Not yet sure, if I am missing something.

Edit: I really forgot the hospital and the lever room...