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Dirt fort - Everything in the soil layers

11 (10.9%)

Above-ground structure - Megaprojects that dorfs live in, etc

20 (19.8%)

Mechanical hell - Shitloads of levers and pressure plates to the point where you don't know what each does

14 (13.9%)

Militant - Made for the sole purpose of death and destruction

16 (15.8%)

Other

40 (39.6%)

Total Members Voted: 101

[Tevish Szat]

My forts tend to be strongly layered, going double on flatter embarks.  The surface level consists of multiple rings of walls, with moated drawbridges and a metric ton of (cage) traps if possible  The butcher's shop, tannery, and refuse stockpile are also out here, safely walled in.  Below it comes an entrance layer with a long hall and the trade depot.  Soil layer(s) are dedicated to farming, sand collection, and related tasks.  The first stone layer is the "war" layer with barracks, archery ranges, kennels, and when I reach that point my mass pitting top room, hospital, and jail.  The next layer down is the hoard, consisting of all non-food stockpiles, usually with a handy little bolt-recovery room.  the following layers come in a sort of random order...
> Workshops, with quantum stone-and-goblinite stockpile
> Living quarters, either just masses of 1x3 bedrooms or combined with...
> Food processing: dining rooms, food/booze stockpiles, kitchen, stills.
> Noble's quarters: Slightly larger bedrooms, all mission-critical levers (near the stairs), offices, and a drawbridge death-chamber that I always build but never use.

Crypts are at the bottom of my "active" fortress.  As soon as accommodations for the living are online, my masons ensure every dwarf's hereafter is prepared for with a sarcophagus and door to put it behind.  Tombs for dwarves that achieve something special, and noble tombs may also be carved out on this floor.

Below the crypts, things vary wildly, and embarks can change the whole plan: a recent steep volcano embark featured a dedicated furnace layer with ONLY smelters, forges, glass furnaces, kilns, and their related stockpiles, with a dedicated magma layer beneath to power them

It's been a brief learning process so far, but one with much fun already: the crypt layer, for instance, only appeared after an "Endured the rotting of a friend/loved one" based tantrum spiral.

My current best fortress (Ironbear, for which I think there's a story, save that the end remains unwritten) I've got the war leader of the local goblin civ in a platinum cage, and it's over 200 dwarves and, unfortunately for them, boringly well-managed.  They might be in for a semi-megaproject soon.  Ziggurat over the entrance?  Magma mine so I can stop clear-cutting the formerly "heavily forested" overworld?

Or perhaps I could widen the main roads so I stop having dwarf traffic jams in the long, twisty 1-tile-wide passages... nah.

[Lortath]

Would you mind if I adapted this into a combination housing/workshop area? I've been looking for ways to cut down on movement between workshops and houses, and this appears to be a very good way to do so.

Do what you want with it 

[Patchy]

Other - Deep Forts

My forts are usually just above the magma sea. The entrance is a small keep on the surface built over a shaft that leads straight down to my main level. I build as little as possible on the surface and soil layers, as once I've moved down there, I don't want any reason whatsoever to send dwarves back topside.

[Saint]

I usualy build a castle or villa that has its own set of royal guards on the surface and anything else is fair game for the dwarven slums where the masons and useless fortress keepers are. Generaly they all have an issued bed 1x1 in a large community barracks or small ramshackle huts on the surface.

[lanceleoghauni]

My forts tend to specialize in one thing: Subsisting at a decent comfort level until I build the REAL fortress: A monstrosity of clockwork and magma that strikes fear in the heart of bronze collosi.

Which reminds me, I need to build a fort that's built, LITERALLY, over the magma sea with exposed catwalks so the dwarves can bask in it's radiance and I can at the pull of a lever drop entire districts if quarantine requires it.

[Saint]

My forts tend to specialize in one thing: Subsisting at a decent comfort level until I build the REAL fortress: A monstrosity of clockwork and magma that strikes fear in the heart of bronze collosi.

Which reminds me, I need to build a fort that's built, LITERALLY, over the magma sea with exposed catwalks so the dwarves can bask in it's radiance and I can at the pull of a lever drop entire districts if quarantine requires it.

Don't forget the drop entire fortress option.

[Broseph Stalin]

I love above ground forts but my warehouses and apartments usually extend into the first few layers.

[lanceleoghauni]

My forts tend to specialize in one thing: Subsisting at a decent comfort level until I build the REAL fortress: A monstrosity of clockwork and magma that strikes fear in the heart of bronze collosi.

Which reminds me, I need to build a fort that's built, LITERALLY, over the magma sea with exposed catwalks so the dwarves can bask in it's radiance and I can at the pull of a lever drop entire districts if quarantine requires it.

Don't forget the drop entire fortress option.

Nah, I prefer not to go THAT overboard, and I keep each district small, at least in this plan, since I don't want to deal with too much slowdown from SMRing a sector full of enemies.

Or nobles.

Same difference.

"Nobles Quarter: Most rebuilt sector of the city."

[azrael4h]

I either build low surface forts with a one or two layer flatish underground main part in the first few stone layers, or a grand hall type thing with a steep stair 3-5 Z levels down and then going back up from there to hit the higher levels.

In Copperstricken, the plan is a cross-shaped surface fortification for defense, which will house military, and the trade post. The nearby hill will be resealed and a route to the main fort dug later; right now it's chambers serve as my temporary living quarters and possible tomb if I don't head off the tantrum spiral.

In Waxbook, which has so much iron ore right now that it should be named ironbook, I have a 3 level grand entrance with massive pillars that'll eventually be engraved. Right now it's just a massive hole with big rough pillars and debris and ore everywhere. The main level will house the hospital and craftshops, with stockpiles beneath each if needed, as well as the main waterworks. I plan on routing water through one pillar, the input line, though they aren't large enough for a pump stack so I can't run one as the return line. This will feed the central lake and well, I may run a second feed for the hospital. I already have a feed to flood the farming room, since there's no soil, just iron here.

[KtosoX]

My regular start, dig out some rooms in the first layer, get stuff inside, dig out some stones and get the workshops going. Once a safe supply of booze, food and beds is ready I prepare the area around my fort by: building walls/channeling/removing ramps. Few seasons later I dig a 2x2 staircase down till I hit the caverns or magma sea. Then I pick 3/4 layers of stone in which I will carve out my fort. Each time I end up with a different layout, but I usually build my workshop level right below my stockpiles, and the headquarters (noble housing) end up close to the dinning room. The rest is based on what I feel like doing on this embark.

[kronith]

my current fort is built behind a waterfall 17 levels tall. but only untill i finish a large water power plant under ground and a surface entrance defense network powered by said waterfall. after that is done i will move my entire fortress under the exposed third cavern layer, witch contains giant cave spiders!

my last few forts were attempts at the same thing, just drowned or destroyed by a thief killing the partydorf

[Valdrax]

Going by the above poll, my fort is all of the above, in order.

1)  I've started out with the soil layers because they make for no-hauling, no-hassle stockpile areas.  I'm currently coring out all the unused portions of them for safe tree farming for pearlash for...
2)  The gigantic clear glass pyramid paradise / trap hellhole, filled with grand bedrooms that's the main mega project of the fortress, which...
3)  I'll line with hordes of traps & magma cannons so that I can go to war with every civilization that trades with me.  But the real mechanical hell will Clown killing fields I will design so that I can...
4)  Colonize Candyland after feeding sending a face full of Legendary squads of masterwork steel-wearing death dwarves into anything that gets past the Chutes & Ladders.