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Author Topic: Quirks and constants of your forts  (Read 498 times)

BloodBeard

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Quirks and constants of your forts
« on: August 08, 2011, 04:08:22 pm »

My fort designs always vary with some grandiose idea or megaproject in mind, but there's always some features that I make sure to keep in all of them.

The longest running one in my forts is multi level open rooms or halls. I don't know if i'm claustrophobic or what but I always need those pointless high ceilings in everything I do.

Then there's the miner who discovers the blue stuff. If the dwarf is male I always name him Cotton, if she's female I name her Candy.

Recently i've started building monuments at the entrances my catacomb areas. They're always 2 z-level rooms with smoothed and engraved walls with an embossed combination of my civ and starting groups' symbols in the middle. This is the one for my lastest fort Daggerdepths which features a crescent moon (my group) and waves (my civ).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Another fort called Goodmountain had an 'S' for a forgotten beast and a ':' for strawberries or something inside the 'S'. I forget which symbol was for the civ and which was for the group.

Alchemical Engineer

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Re: Quirks and constants of your forts
« Reply #1 on: August 08, 2011, 04:23:00 pm »

My initial seven always get nice tombs. If the baron is reasonable, he'll get the eighth. I like to make lots of statues, and I try to build at least one statue with the likeness of a specific dwarf next to that dwarf's coffin (I have many statue gardens and statue-lined hallways filled with the undesirables). My main food storehouse is always directly above the legendary dining room/kitchen, accessible by its own staircase. My production areas tend to have a similar layout between fortresses, too.
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Greiger

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Re: Quirks and constants of your forts
« Reply #2 on: August 08, 2011, 04:49:56 pm »

I always build a big 3x3 central staircase going from the surface to the caverns (sometimes all the way to the magma sea if I get lucky) but instead of it having a staircase in the middle I always hollow the middle out.

Serves no real purpose (except for dumping if it goes all the way to the magma sea) and really only causes a large risk of dodge death to my guys if even something relatively harmless gets in the fortress.  Yet I always build it that way, despite what common sense dictates.
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Disclaimer: Not responsible for dwarven deaths from the use or misuse of this post.
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moki

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Re: Quirks and constants of your forts
« Reply #3 on: August 08, 2011, 05:27:11 pm »

I always have a central spiral ramp around a 11x11 (or 21x21 when I want to go bigger) hole that goes down to the caverns and gets expanded to the magma sea when I find the time. Above it there's a square tower to the top of the sky. So basically a drop from very top to very bottom to fling down prisoners or annoying nobles with all the dwarves watching. See, there goes the mayor that wanted a platinum bed and slade cabinets in his bedroom... who's next?

I don't like building fancy tombs. Dwarves who do especially well get nice rooms with matching furniture to live in, but in the end, everybody goes into a big square room full of simple rock coffins.

Another quirk are the prison cells. Normal dwarves live in 2x2 to 3x3 rooms with smoothed walls, a bed and a cabinet. Prisoners go to 3x3 cells with masterfully engraved walls and floors, masterwork bed, table and chair and stockpiles for the best food and booze. When my legendary armorsmith goes to jail for not producing platinum crafts (with no platinum available, not even through trade), I want him to have some fun there and not die of thirst or madness.

And I love circular dining rooms. It doesn't matter if my dwarves need a dining room at all, I got to build one. The biggest one so far was about 50 tiles in diameter and 3 levels high with big columns and balconies, every tile engraved with the history of the fort (and the occasional cheese or purring maggot), a small lake in the middle and room for 200 dwarves at least... in a fort of 80. Like a cathedral of booze and plump helmet roasts.
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lanceleoghauni

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Re: Quirks and constants of your forts
« Reply #4 on: August 08, 2011, 06:56:24 pm »

No military, or if I have one, They're all Marksdwarves. Lots of idlers because I never get that deep into multiple Production trees. Engravings EVERYWHERE. Except on the walls. Absolutely Unnecessarily complicated machinery to do things that could have been done simpler, but less automatic.
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