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[Baccar Wozat]

I've made 2x2 (too small, plus the genned world had very few Z-levels, I call that Dwarf Closet), 3x3 (which is my usual size and I stick with that most of the time), 6x2 (which had the dwarves running feverishly to build two big towers and a LOONG corridor connecting them, even with Fastdwarf on), and various larger sizes (which make FPS as bad as HFS).

I also make sure to give the commoners 3x3 bedrooms. It saved my fort from certain tantrum spiral once (ONE guy survived until the migrants arrived), so I view it as a must.

[Tally]

I don't tend to keep my forts very long. Usually it's because of MigrantFrustration, or due to a new update, because I play Masterwork these days. That said, my fort design tends to revolve around the idea of 'everyone get inside NOW' where I just mine a simple 3x3 hallway into the earth, dig out a 5x5 hole at the end of it and place a trade depot in. Then I just have everything branch off of that in all available directions, where one branch leads into the industry, the other, leads into farming/food processing, and the dining rooms, and the third branch leads to the butchery and its related trades. I try my best to accomodate individual bedrooms, and keep everything to 3x3 hallways with ramps, so there's room to move around each other, and also to keep myself in practice with ramps, because I don't know why but they caused me so much trouble to learn.

Also notable is that I'm bad at designing intricacies like water systems, bridge-mazes, or minecart tracks, so my fort tends to be devoid of any -good- way of defending itself.

[crekit]

EVERYTHING MUST FALL INTO MY HALLWAY GRID

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
+++XXX+++XXX+++XX
+++++++++++++++X
+++++++++++++++X
+++++++++++++++X
+++XXX+++XXX+++XX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Yeah I tend to be obsessive :<

The decorative hallways may be a tad over-doing it. I really need to calm down BUT I JUST CAN'T

[Gentlefish]

That looks interesting and Fun. How do hallways intersect? At the spaces like XXX+++XXX ?

[Tevish Szat]

I tend to build forts in fits and spurts of mining that cause it to graduate over major size categories

Young Fort: Exists on 7Z, give or take
Z0: The Surface.  A 3x3, 5x5 or up to 11x11 if I'm feeling generous perimeter of constructed walls.  One side features a 3-wide raising bridge
Z-1: Entrance.  The topmost soil layer consists of a 3-wide passage to a trade depot, the stairs down, and a grid of 9 3x3 farm plots
Z-2: The Hoard.  a single 11x11 room on the first stone layer
Z-3: Industry.  5-7 3x3 rooms off a single passage and a quantum stockpile for stone
Z-4: Housing.  8-12 "Private" 1x3+door rooms
Z-5: Food. 11x11 generic Food stockpile, still, 11x11 room with tables and chairs to be a dining room, butcher's shop, tannery, and refuse stockpile
Z-6: Administration.  4 3x3 rooms.  This houses offices and quarters for nobles that need such, and levers: at this point, just the front gate lever.
Usual CoD for Young Forts: Goblin Ambush before progressing to Middle Fort

Middle Fort:
A starting Fort that has a 1x1 stairway down to Magma, possibly with twisting tunnels where it hit the caverns, and those cavern ends sealed off with hatch covers.  A mass of smelters, forges, kilns, and glass furnaces are constructed over the Great Magma Sea.  Housing is expanded significantly and food minorly, mostly in its food and refuse stockpiles.  Industry gets 1-2 extra workshops and a wood stockpile.  Crypts consisting of 1x1+door graves are constructed on Z-7. Military is constructed on Z-8 consisting of a 11x11 Barracks and a 4x3 Danger Room if desired. 
Usual CoD: Ambush-induced tantrum spiral after military is drafted but before it is properly equipped.

High Fort:
A middle fort with either most of Z-1 or an extra soil layer (between Z-1 and the Hoard on the first stone layer) hollowed out into a tree farm.  massive expansion of stockpiles, housing, food, and administration.  Industry doubles in size of workshops and gains specialist stockplies.  Military expanded with an archery range and hospital, while Z-9 gets an ammo stockpile for bolt return at the very least.
Z-9 or Z-10 have prisons built.  Massive walls may be erected to "Claim" more surface area, especially if above-ground farming is desired or tree farm is insufficent.  Population becomes too high to bother micromanaging most of them, and FPS begins to drop.
Usual CoD: None.  High Forts are marked by stability: the Fortress progresses to its High phase once it's safe from goblins and (most) megabeasts.  I've yet to have a High fort visited by a Bronze Colossus, though.

Late/Degenerate Fort
A High Fort that begins to construct pointless megaprojects and semi-megaprojects.  Usually above-ground constructions or the like pyramids and towers, but sometimes underground multi-Z halls or mixed-level engineering projects like pointless pump stacks.  The Late period is usually ushered in by claiming the Monarch and ensuring his/her happiness.  Degenerate forts get boring because the challenge of grand projects is drawn out by the slowness of 300 dwarves on the case, where more dwarves has actually become less dwarfpower-per-second.
Usual CoD: FPS-Death, followed by Magma-Related ‼fun‼, flooding, and trying to mess with the caverns where nearly a dozen syndome-spewing FBs have been allowed to build up.

Middle Forts are probably my favorite stage, with 60-100 dwarves: enough to have surplus dwarfpower without starting to sap my FPS or will to care about a one of them, though the stability of High Forts can be fun while they're still running quickly and growing towards the monarch.

[vanatteveldt]

I recently switched to a grid/template based design and I like it a lot. I divide the fortress into vertical industries, going from raw at the bottom to finished on top. These industries are arranged horizontally into a grid. Each grid cell is 9x for either storage or 4 5x5 workshops separated by a wall. The middle and sides of each cell have a staircase. In between grid cells are 3-wide hallways and on the corners larger 3x3 stairwells. On the inner corners of the stairwells are waterfalls:



The middle has the living rooms. on the workshop levels it is a complete grid of apartments, on the storage levels the middle part is a statue garden allowing access to the storage areas. The left has furniture industry, the bottom farming, bottom right poultry and pig farming, right has clothing and leather industry, top has metalworking. Bottom left has miscellaneous industry and the hospital.



The 'main' level has the dining room and central entrance "castle" with drawbridges and the military training grounds. The military is on top of the metal industry. On the right the coal mining interfered with the grid so I figured I would make a nice graveyard, I found it fitting to put dead dwarves int he old mining shafts and I think it looks quite nice after smoothing.




The grid setup allows me to add grid cells or layers whenever I need new room, and I have to say it makes it much more fun to me to no longer think about 'micro' design. I think the abundance of layers and staircases and the proximity of related industries and storage areas make it quite efficient but I have no real way of measuring/profiling the pathing.

(This particular fortress was abandoned after not seeing any goblins or merchants except dwarfs. I check the neighbours screen pre-embark since then :-) )

The current setup has the corners of the 9x9 removed and added to the stairwell; although it looks nice I've since added it back to the grid cell since it is easier to designate and allows for more efficient use of the space. I leave open the corner tiles as efficient path from the workshop to the large stairwells and that also allows a logical place to
put a door if I need to lock off a workshop for a failing mood.



Although when I look at it it is really much uglier than the rounded grid cells, so maybe I'll just accept the efficiency loss for the prettier option...

I suppose I could drop the hallways and central staircases altogether and have just the grid cells connected by the side staircases, but I think that would be quite ugly...

[crekit]

That looks interesting and Fun. How do hallways intersect? At the spaces like XXX+++XXX ?

yeah. It fits with my giant 7x7 production rooms too. And it looks pretty! All my major rooms have decorations and stuff carved into them, i'll have to post some pictures.

BUT IT"S STILL OCD

[Hyndis]

My fortresses are centered around a main great hall, which has large stone pillars and a tall ceiling. Then off of the great hall are the modular bits. My quantum factory sector and my kitchen/food sector are all the same. They're both very efficient designs that use very little space, yet can expand production and storage to infinity due to using quantum storage. Its all automatic as well.

So off of the main hall, two sides will be used for food production and for industrial production. Then I'll dig out large bedroom complexes. I prefer to use communal bedrooms, with several dwarves sharing the same room. This allows for some marriages to happen between roommates, but it also contains the damage of any tantrum spirals, as dwarves are generally friends only with their roommates, and no one else.

[Triaxx2]

Typically, I try to remain within 20 tiles of a single 3x3 staircase. This means all levels have a base hall way size of 3, for maximum movement.

One exception is the 'behind the scenes' movement of goods, such as mine carts, or freight droppers.

[edgefigaro]

I function around a single central staircase. I switch back between a 2x2 staircase and a 3 tile cross, depending on whether I want double doors and odd numbered edges everywhere or even/single door pathways. Food related industry happens close to surface level. Forges happen in the depths, generally near the highest magma plume. Stoneworks and such exist halfway between the two. Quarters/living area happen halfway between the stoneworks and the surface.

[StLeibowitz]

My forts used to have two-wide halls branching off from a central staircase column, with 4x15 factory rooms scattered liberally everywhere and numerous mass-designated blocks of ten 2x2 bedroom pods, fully furnished with a bed, cabinet, and door.

Then I got a goblin siege and a troll smashed in the front gate. My highly centralized design allowed them easy access to everywhere, and the narrow halls hurt my dwarves more than they helped them.

Now my forts have wide open hallways that wind around a bit and are covered in traps Bedroom design remains the same, though with wider corridors, and factories lay between the homes and the militia training rooms. I use ramps instead of stairs when possible, because it looks prettier and leads to more difficulty for goblins. Floodgate bulkeads are constructed at the ramp to each level to buy time for a wall-off if the cage traps are ever overrun. Forges are down by the lava, along with other magma-reliant industries.

[Mr Space Cat]

Size for me varies. I usually have it set to incorporate z-levels though, and usually feature a main staircase at some point or other. sometimes I make a more efficient smaller fort built off the main staircase, sometimes I try to plan elaborate, grandiose forts where the only size is bigger is better, always.

These forts are usually dropped after less than 2 in-game years anyway. I seem to have commitment issues when it comes to forts.