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[dimdem]

Hi folks!  I'm fairly new to the game - I've only played DF couple times so far.  I've tried reading the wiki as much as possible, and I think I have a decent grasp of how most things work, but one thing I need is to improve my layout.

I started working with 6x6 rooms, and then evolved this into a structure composed of 7x7 cells in order to keep things organized.  I wanted a fortress in the area between river and chasm, and here's a rough layout that I came up with:

 

So... do you all have any tips?  I'd appreciate all the help you can offer!

[elipsis]

I'd swap out the door stone fall traps for weapon traps using trap specific weapons. my personal favorite are the spike balls as they don't leave terrible messes to clean up.  I suggest this because eventualy you'll get creeping goblin theives and over time stone fall traps can consume a LOT of time for mechanics to keep ready. Plus nobles actually work and clean the weapon traps.     likewise if you chain a war dog near the entrance it'll take care of kobold thieves.

[BurnedToast]

You will almost certainly hit a river/chasm extension digging that much up and down so plan for it. Also I doubt you will have enough room between the river and chasm to build all that (though I'm not going to count the squares to be sure). you have (IIRC) between 50 and 100 spaces between the river and the chasm, depending on how it bends if you want to count it yourself.

One thing I like to do is put the actual stockpiles in the room - so the carpenters shop gets a wood stockpile next to it, the mason/mechanic shop gets a small grey stone stockpile and so on. This saves room building other stockpiles and saves time with the worker hauling his stuff to the station. Also as part of this, I usually dump my craftsdwarf shop very close to the refuse pile to get the bones easier (as it seems 90% of the time it's making bone or shell something).

I don't think you need that many weapon/armor stockpiles. Typically you (or at least I) build a set of armor and a weapon per solider, there is no real reason to have a ton of extras sitting around. Melt the extras and use the metal for something else. maybe 1 small pile to hold armor before soliders put it on, or to store it in if one dies.

2 barracks that size is overkill. just one of them is PLENTY. Even if all your dwarves were sleeping in it (which I notice they are not) 1 that size would still be overkill.

The tree farm is on the wrong side of the river. Trees will only grow a few spaces to the right of the river (max of 110 from the cliff face IIRC) so to get the most out of it you need to put it to the left of the river.

I don't know if human caravans will use that trade depot. If they do, they will block traffic down your main hall while they (slowly) drive into it. If you are putting it inside (I usually do) it's best to make a separate path for it so dwarves don't have to crawl under it all the time.

Your farm is HUGE. with skilled growers you can feed 200 dwarves off something like 9x9 plot (maybe a little more). It's fine to keep it that big if you want, but you really will only need to farm every 2 or 3 years with one that big. Othewise the kitchen/dining room/farm area looks good and is similar (but much bigger) then what I usually do.

anyway, overall it looks pretty good. Everything is alot bigger then you need it to be, but that's not a huge problem if you actually end up with the room for it all. might want to consider cutting the size down in half for most rooms though, to make sure it all fits.

[dimdem]

quote:Originally posted by BurnedToast:
<STRONG>You will almost certainly hit a river/chasm extension digging that much up and down so plan for it. Also I doubt you will have enough room between the river and chasm to build all that (though I'm not going to count the squares to be sure). you have (IIRC) between 50 and 100 spaces between the river and the chasm, depending on how it bends if you want to count it yourself.</STRONG>
This is true... you can tell in my screenie that I ran into the chasm too soon.

<STRONG>One thing I like to do is put the actual stockpiles in the room - so the carpenters shop gets a wood stockpile next to it, the mason/mechanic shop gets a small grey stone stockpile and so on. This saves room building other stockpiles and saves time with the worker hauling his stuff to the station. Also as part of this, I usually dump my craftsdwarf shop very close to the refuse pile to get the bones easier (as it seems 90% of the time it's making bone or shell something).</STRONG>
I've started doing the same thing as well, and I had my workshops divided into groups to be distributed among the different workshop areas based on this type of strategy.

<STRONG>I don't think you need that many weapon/armor stockpiles. Typically you (or at least I) build a set of armor and a weapon per solider, there is no real reason to have a ton of extras sitting around. Melt the extras and use the metal for something else. maybe 1 small pile to hold armor before soliders put it on, or to store it in if one dies.</STRONG>
Good advice, and I wonder why I didn't realize this before.  I think I intended to primarily store ammo for my marksdwarves in these locations...

<STRONG>2 barracks that size is overkill. just one of them is PLENTY. Even if all your dwarves were sleeping in it (which I notice they are not) 1 that size would still be overkill.</STRONG>
I initially designed for 2 barracks so that I could have marksdwarves firing through fortifications against the enemy from both sides as they tried to advance across the first bridge.  But again I agree they can be much smaller    

<STRONG>The tree farm is on the wrong side of the river. Trees will only grow a few spaces to the right of the river (max of 110 from the cliff face IIRC) so to get the most out of it you need to put it to the left of the river.</STRONG>
Great catch, of course    

<STRONG>I don't know if human caravans will use that trade depot. If they do, they will block traffic down your main hall while they (slowly) drive into it. If you are putting it inside (I usually do) it's best to make a separate path for it so dwarves don't have to crawl under it all the time. </STRONG>
Do you mean to have a separate cave entrance for the caravan, so that the trade depot can be kept in a more out-of-the-way-location?  That would mean I'd have two entrance tunnels to defend... maybe I'll just keep the one entrance, but keep it away from the busiest parts of my fort.  Or leave the trade depot indoors but on the west side of the river.

<STRONG>Your farm is HUGE. with skilled growers you can feed 200 dwarves off something like 9x9 plot (maybe a little more). It's fine to keep it that big if you want, but you really will only need to farm every 2 or 3 years with one that big. Othewise the kitchen/dining room/farm area looks good and is similar (but much bigger) then what I usually do.</STRONG>
Good point, once again.  I noticed this as well when I tried to use it  

<STRONG>anyway, overall it looks pretty good. Everything is alot bigger then you need it to be, but that's not a huge problem if you actually end up with the room for it all. might want to consider cutting the size down in half for most rooms though, to make sure it all fits.</STRONG>

Thanks!  I'll keep playing with this and your suggestions and see what other ideas I can come up with.  I initially sketched my idea on graph paper, where the individual cubes represented 7x7 blocks, so it didn't seem that big until I tried to actually dig it out      But thanks again, those are great tips - I appreciate it!

Thanks to you too elipsis!

[ October 10, 2007: Message edited by: dimdem ]

[BurnedToast]

Yeah I mean carve a separate entrance completely for the trade caravan. give it raising drawbridge over the river and lift it if the goblins come and they can't use that route anymore. I usually connect it to a big finished goods stockpile so that dwarves don't have to haul the finished good very far.
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-1154-axecrystal  Here is my latest fort, for an example.