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[Zako]

For a nice armok well: This can be a possibility for you. Check it out: http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-2353-silverblood

This is also the map i plan on using for my fort, seems alright and has a good amount of levels and space. All features included!

Still not certain about defence structures for the map tho... Any ideas for it?

[Marnault]

I'm still pretty new to the game, only played one full run through plus a 4-5 "practice forts" when I first started.

But what has worked for me so far is using 4-5 layers for the main fortress:

Surface - Wall's+Moat protecting entrance + a few scattered archer towers only accessible from underground
Soil 1 - Workshops/Barracks/Farms/Traps
Soil 2 - Stockpiles stratigicaly located below the workshops and farms for easy access
Rock 1 - Meeting hall/Offices/Dining room/Food stockpiles
Rock 2 - Bedrooms
Rock 3+ - The mines - Pretty much all exploratory mining is done here

[Alex Encandar]

I prefer tower designs, so I tend to use over 10 z-levels, each level is quite compact though.

[Anjey aka PM]

I also prefer tower designs. with towers from 40x40 to 50x50 sizes. As for me this is the best design until burrows are implemented.

Until borrows are implemented this designs are the most efficient ones, 'couse it takes same time for the dwarf to travel in horizontal and vertical directions so with 50x50 tower 25 z-level high the longest distance dwarf need to travel is 75 squares. But I usually place meeting hall in the centre of middle Z-level of the tower, near central staircase, so dwarves travel no more than 37+-10 squares to do their job.

This design does not involve main water tank, power plant, defensive and trade entrances. Those are built separately from main tower and connected to it with few service corridors.

[Kazindir]

As many as possible.
Start of with say 2-3 for the basics and then branch off building extra "cores" (mini fortresses with their own barracks/dining rooms/etc), guard towers, waterfalls, swimming pools, big bridges, labyrinth guarded tomb complexes etc. 

[bigmcstrongmuscle]

I've lately taken to carving out castle-type fortresses from the summits of stone hills, and building 3-wide tunnels to other sites on the map that I want to exploit.

The main burrow of my most recent fort is about three z-levels deep, and my food production burrow (beneath a grassy valley, about three localmap tiles to the west) is another z-level. The only route into the main fort is a sloping 3-wide tunnel about 5 z-levels deep between them (which doubles as a secure caravan route and Tunnel Of Goblin Death from the western border - there's an early warning system at the other end). I've also fortified the top of the main burrow with a curtain wall another z-level high - it will be at least three when complete - and have my primary mine shaft under a microcline pagoda whose roof stretches three z-levels up. A six-z-level-high smokestack comes out of my underground refuse stockpile too, to leach miasma into the atmosphere without smothering my dwarves.

The farms are so far away that the place is inefficient as hell, but it's really cool-looking. A cross section of the whole thing looks like this:

Code: [Select]

CROSS-SECTION:            Smokestack
Not to scale.                #  ##
                              # ||#
                                || Outhouse Jail
                         Pagoda ||     |     |
                           |    ||     V     V  ....
                      ___ /_\   ||   ____ ___  |
               Depot  | |_|>|___||___|__|_| |  |          <- Workshops, Outdoor Stockpiles
               _____  |___|X|_______________|_ |          <- Vault, Main Living Area
      .........| _ |..| __|X|__________|     |_|
      |  ___/ __/ \____/  |X|__|
   ...|__/ __/            |X| Main Shaft
../   / ___/ To entry and farms
That little outcropping on the edge is actually the extruding part of my jail cells. Each one has a bed and a restraint behind a locked door. Since I ran out of cliff while building them, each one extrudes one tile over what will be a moat once I find a better water supply. In addition to using them for justice, It lets me lock any dwarf I want in by drafting or assigning them the bed, and gives them a convenient place to drown themselves if they go nuts.

And yes, that is an outhouse. Its a little building built over a small water tank. (which until I build an aqeuduct for running water, gets hand-filled by a bucket brigade) A lever in the building flushes the contents of the water tank into my refuse stockpile. Since dwarves don't actually need latrines, I use it as a garbage dump.

The best part is that about four pages of corpses tells me that there's a chasm and cave river on this map, in addition to the volcano on the eastern mountains. Running water + magma + safe drainage + a few years = epic fortress.