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[Pasakoye]

If you have ever had problems making hallways and rooms using a 7x7 grid, this image I made may help you.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Lime Green shows a 3x3 floor block, 4 together, and a 7x7 block from that. Next to the blocks are 4 7x7 rooms in a grid. The Dark Green shapes inside are 3x3 workshops and 5x5 depo/kennel. This is the way I lay out farms/workshops/storage, but with my fortresses, I usually don't want 3x3 hallways and rooms coming off of this.

This is my way of doing hallways, and fitting as many rooms as possible, in a 7x7 grid. Any of the Red 7x7 rooms can be any of the hallways below them. Doors are Yellow (they can go anywhere really).

First Row: 7x7 + 7x7
                7x7 + straight hallway
                7x7 + dead end hallway
Second: 7x7 + left/right hallway
Third: 7x7 + 3-way hallway
Fourth: 7x7 + 4-way hallway

The next few are if you have a 3x3 room/hallway that you want to connect.

Fifth: 7x7 + close right/left hallway
Sixth: 7x7 + far right/left hallway
Seventh: 7x7 + end right/left hallway
Eighth: 7x7 + rooms to each side
Ninth: 7x7 + rooms on the corner

In the Gray area are other possible connections. The one on the bottom connect to anything.
The light green area, above the gray, are some hallways connected to themselves.
If the Image is too blurry/not big enough let me know. I didn't realize it saved as jpg. 
Also, this is my first big post, and I hope it isn't confusing. Post examples if you try it out.

Edit:
I made another image which should show hallways/rooms better, remember doors can go anywhere so depending on how you place them you will avoid creating Swastika designs. When I say 3x3 I mean floor space, I hope that's not confusing.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Far left is 4 3x3s and 7x7 Connected. O is for open rooms. E is for dead-end Hallways. S is for Straight Hallways. C is for Corner Hallways. 3 is for 3-way Hallways and 4 is for 4-way Hallways.

I know 1 tile big Hallways can be a pain with a lot of dwarfs, sticking to a 3x3 grid helps me make 3 tile wide main hallways with smaller ones sticking out from the side, since they fit together. It also gives a nice variety of room sizes.

Also, does anyone think the hallways would make good "pipes" and dwarfs could use stairs to get down in their rooms. The only problem I see with that is the 4 tile rooms having 3 floor space. Could be useful for a well/waterfall, the rooms could be "bunk rooms"

[Mohreb el Yasim]

this image repeals me to the game called Labirinth  ... now we just need to figur out how to move these different parts betwean eachother and we would have a really cool fortr~~ khm labirinth ...

[Normandy]

This definitely needs to be put up on the wiki. I would if I was not too lazy to make an account and edit it in. Very useful.

[Cockyy]

I am a child for getting a kick out of the 3 swastikas in the image.

[darkflagrance]

I'm curious: is there a non-aesthetic reason to use 7x7 grids?

[LordBucket]

is there a non-aesthetic reason to use 7x7 grids?

A few, but the primary one is that it's sized exactly to match the spacing of shift-arrow keys. You can quickly create an entire housing grid that is entirely consistent, aligned and evenly spaced by using shift-arrow without ever having to count anything.

However, I personally find a 3x3/17x17 grid to be fantastically more convenient. That's two shift-arrow keys per block instead of one. 7x7 is simply too small. Assuming you want walls surrounding each block on your grid, you can only fit a single workshop within that size. It can't accomodate 3-deep bedrooms without wasted space. It results in 60 squares of corridor for every 49 squares of usable space. Or per 36 squares of usable space if you want walls surounding the blocks.

It's just too small.

[Martin]

is there a non-aesthetic reason to use 7x7 grids?

A few, but the primary one is that it's sized exactly to match the spacing of shift-arrow keys. You can quickly create an entire housing grid of entirely consistent by using shift-arrow without ever having to count or space anything.

Er?

On my machine, a shift-arrow is 10 tiles. That's part of the reason I use a 9x9 grid since I can designate a 50x50 area, and shift-arrow undesignate the walls that divide it up into a 5x5 grid.

Each 9x9 room can be imagined into 9 3x3 blocks. The center of each wall has two doorways separated by a wall tile. Each room then nominally holds 4 workshops with room for a few 3x3 material stockpiles and 4 staircases arranged in the center 3x3 area. Over magma, 6 forges can fit with plenty of walking room between them. A kennel can fit in one room with cages lining the walls.

Two 9x9 rooms can be combined to create 14 2x3 rooms with a 1-wide hallway. Each 9x9 room can be divided up into a four 4x4 room suite.

Is the shift-spacing changeable in the init or something?

[LordBucket]

On my machine, a shift-arrow is 10 tiles

Yes, exactly. So...the point your cursor ends up after each move is the middle of the corridor. 3x3/7x7 means 3-wide corridors with 7x7 city blocks, which would result in 5x5 interior rooms:

Code: [Select]

. = floor
X = wall
C = cursor

.................................
.C.........C.........C.........C.
.................................
...XXXXXXX...XXXXXXX...XXXXXXX...
...X.....X...X.....X...X.....X...
...X.....X...X.....X...X.....X...
...X.....X...X.....X...X.....X...
...X.....X...X.....X...X.....X...
...X.....X...X.....X...X.....X...
...XXXXXXX...XXXXXXX...XXXXXXX...
.................................
.C.........C.........C.........C.
.................................


I use a 9x9 grid
Each 9x9 room can be imagined into 9 3x3 blocks
Each 9x9 room can be divided up into a four 4x4 room suite.

9x9 rooms...like this?

Code: [Select]

XXXXXXXXXXX
X....X....X
X....X....X
X....X....X
X....X....X
XXXXXXXXXXX
X....X....X
X....X....X
X....X....X
X....X....X
XXXXXXXXXXX

Where do the corridors go? That's sized exactly so that the cursor ends up on the wall of each block. If you add a corridor around the block, it won't line up with your cursor anymore.

EDIT:

The center of each wall has two doorways separated by a wall tile.

Oh! I see...so you have no corridors at all?

[Martin]

Nope, no corridors. No congestion except right at the doorway. Here's an example of the layout:

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-6854-lashedwines

The fortress above (Moruls) is a little different in that the centermost 5 rooms are eliminated to provide a view of the bottomless pit, but they would normally just be rooms. It's a very efficient (if uninspired) layout. The bedrooms are stacked on one side, normally with the workshops set up on the other side due to noise considerations, with bulk storage closest to the bedrooms (barrels, bins, furniture etc.)

[LordBucket]

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-6854-lashedwines

Interesting. Very clean looking.

Here's my current fortress: Helmsline, though it's only a few years old and a lot of things are incomplete. Most of the design is built for defense, but you can see a basic 3x3/17x17 grid on the lower levels.

No congestion except right at the doorway.

Back in 2D, I varied between 5-wide and 3-wide central corridors. The need for it is less now, but I still find 3-wide corridors to be very helpful. I don't think I'd be comfortable with a deisng like yours, though I admit it would be convenient to be able to lock everything down at a moment's notice. How does your defense work? I see the bridge over the lava and the long corridor leading east, but I don't see any means to pump lava through your two vertical accessways, I don't see any parapets, just one ballista and a bridge to cut off traffic. Do you find that to be enough?

[Martin]

Nice. The problem with the waffle fortress is that it doesn't look like a fortress. It's like a big Borg cube.

The big revelation moving from 2D to 3D is that, from an efficiency standpoint, fortresses should be as tall as they are wide, or at least make better vertical use of space. The staircase climb from top to bottom of Morul's fortress is 21 tiles - or a touch more than walking 2 rooms horizontally.

Defenses in this fortress is just Morul at this stage. Really, nothing more is needed.

But early on the defenses worked as follows:

The 9x9 room holding the trade depot has a 9x9 room directly above. It's lead to by a 3-wide tunnel that emerges right at map edge. If the side drawbridges are up at the end of the moat, wagons will spawn directly at the mouth of the tunnel and head down. Even if a siege were to arrive a day later, it's highly unlikely they'd be able to threaten the traders. At the end of the tunnel is a drawbridge I can raise to seal the entire tunnel off. There's a further retracting bridge at the edge of the moat to totally seal off the trade depot.

At the back of the fortress is a floodgate which provides a bypass if Morul needs to go around, or just to speed up collection of dropped armor from anyone killed on the west side.

As a basic defensive strategy, the fortress is near impenetrable if you do things properly. If at the start of a season you lock the doors between the depot and the fortress and have the back floodgate closed, invaders cannot path to the fortress. They'll remain at the map edge, but traders can reach the depot via the tunnel and will move there. Once they are safely in the tunnel, you can seal it up, do the trading since unlocking the door still doesn't let them path due to the tunnel being sealed, let them out and then deal with the invaders once the traders are off site. Invaders can be led down the tunnel by unlocking the doors, allowing them to path in, and station as many as 5 marksdwarves - 3 above with 8000 bolts behind them, 2 below, and one manning the ballista. With skilled marksdwarves, no invader other than a collossus will get anywhere near the doors, and if push comes to shove, you can lock the doors and pull the bridge over the moat sealing invaders in that kill zone until they are dealt with.

Nowadays, I just lure orcs into the tunnel, seal them in there, send Morul out the back door to wipe out all the outside orcs, and then shove him in the tunnel to finish off the stragglers.

And the vertical accessways are chimneys for Morul's fireplace.