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[jdiddleymspot]

I'm stuck for some ideas of how to built a nice mine/fortress. Please upload and share your builds to give me a better idea of how to create a great fort. Also, tell me roughly how much IG time you've used building it

My fortresses tend to always look like this and very disorganised.

Entrance



Main Halls - Small input/output workshops, individual dwelling and dormitory, meeting hall/dining room, kitchens.


The rest of the fortress is just mines and a mason's workshop on the floor beneath.

[quarague]

I'm too lazy to put up a sceenshot but some general things I do different.
It seems that your bedrooms are in a dirt layer, I put mine a few levels deeper underground into rock, this allows for smoothing the walls => greater value => greater happiness, I also give each dwarf a 2x2 room with a cabinet and a coffer to store their stuff.
If you build a long narrow corridor (say 2 tiles wide) in the entrance and fill it with traps fort defence will be much easier, draw bridges are also helpful.
I usually don't mine out complete area but just create corridors with all the workshops in rooms branching off but that is a style choice.
I also try to built everything underground in the long run, ie I avoid problems with cave adaptation by not going above ground :-) Setting up pasture zones underground usually requires some big irrigation projects.

[Sorcerer]

Noticing that you've built an irrigation channel there, you don't actually have to irrigate soil anymore, only stone.

My forts tend to be alot more claustrophobic than what you have here, lots of unnecessarily long corridors and cramped rooms with workshops in them, don't want to be TOO efficient
The one place in my fort that isn't small and cramped is my grand hall, which usually covers multiple Z levels with large pillars and engraved walls, maybe a waterfall if I'm feeling lucky.

[miauw62]

@ thread title.
Thats what she said.

Otherways, i usually make my forts quite organized, and rooms are 3x3 in stone layer, smoothed and engraved surrounding a central meeting area.

[NedeN]

Well as of lately ive been using 9x9 areas for my rooms, just set in a cabinet and chest with a bed and you can have yourself 15 bedrooms in there. Each dwarf will also get "..slept in nice room lately" thought. Also i make all of my stockpiles and dining halls 11x11 and just extend the area when needed. Other than that its a bunch of 5 tile wide fort entrance with statues and 3 wide hallways extending to wherever and a bunch of misplaced miners digging into the caverns without me noticing causing my magma forge down below to flood (that fort was really fun  ) or releasing beasties from a time before time to cause chaos in my fort. Also, my forts ALWAYS have to be in the side of a mountain, I prefer to not have any ramps around but nothing a good ol fashioned wall wont fix right?

[boogada]

I've been making most of my forts on 1 z level now, aside from most stockpiles/farms.

http://i.imgur.com/QqTSe.jpg

[jdiddleymspot]

@boogada: Impressive

[vjek]

I lay mine out like this... (top to bottom)

-Trapped fortress-

surface (in 4 corners, 3x3 stairs down)
dirt:tree farm / central staircase waterfall source
dirt:n levels of paths down to main entrance
first rock layer:traps to entrance & depot & initial storage + animal "pasture" also top of dump chute, 3x3 halls from four corners of surface to central staircase
5-9 layers: dump chute / mining area for ore
: bottom of dump chute / mining area for ore
: crafting stations / mining area for ore
: stockpiles 1 (20 x 20 each, four adj to central staircase / mining area for ore
: stockpiles 2 (20 x 20 each, four adj to central staircase / mining area for ore
: magma smelters and forges (8 of each) plus stockpiles of ore to be smelted
: magma "room" to power smelters and forges above, mining area for ore
: empty due to heat from smelters, mining area for ore
: dining hall, wells (3), farm
: hospital, well-water-source
: empty due to water above / mining area for ore
: mayor's rooms, each 20x20, three of them, all 3 width halls. bed,throne,dining
: apartments, 5x5, 8 in a row, four rows, three width halls
: apartments, 5x5, 8 in a row, four rows, three width halls
: apartments, 5x5, 8 in a row, four rows, three width halls
: apartments, 5x5, 8 in a row, four rows, three width halls
: apartments, 5x5, 8 in a row, four rows, three width halls
:: mining to cavern top + drain for cent. staircase waterfall to map edge.
: single floor tile covered into top of cavern for spores to grow trees.
:: 3x3 stairs down to candy & clowns.
---

this has worked pretty well for me to funnel all the invaders into my traps.  i use a slightly different layout when dealing with the great goblin melter, as it needs 5 layers and a nearby volcano, plus water for logic, etc.

I've gone with a very vertical design to keep the paths short.  it generally doesn't take more than 25 levels, which is easy to do with worldgen.  I keep the whole thing between embark -2 and the top of the first cavern.

consequences of this:  i have nothing on the surface except four stairways down, one in each corner. In fact the surface/embark is not part of any active burrow unless a migration wave goes badly.  I have no sunlight crops.  I don't typically have any surface growing trees in the stockpiles.  But it's defensible!

[rtg593]

Mine are generally a 24x24 pillar running down alongside a volcano, at the moment.

Farm level
textile level
food level
entrance level
trade stockpile
stone industry
magma-metal industry
-magma plumbing
magma-glass/clay industry
-magma plumbing
misc overflow stockpiles
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Noble Quarters
Legendary Quarters
Peasant Quarters
Legendary Dining Hall and drink/prepared food stockpile
|
Refuse/corpse stockpile, bottom of dodgeme and mass pitting (20z drop landing on 10 Masterwork Menacing Green Glass Spikes. They explode :-D )

100% self sufficient if necessary. I generally don't waste time chopping down trees, I can get all the wood I need from elves (yech). If I need to lock down, I close off the surface and get lumber from the caverns, if/when I need it. Beds are all I use it for, anything else I need I use glass or stone. With my legendary+ glassmakers, usually glass. Working on getting my masons past proficient, lol. FPS death usually occurs before anyone gets very high.

Legendary+5 engravers going to town on my current fort, back-to-back stone detailing moods.

[hjd_uk]

Ive got a thing for vertical forts/towers with a consistant floor-area: This is my old-version (Pre VD) fort in an evil biome:

GorgeCrypt

[rtg593]

Ive got a thing for vertical forts/towers with a consistant floor-area: This is my old-version (Pre VD) fort in an evil biome:

GorgeCrypt

Very cool... What's with the maze on z100?

Also... Is this map made by exporting images in-game, and then using their software to compress and upload it (I think it was there I read they have a software they want you to use...)? Never actually looked into the actual steps... Naa... Too lazy.

[ydaraishy]

I tend to make forts around very deep stairwells.  I put different industries on each level and arrange them so the materials they make and produce are closest to one another to use.  At the moment, I have these (this is in a mod I'm working on, so some things are different than in vanilla):

G: trade depot, general stockpile
-1: farms (indoor subterranean and outdoor greenhouse)
-2: underground pastures + tree-farm
-3: breweries, mills, presses, farmers' workshops (connected from second stairwell from -2; would switch about -2 and -3 but there's soil only on the first two layers)
-4: shearers' and spinners', hen-house, restraints for animals (connected by a second stairwell from -4), looms and dyers
-5: textile + leather industry
-6: butcheries, tanneries and fisheries
-7: wood furnaces, soapmaking industry
-8: hospital + well
-9: barracks + well
-10: common dining room + well, food + drink stockpiles
-11: water reservoir, pumped from river
-12: furniture industry (carpentry, masonry)
-13: crafts and jewelry
-14: engineering
-15: glassworks
-16: kilns (with second stairwell from -7 to transport potash for pearlash)
-17: charcoal furnaces, smelters, ironworks
-18: alchemist's laboratories (includes transmutation workshops and workshops for extracting rare metals with acid)
-19: forges, foundries
-20: magma reservoir, from magma piston; magma gets pumped from here up to -15.
-21: [Empty now, will be the royal rooms.]
-22: Noble quarters, offices, dining halls in large "hive" design
-23: Legendary quarters in smaller "hive" design
-24~-30: Apartment in "Greek cross" design, accommodating 32 rooms in each level
-31: Statue garden
-32: Zoo, animal training
-33: Gaol
-34: Goblin + assorted hostile storage
-35: Refuse stockpile, mass-pitting, atomsmasher
-43: Entrance and bridge to 1st cavern
-46: Catacombs
-47: Necropolis for nobles, legendary soldiers, etc.
-48: Vampire pit
-50~-54: [Plans for various projects, including a labyrinth.]
-56: Entrance to 2nd cavern

[Malarauko]

My new .06 fort is a ramp descending into the ground with a stone keep with 6 round towers inside a wooden palisade wall. The maps completely flat and the ramp leads off on various levels to the different areas. Descending you have
Farms Ramp
Food Storage Ramp
Dining Area and other communal areas Ramp
Bedrooms Ramp Bedrooms
Crypts Ramp
Offices and adminstrative areas Ramp
Ramp Industrial District with various warehouses and production halls.

[Lexx]

My new .06 fort is a ramp descending into the ground with a stone keep with 6 round towers inside a wooden palisade wall. The maps completely flat and the ramp leads off on various levels to the different areas. Descending you have
Farms Ramp
Food Storage Ramp
Dining Area and other communal areas Ramp
Bedrooms Ramp Bedrooms
Crypts Ramp
Offices and adminstrative areas Ramp
Ramp Industrial District with various warehouses and production halls.

Interesting concept on basing off a ramp network. I do the ramp network extending down to the bottom cavern layer. But I base the entrance to my fort off of the ramp leading down. With a multi doorered gatehouse protecting the entrance to the rest of the fort.

[WolfeyS]

Massive image inbound.

And I mean massive.

Wardogs hold off any thieves while my marksdwarves are learning to be useful.  Drawbridge and pit make me completely safe from anything outside at the moment, and I am working on harnessing the volcano for defence sooner or later.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)