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[Malarauko]

I'm starting a new fort where the entire thing is essentially a city built into the walls of a giant pit. There will be a descending spiral ramp road leading down into the pit with bridges connecting it to the fort proper.

[Broseph Stalin]

Bigger rooms = More stuff strewn everywhere = Less FPS = Less pretty,

Not only that but if you give each dwarf some basic amenities 3x3 easilly becomes "fine" and if you engrave it "Grand" anything bigger is essentially inviting the nobles to cry about how traumatic it is to have a room that's only fifty times nicer than everyone elses.

[MasterMorality]

Generalised central staircase, but to keep things interesting I mix it up and branch paths off at random intervals. This also helps in case of invaders breaking in or a forgotten beast rampaging around, traps and hallways all over the fortress, with rooms and stairways that branch off here and there.

It  helps to slow things down, too, by spreading the inhabitants out, so some never even see the rampaging dwarf over there, or the goblin in the stockpile disemboweling the cheese maker with a carving knife. I have multiple stockpiles, work rooms and dining rooms and meeting rooms across various Z levels, which also creates interesting nuances and divides the population up in a semi-sporadic fashion.

I usually have a Z level for things like catacombs - somewhere below the hospital and above the caverns.

Takes a long time to carve out but it's definitely cool. If you can get to them in adventure mode, it's good fun.

[Castamere]

long entrance for all kinds of traps that I may devise, preferably into a mountainside
all is connected by a large ramp staircase. Worshops are usually on z+1 level with all its stockpiles one z above them. Same with cattle khm ordinary dorf dorms so that they are close at hand to do the things that haulers do
On z level, there is the 2z deep grand dining room, usually 20*20 with a mist generator and 3 rows of tables. There are food stockpiles near the entrance. Food production is also on the same level.
On z-1 level are the important dorf rooms, noble rooms
And noone are vertically above/belove each other. I hate that. Especially when a cavein penetrates all of the sections or I devise a plumbing system that can't function becouse the noble has its room right belove the contruction site. And I'm too lazy for relocation.
Mining entrances are along the main hallway, but cavern entrances are the same as surface one; long and full of traps
Barracks are usually close to the entrance of the fort for the quick response.
As in this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Urist Da Vinci]

Bigger rooms = More stuff strewn everywhere = Less FPS = Less pretty,

Not only that but if you give each dwarf some basic amenities 3x3 easilly becomes "fine" and if you engrave it "Grand" anything bigger is essentially inviting the nobles to cry about how traumatic it is to have a room that's only fifty times nicer than everyone elses.

IIRC the nobles are actually upset that everyone else has above a certain quality of room (uppity peasants!), and don't actually compare their room with other peoples, so you can't just give your nobles correspondingly better rooms.

[SRD]

long entrance for all kinds of traps that I may devise, preferably into a mountainside
all is connected by a large ramp staircase. Worshops are usually on z+1 level with all its stockpiles one z above them. Same with cattle khm ordinary dorf dorms so that they are close at hand to do the things that haulers do
On z level, there is the 2z deep grand dining room, usually 20*20 with a mist generator and 3 rows of tables. There are food stockpiles near the entrance. Food production is also on the same level.
On z-1 level are the important dorf rooms, noble rooms
And noone are vertically above/belove each other. I hate that. Especially when a cavein penetrates all of the sections or I devise a plumbing system that can't function becouse the noble has its room right belove the contruction site. And I'm too lazy for relocation.
Mining entrances are along the main hallway, but cavern entrances are the same as surface one; long and full of traps
Barracks are usually close to the entrance of the fort for the quick response.
As in this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

-snip-

DIAGONAL FLOORS? DAFUQ.

[Castamere]

DIAGONAL FLOORS? DAFUQ.

why is that strange? divides my fort into easy seperatable sectors, fort becomes moria-like and leaves a lot of room around the sectors own z levels to plan late-fort project as f.e. plumbing, right into-the-dining-room excecution drop, expanding sectors
And I usually don't go over 100 dorfs, so I don't get lost in my own fortress

Well this is my formal fort design. I am also an avid lover of organic forts, chisseled out into the first cavern layer, especially if it consists of marble.

[SRD]

I've never ever seen someones fort consist of diagonal hallways.


(Lol)

[rtg593]

Bigger rooms = More stuff strewn everywhere = Less FPS = Less pretty,

Not only that but if you give each dwarf some basic amenities 3x3 easilly becomes "fine" and if you engrave it "Grand" anything bigger is essentially inviting the nobles to cry about how traumatic it is to have a room that's only fifty times nicer than everyone elses.

My dwarves all live in grand 2x2 rooms, some are royal, due to the occasional gold or gem floor.

Noble's are in 5x5's full of masterwork crap to get their royal rooms higher than the normal dwarves. Last fort the baroness was traumatized because the managers office was nicer than hers. Finally killed her.

[Castamere]

I've never ever seen someones fort consist of diagonal hallways.


(Lol)

You do know that dwarfs move a lot faster diagonally than horizontally or vertically?

[eataTREE]

Commoners get 2x2 bedrooms in my forts; a smoothed, engraved 2x2 with masterwork furniture is a Legendary bedroom if I feel like being especially nice to one. I make large use of vertical space and my forts tend to be longer in the Z-dimension than any other. (This design habit has the nifty side effect that I can use FPS-maintaining 3x3 embarks and not feel cramped.) I avoid the use of central stairways or shafts; I have several stairwells of 5-7 Z-levels and also major hallways have branches that ramp up and down between levels, making my fortress crutch-accessable and compliant with the Dwarves with Disabilities Act Making a central shaft the only route through your fortress is a sure path to !!FUN!! when a FB decides to sit down at the bottom of the stairs...

I tend to sort industries into logistical categories, each of which goes together in its own space. "Food" goes in a soil layer (if there is one) and is always the first to be built. Food storage, brewing, farming, and butchery/tanning/refuse all go here. "Hot" crafts include all metalwork, pottery, and glass-making, and have dedicated feed stockpiles of metal bars, clay, and sandbags. "Furniture" includes masonry, carpentry, mechanics, and crossbow-making, and are organized with easy access to the wood stockpile and the furniture vault. "Cold" crafts includes all other crafts that do not require fuel or magma, such as jewelry or carving; these tend to go together in a crafting hall with easy access to the finished goods and raw materials stockpiles. Once I have basic industry set up, I build separate facilities for decorations and improvement. These consist of small stockpiles set to only take masterwork items, above and below which are jewelry and crafting workshops and perhaps a regular forge (studding with metal uses no fuel). "The Military" is also an industry of sorts which goes together: stockpiles for armor, weapons, and ammo, plus a multi-lane firing range. If possible I try to make it such that pathing in from the front door takes you immediately past where the soldiers train.

I hate squares and tend to avoid them in larger spaces. For medium-sized rooms whose purpose suggests no special shape, I like rounded corners and pillars. Large spaces tend to be made up of interconnected stalls and bays where workshops and furniture go, plus supporting columns periodically through any large open space; even though I didn't even play DF in the days when they were actually required, they look nice and they can be engraved.

The Trade Depot is always made relatively fancy, centered in a large symmetrical space with surrounding columns, etc. To make a good impression on those Elven merchants donctha know.

[FalseDead]

The Trade Depot is always made relatively fancy, centered in a large symmetrical space with surrounding columns, etc. To make a good impression on those Elven merchants donctha know.

Ideally, those columns are made of wood right?

My bedrooms are about 2x3 and include bed(duh), cabinet, table, chair, hyperspace food stockpile, and embedded in the wall a statue.

Each room is also the designated dining room of the occupant, the food stock pile is so that when I inevitably lock them in their room the can survive.

Keeps socialization down making tantrum spiral more manageable

[Alidus]

I'm sort of random as I go with designs but one key element that I center around almost always is either a mist generator or waterfall that everyone passes frequently, usually by making it the way to the meeting area or dining hall. Another thing that I build around is a well.

These things are so crucial to me that I will move everything else accordingly if I need to in order to fit them in.

[WaffleEggnog]

With my new Fort, im trying a completly new design (that i came up with) that is much different then anything else i have done before.

In my opinion, i dont care what my fort looks like, so keep in mind that this is not the most pretty fort, and that iv just started, and im n an evil biome. So yeah. I try to make my forts minimal. Rooms no bigger then they half to be, No more workshops then there has too be, etc, thats why everything seems so small, and compact compared to other forts. I assure you it funtions very well, even with 130+ dorfs (i just started, but dem migrants....).

#1, A cut-off portion of my "great line of workshops" to show you the design. Its baisicaly a stockpile of the stuff the workshop uses under the workshops (with the exeption of the mason's workshop, which has a dump) then random finished goods (ie. furnature) stockpiles scatered around, with varying sizes of stockpiles and amounts of workshops.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 

#2, The food area.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 

#3, Main area. To the right is the gravyard, to the left are the nobles quartres (with a reindeer in it :1), at the bottom is housing and at the top is the dining hall, and soon to be hospital if i ever get around to it. That big room with the pillers goes several z-levels up, btw.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 

#4, My very early stage, spaceship-like metal industry. In the middle is the smelters, under them is the ore, to the right is the fuel and wood furnaces, to the left is flux and crating furnaces (glass furnace and kiln). Above the smelters is were the finished bars go, with metalsmiths workshops ready to make weapons.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 

Edit;#5, Above ground area. Baisicaly the only interesting thing here is the cistern. If your wondering about the lack of evil, i wanted to embark on an evil beach (as long as iv played, i have never been on a beach before, and i wanted a challenge) but could only find a map were the bottom half of the site was forest/beach and the top half, PURE EVIL. I wanted to build there so that rain wouldent pwn everyone when i was starting out and because i like beaches :3. I assure you there is NO lack of evil.
Level 1;

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 

Level 2;

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 

So, what you think? I would areciate any feedback you can give me.

[Count Dorku]

I used to always open with a short, trap-encrusted 3x11 hallway leading to a bulky chamber containing my depot, but after reading some stuff about defensive arrangements on the wiki, I've started going for a longer and more complicated path 5 squares across, leading to a depot at least one floor below the entrance and protected by siege weapons. Typically, I put a huge finished goods stockpile near that, to minimise Bring Item to Depot time. I've started making sure all major arterial halls are 3 across, but I never dig them diagonally - I find it aesthetically unpleasant. My entrance defences have graduated from "walls of weapon and cage traps" to "long drops, drowning chambers, catapult emplacements AND walls of weapon and cage traps", and so I've had to make the path longer.

Typically, I set up a huge dorm layer for the peons (read: non-nobles) on one level, then a furnace layer (with all my workshops) several storeys below because I'm not entirely sure how noise works. Recently, I've started working on actually arranging them by material used, rather than just slapping in new ones wherever there's a space and calling it good. I always put in a large open-air dining room; I usually put in mist generators, since I almost never embark in a place without a river or brook; and I invariably place at least one huge food stockpile right next to it.

For my next fort, I'm planning to do at least one large room with a wood-covered floor. Not for aesthetics or anything, just as a cheap kind of wood storage.