I've actually had thoughts churning for a new fort the last few weeks, one that was aesthetically designed; with FPS, stockpile efficiency, noise (minor in the newest versions), defense, and fluid flow needs in mind. I've been thinking of including such concepts as wet-wall plans for water distribution, a shaft of gears for power distribution throughout the fort, multi-level factories suchs as obsidian and GCS silk production, leaving z levels for water distribution for mist generators, perhaps sharing floors with storage. Also, once designed, there will be no simple traps except a few cage traps once in a while to provide entertainment in the arenas. (Grand mega project 'traps' like the rapid reset magma-powered goblinite reclamation facility are planned) The general concept will be:
Surface: three tier defenses (outer, inner, claimed), claimed area for grazing/lumber, outer defenses will be a wall with a bridge over a moat hooked to levers. inner defenses will be a second wall with two bridge/moat combos, leaving the further one down and the close one closed, with the outer bridge open and
kittens'detection units' pastured in the space between to detect ambushes with enough time to close the inner airlock. In the case of migrants or merchants, once the otuer walls are passed, the outer airlock doors will be closed and the closer bridge will be lowered. A third wall will completely enclose the pasture/farms/forest, and will only be accessable from within the fort. Burrows will only allow haulers/butchers/lumberjacks to this area, and even then, only the completely enclosed section. once the walls and bridges are finished, no dwarf will exit the fortress except to replace
kittens detection units.
The fortress will be designed around a central spiral ramp, with central area for artifact display, central gathering areas for happy dwarf thoughts (noticing sublime statues, impressive upright weapons, etc.) I'm debating with myself if I want to channel and rebuild or dig and engrave. I'm leaning towards engraving and leaving the surface and it's wretched daystar for the zookeepers. Proper dwarfs have cave adaptation.
Around the central column will radiate floors that are carved in either tiled, hexagonal, or other fractal designs, where possible, with the general floor-plan as such:
Here's the png I throw into DF helper for one floor of workshops using DFHelper. This is sized for a 4x4 embark.
Which translates into this:
http://imgur.com/n5big-1: farms (food/tree/cloth) and plumbing access for mist generators. Access tunnels to the surface will also punch through this layer. In the case of river or aquifer, a water tap will also likely be installed on this layer, since it's more economical to use gravity to distribute water. The remaining space will be hollowed out (in an aestecially pleasing manner) for tree growth. Burrows will only allow farmers, haulers, lumberjacks, and butchers in and through this area. There will also be the top floor of an automated GCS silk farm here, with two tall (5 z level) pillars, upon which there will be one goblin and one tame GCS, or one tame GCS and one kitten. On the side where silk will be thrown, there will be a bridge linked to a pressure plate set to trigger when a dwarf walks over it, which will drop the strands 5 z-levels down below, where they will be gathered for production.
In the case of deep soil, -2 will be tree farm and plumbing access for mist generators, with said plumbing plans removed from -1. There will be a hole in this floor for the silk factory.
-3 (first stone layer) in the first stone layer you will find barracks surrounding the central column, and farm-product processing facilities further out from there. I plan to always have 4 squads on duty, and they will be located in each of the four directions from the central column, training. in the case of invaders, they will be activated but remain in the central column. I (partially) decided on ramps and a large central area to cut down on accidental falls down stairways or ledges on the part of dwarves. additionally, should the outside detectors somehow fail or fail to get replaced, invaders will not be able to enter the fortress without passing at least twenty steel clad angry beards. Past the training grounds, there will be some modest dining rooms and pantries to feed both the farmers, the crop processing dwarves, butchers and lumberjacks. Past the dining rooms, there will be farmers workshops to process plants into intermediate products, querns to grind up powders, a butcher shop, a tannery. Mist generators will be positioned over barracks, dining rooms and workshops (actually located on -2). Burrows will split the level, keeping non military dwarves out of the barracks, except for haulers (not this is the closest to 'outside' most dwarves will ever get, except the poor bastard who has to go perform maintenance on the [/s]kittens[/s] detection units. There will be holes in this floor for the silk and obsidian factories.
-4 in the layer immediately below the processing and barracks floor, there will be plumbing and power for mist generators (for -5), and stockpiles designed to receive food plants, and other products produced by the workshops above. There will be holes in this floor for the silk and obsidian factories.
-5 will be the primary production and trade layer, to include cloth, stone, leather, wood and consumables such as food, and drink. Stockpiles which are above will dictate placement of workshops, or vice versa. rooms closest to the central column will be finished goods stockpiles, accepting clothes, crafts, whatever I'm producing to trade. further out form the column will be the workshops producing goods to keep or be consumed by the fortress, such as furniture or booze/food. Somewhere on this floor is the gathering room of the silk factory. The gathering floor of the obsidian factory will also be on this floor, likely at the outside edge. I use a typical three floor obsidian factory with a bottom floor lava in and a second level water drop. it will also be where the Trade Depot is located.
-6 will be plumbing for mist generators for (-7) and storage for finished goods to be kept or used by the fort.
-7 will be the primary living/admin/entertainment floors, with large central rooms for hospital (will have a well punched into the plumbing on layer -8 ), main dining room, lavish prison, etc. I usually use another large (sealed) room for levers and the fortress bookkeeper/levermaster. He gets food and booze delivered to him via dump sites over holes in his roof. I typically leave space here for oddities such as the arena or other things that I don't always think of, and leave most of the actual sleeping rooms for level -9.
It's about this level that I start getting nervous about hitting the caverns. If I do punch into the caverns, I pray that I don't hit an underground sea, and for the most part continue my design with constructions instead of digging. I usually just punch into and completely seal off the column from the caverns. if I need a water source still, I'll dig over near it, punch a hole into it, put a grate over the hole and start my pump stack to fill the wet-wall.
-8 continues the pattern by being mostly plumbing, except that over the dwarf rooms, plumbing requires a lot more space, since it has to be distributed to much smaller rooms.
-9 is the bloc housing, usually fractally designed. several rooms are intentionally larger, and quite a few rooms will be made more valuable by mineral deposits. Try to determine the most valuable rooms and earmark them for nobility. The other nice rooms are given to founders or legendary craftsmen.
here I usually leave five floors of exploratory mining between the housing and crypts. I try to dig out everything that I want to claim as early as possible to get the noise complaints over quickly. After the five layers, I place the crypts because I like to engrave the crypt when the dwarf is interred, and this would cause noise complaints if it were within 4 z levels of the beds. I will also often hollow out large sections (usually in tiled or hexagonal patterns) and flood them in order to grow trees in a safe area. I'll usually mark off a good 40 x 40 area on two floors and build my power plant in this area as well.
Somewhere at the bottom of the fort, near the magma, I'll place the forges. If it's far enough away, I'll make the forges their own burrow with their own complete ecosystem of farming, housing, dining, etc.
Some variables that will effect this layout would be early magma access, sand/clay locations, aquifers, !!FUN!!, etc. Other than that, this is my general plan for a fortress, and it is always tweaked here and there depending on my embark site. I suppose I could, if I wished, get into the advanced world gen properties and ensure that I always have 15-20 floors before the caverns, but I want to hit the caverns usually, to release the spores and have a 'known' water source.
A few things that I'm usually 'missing' in my designs are a dwarf cleaning system, and some of the 'extra' crafts, such as bee industry, fishing, etc. I will usually tack on a dwarf cleaning system on every 'exit' from the fortress. But it usually ends up that I have blood and vomit covered military dwarves and the central area near the barracks. Which I usually leave alone, for flavor. I've heard if you define an area as an inactive meeting area, dwarves will clean it pretty quickly, so if you wanted to improve your FPS, you could clean it that way. As for syndrome inducing contaminantes, I'll send the military out to meet them if I even allow the military to engage them rather than guiding them into a trap and saving them for the arena.
Of course, while I'm digging/smoothing and laying out plumbing, the dwarves usually are living in the rain on the surface within a wooden pallisade until the first few floors are open enough to put up temporary workshops and bedrooms. But the first priority after hitting enough stone is building the three layers of walls to seal up the airlocks with. Another immediate need is the lever room. Once you have the lever room dug out, drop the next (preferably young, single, or if available, a vampire!) migrant in there and drop him the materials that he will need and assign the labors he'll need to build a bed, coffers, cabinet, etc. Give it a sub room with-in if you'd like so you can lock him in his bedroom while the mechanic expands the lever capabilities to completely prevent the possibility of socializing.