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[Mohreb el Yasim]

I have hard time to preview the ideal size of a fortress,and making it too big is as well a problemme as making it to small; so i would like to ask how big do you make your fortresses? (in Uristē) even more what does a typical fortress includes (how many workshops, how big barack(s)? how big dining hall(s)?  how many farm(s)? what else you put in your fortress?

[wierd]

This is an unfair question.

Really tall fortresses (many z levels) are more efficient than wide single Z fortresses for dwarf pathing distances. (1z is 1 tile!)
However, this runs into a memory allocation issue, in that each exposed Z level requires an investment of resources from DF to simulate.

Usually, as a rule of thumb, tall fortresses run better than wide, flat ones, but you will have to plan the routes dwarves would take more studiously to get this advantage.

[Uthric]

I build as I move deeper aka how ever the ore is played out.

[Mitre]

I enjoy micro-forts much more than large ones; Purrhaps because I've never ran a successful large fort.

I usually stick to one square Urist, and spoil all my little dwarflings.

[Mohreb el Yasim]

This is an unfair question.

Really tall fortresses (many z levels) are more efficient than wide single Z fortresses for dwarf pathing distances. (1z is 1 tile!)

well my question was more for a summ of surface  if you have 50 Uristē on 4 levels it makes 200 Uristē.
of course it is not the same tall / or flat but they migth be close enougth / comparable in this way of calcul.

edit:

I enjoy micro-forts much more than large ones; Purrhaps because I've never ran a successful large fort.

I usually stick to one square Urist, and spoil all my little dwarflings.

i assume your squere Ursit is an embark screen (48*48 tiles) (wich i would call 2304 Uristsē) but sure; it is not standardized

[wierd]

Some interesting designs I have seen exploit diagonal movement bonuses. Dwarves prefer to move in cardinal directions, but move faster when traveling diagonally.

The idea behind multi-z design is like this:

(Z1)

+++WWW+++
++>WWW+++
+++WWW+++

(Z2)
+++PPPPPP
++<PPPPPP
+++PPPPPP

Distance from (W)orkshop to stock(P)ile? 2 tiles!
This becomes more useful when you have workshops with inter-related products, like a dyer's workshop and a clothier's workshop, and 3 different types of stockpile.


(Z0)
FFFF++++
FFFF>+++
FFFF++++

(Z1)
YYY+KKK
YYYXKKK
YYY+KKK

(Z2)
CCCCQMMMM
CCCCXMMMM
CCCCQMMMM

(Z3)
ffff+pppp
ffff<pppp
ffff+pppp


Where (F)inished goods get moved up, the d(Y)er's workshop and the (K)lothier's work shop are near each other directly above the (M)illed goods and (C)lothing stockpiles, with (Q)uerns between them,  and (f)ood stockpiles and farm (p)lots on the bottom.

This chain is designed to maximize the speed of dying and image additions on already made cloth.  Easily modified for a full cloth industry chain.  This method reduces maximum travel between workshops to under 6 tiles per operation.

[Mushroo]

I like an 11x11 tile fortress (with stairwells along the edges) and then I build down as I need more space. A mature fortress for me might consist of 11x11 stacked over 20 or 30 z-levels, with various side tunnels for mining/magma/exploration. If I decide to graduate from legendary dormitories to individual bedrooms (a luxury, not a necessity) then I have a macro that digs 1x4 bedrooms (door, coffer, cabinet, bed) along the edges of the 11x11 squares, this yields 24 bedrooms per z-level (6 per 11 square edge), and a mayor/baron/king/noble might get an entire z-level as their bedroom.

[Nuoya]

My inspiration has always been boatmurdered and it has ingrained horizontal-fort-asthetics into my mind o_o

I use z-levels branching off a central staircase for storage (a 9x9 room for bed storage, a 9x9 room for buckets, etc...) but I always try to make the main fort right (bedrooms, dining halls, statue gardens) on the same zlevel as the entrance. To this end I use minecarts and their quantum stockpiling effects to help maximize space efficiency. I'll have the minecart dump, say, stonecrafting stones and rough gems onto a tile and build 4 workshops around it. 4 workshops is usually my standard for everything actually, even though it's not always necessary for things like leatherworks and dyeing. I put a barracks near the entrance, usually just a 9x9 to 12x12 square.

Farms: a skilled grower and a 4x4 year round plump helmet farm can support around 80 dwarves. Add another 4x4 with whatever suits your fancy to ensure booze variety and food surplus. You can supplement this very easily with non-grazing livestock like pigs or dogs.

Here's an example from a fort I've just started:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I intend to use this small hill as a factory while I slowly carve into the huge mountain to the left. I have about 50% of the major industries crammed into just that one zlevel. Topleft has minecarts that dump pigtails and any thread to the farmers workshops and looms. Topright has minecarts dumping cloth and leather for the clothing and leatherwork shops. Bottomleft has obsidian for 4 mason shops and bottomright has junk stone and gems for stonecrafting and jewlery.

Carpentry is on a zlevel midway between the caverns and the surface. I usually separate carpentry because wood is one material that I actually don't like to quantum stockpile; I like being able to see exactly how much is stored. Metalsmithing is also ends up becoming the biggest industry and requires a dedicated zlevel later on.



Anyway, if you absolutely want to maximize efficiency you should definitely go the staircaise route, but you should have a staircase in the center AND in all four corners. Always try to make sure your dwarves can path diagonally as well.

[Necrisha]

And the number of workshops depend on your goals and how many dwarves, which is limited mainly by your patience level and capacities of your computer. And how compact you like to build or whether you like the option of walls around the workshop versus open areas, how much planning is done for the area before you start digging. Whether you are setting up mine carts, cleaning areas, mist generators, burrows...Another good question is whether you tree farm in any soil layers or run a fortress without seed farming as that changes layouts quite a bit too.

Essentially unless you know exactly what you're doing it's hard to tell how much space you need/want for what projects you're thinking about. I've just recently started developing fortresses that aren't built with constantly staggered staircases for level by level defence, because I'm usually not embarking anywhere where it's absolutely necessary. I still have lock down points because I like the idea of being able to say screw the siege I'm ignoring you; no matter how close they get before some dorf decides to get off his arse and pull the lever.

I like having my forts span at least 5 z-levels though.

[moki]

Since I don't necessarily go for maximum efficiency, I don't care much for "ideal" fortresses. At the beginning, I build as much as necessary plus a few rooms as reserve for that extra-large migration wave. Once everything works as intended and I'm at the population cap, I build as big as I want can. Barracks can be 3x3, you can cram 25 workshops into 15x15 tiles and giant walls, towers and temples for all the gods are absolutely unnecessary, but they're fun to plan and build. Having 100-200 dwarves and keeping them safe and happy is not that hard in most environments, but Dwarf Fortress is one of those games that only starts to be Fun (with a capital F) when you make it more difficult than it needs to be.

The most efficient layout is probably a vertical one with one central staircase and all the rooms as close as possible to that. If you want to make it as small as possible, 35x35 and 8 z-levels is plenty for all the farms, workshops and bedrooms to support 200 dwarves with a diverse selection of jobs. Smaller is always possible, but at some point you'll have to dump individual rooms for your dwarves and most stuff that makes them happy.

A typical basic fort contains a 2x2 room for every dwarf, 11x11 training barracks, 11x11 dining room, about 150 tiles of farms, 3 stills, 2 farmers workshops, 2 butchers, 2 tanners, 2 kitchens, 3-5 craftsdwarf's shops, 4-6 masons, 5 smelters, 3 forges and at least one of every other workshop. In addition to that, there are noble's quarters, burial chambers (just 11x11 rooms full of coffins), a luxurious jail and of course various stockpiles as needed.
Recently I build everything except the bedrooms in 11x11 rooms because such a system makes planning and designating easy. Such a room can be fitted with 9 workshops (walkable path between them) or 4 farmplots of 5x5 tiles. As a stockpile, 121 tiles are also a good size and if more is needed (mostly for food and furniture) more rooms can easily be added. The central room of each level has a 3 tile wide spiraling ramp like this:

Code: [Select]


...........
...........
..ooov.....
..ooov.....
..ooov.....
..oooo^^^..
..ooooooo..
..ooooooo..
..ooooooo..
..ooooooo..
...........
...........
Stairs could be faster, but I like the trade depot to be on a lower level and have full wagon access.
Additional stairs are only added where they're practical. For example, the food-related workshops are right under the farms and both rooms have stairs at all corners for fastest possible access. Similarly, mason's workshops are on the level between stone and furniture stockpiles with stairs between them, so there's no need to carry everything to the spiral ramp and back.

[wierd]

Efficiency is important when running micro-forts, where you just cant spare any dwarfpower to ridiculous wastes in transport or reaction time.  That is why I suggested the high efficiency stack design above.  Z0 represents "The surface", inside the fortress's walls, under a closed in top, near the depot. The primary function of the stack is to process foreign goblinite cloth and leather clothing into something that can be exported as a tribute, with as little wasted transport time as possible without adding complexities of wheelbarrows or minecarts.

[Koremu]

I tend to build mini-fort "pods", where each caters for one particular part of the fortresses needs, with the relevant inhabitants burrowed within. A child can be born, live and die knowing no other existence than the magma forges and the regular rumble of the minecarts which bring in the rationed biscuits.

[Hyndis]

I prefer building my fortress on a single level if at all possible, but the FPS hit from having a large area can be bothersome.

Lately I've been constructing my fortresses under oceans. I embark on a 4x4 or 5x5 zone, but only the very corner tile is land. The remainder of the embark area is water. This lets me build up a nice gatehouse right in the corner, but the rest of the embark is not pathable, so it should save on FPS. It also makes it easy to channel all visitors right through the gatehouse where my military is on duty to greet all visitors.

Then I build below ground. I'm a fan of high ceilings. Great halls maybe be 4 or even 5 levels high, but they're just empty space, though fully smoothed and engraved. I try to put as much of the fortress on a single level so I can keep track of everything better. It also looks nicer.

[Loud Whispers]

I have hard time to preview the ideal size of a fortress,and making it too big is as well a problemme as making it to small; so i would like to ask how big do you make your fortresses? (in Uristē) even more what does a typical fortress includes (how many workshops, how big barack(s)? how big dining hall(s)?  how many farm(s)? what else you put in your fortress?

I like my Forts really big.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Tag: Silentthunders ahoy

It just feels really awesome when it takes a day for a Dwarf to get from one end of the Fort to another.

[Vehudur]

+5 for epicness, -2 for bad framerates.

You've still got a 3, though.  That counts for quite a bit

May I ask how many in-game years that took?

Also, my wall designation hurts