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[taptap]

Symmetry is a serious design flaw imho, yet all of my fortresses end up being highly symmetrical. Typically 12 5x5 rooms around the staircase per level in large fortresses I had at times a second central staircase... but this isn't the kind of fortress I am wishing for. Even the fractal designs in the wiki are after all symmetrical - any inspirational designs out there?

[Triaxx2]

I ascribe to an as I need it layout. I always end up putting things where I have room for them than where it's best for them to go. I do try to retain some consistency. Bedrooms on the left, workshops on the right. Perhaps separated by 20-50z, but from the main entrance, that's how I lay it out.

[StubbornAlcoholic]

Unfortunately, all my forts tend to look the same, again, with the kind of symmetry you describe. I try to plan them out to look different, but it never really works that way because there's always some practical reason that I can't build it more "eccentrically".

Basically I have a bed setup (lots of small rooms connected to a thin corridor) that I usually macro, since it's a pain to do it manually. So my bedrooms for the masses are identical fort-to-fort. Then I have my stockpiles, which are usually large square rooms with the appropriate workshop shoved in with them, again for convenience and also to set them up speedily (to avoid early fort problems).

After that I have a sort of late-game laissez-faire about it all, my less important workshops (clothier, etc.) get chucked in with the early workshops and I end up with a cluttered work level. Then it's usually not-very-much-at-all until magma Z-level, at which point I have a blocky magma forge area.

So...yeah. The real variation in my forts comes in the form of noble accomodation etc.

[Hurkyl]

Try building large parts of your fort mainly in veins and clusters of ore.

[Larix]

I generally build my forts as need arises, with no planning whatsoever before striking the earth. Even if a level starts out very planful and symmetrical, the layout can still change fundamentally when i decide to enlarge a room, add some rooms or even split a too-large purposeless room into several smaller rooms. Residential areas start out fairly symmetrical, but i tend to come up with different layouts quite often, so two residential wings can look very differently.

Workshops are generally placed wherever there's open space and where the paths look reasonably short by the time i build them. My manufacturing levels are typically large and somewhat irregular halls; they frequently end up in one of the levels i mine for stone, and mining is definitely not done in a symmetrical fashion.

[Sutremaine]

I like to keep a long spiral 'staircase' just big enough for a wagon, running straight from the surface downwards, and then create rooms and traps and things as necessary.

[Maw]

Try designing a fort around a valley's edges, where all rooms open out into the open space of the valley.  For security, build a fortified wall across the mouth of the valley and/or wall along the ridgetops rather than remove the ramps.  The randomness of the generator means you can't get regular cliff faces.  Bonus points for thing like putting Inns (small dining rooms) and making 'suburbs' (almost burrows).

Triple bonus points: doing the same thing, but from embark going right for the first cavern level and fortifying a cavern.

[Ashery]

Abandon central staircases and that'll dramatically change your layout. I go even a step further and only use stairs for multilevel digging projects.

[joeclark77]

I tried a new design with a j-bend in my main entrance hallway (the idea was that invaders would not be able to shoot dwarves in the central stair) and found that was a major catalyst for more asymmetrical architecture.  I started building stuff around the various corners and it just grew from there.

I usually place my coffins in mined-out veins of ore, it gives my catacombs a very organic feel.

[Virlomi]

There's a few things I tend to stick to.

Stockpiles are 10x10, 20x20, 30x30 as needed.

Workshops are planned ahead to be dug out with enough room for them to be placed in, with 1 tile wide entrance. Got a crazy I can't satisfy? Fine, he can rot in there.

Workshops also tend to get grouped into areas. This is all my rock crafting area, this is my food processing zone, the butcher's WAAAAAAY over there, bedrooms look like apartments, etc.

Farms always 10x10, with undug dirt on 3 sides, and a single tile walkway in front of them. Usually have a 9x9 grid of 10x10 farms, with the center 10x10 being the stairs up/down to the kitchen and food stockpiles. Around the stairs are small seed stockpiles, so should always have some handy immediately for replanting. If not, there's a secondary seed pile 20x20 above/below on the way to the kitchens Z level for excess seeds.

I plan big... and it always falls through when I need to divert to make something or add something.

My current map I've got a volcano on it, so I'm being careful to build the side of it, planning my big bullet points: 1) Farming area, 2) Dining area, 3) Rooms, 4) Stockpiles with Trade Depot quick access, and 5) Workshops.

[Ianflow]

Try designing a fort around a valley's edges, where all rooms open out into the open space of the valley.  For security, build a fortified wall across the mouth of the valley and/or wall along the ridgetops rather than remove the ramps.  The randomness of the generator means you can't get regular cliff faces.  Bonus points for thing like putting Inns (small dining rooms) and making 'suburbs' (almost burrows).

Triple bonus points: doing the same thing, but from embark going right for the first cavern level and fortifying a cavern.

I think Taverns would work better for the small dining rooms
I'd say extra bonus points if Taverns are specially made above ground, and tailored to make the occupants a home. Though, taverns are often similar or the same as Inns, I personally think Taverns have more of a dining room/bar scene than inns.
I like the valley concept

To Virlomi, I heard 4x4 farm plots reduce lag more than large farm plots for some reason....
I love your design for efficiency though : D

[Maw]

I think Taverns would work better for the small dining rooms
I'd say extra bonus points if Taverns are specially made above ground, and tailored to make the occupants a home. Though, taverns are often similar or the same as Inns, I personally think Taverns have more of a dining room/bar scene than inns.

Good pick up!

[taptap]

Try building large parts of your fort mainly in veins and clusters of ore.

This is a great idea. Would make it much more "organic". I fear with very rare mineral occurrence I might lack sufficient amounts of ore for building, my current embark has deep metal + flux on 1 tile and deep metals on the 3 other tiles - or does it only affect the world map but the veins that exist have the same size? Probably will try to make my fortress directly above the magma sea + in the ore veins - just need a bit of preparation to get water and agriculture down there.

What I did before was hugging cavern walls or hollowing huge pillars in the cavern - but by the time I got there I already build most of fortress to really use these areas. I only once had a real cliff (and perfectly flat and clean white desert in front of it - it was an amazing embark)

Abandon central staircases and that'll dramatically change your layout. I go even a step further and only use stairs for multilevel digging projects.

Central staircase just happens to be the shortest connection. How do you build without central staircase without increasing hauls and travel time too much? Before I didn't have exclusively central staircases (in fact I used a central staircase made from winding ramps in my last fort) but still it was the main feature for vertical connections - of course you could substitute with ramps but how to decentralize? Or maybe I shouldn't worry too much about efficiency because I will have huge surplus of everything anyway.

The people who make 10x10 farmplots: You have something like 1000 dwarves? I have surplus on a couple of 2x5 farm plots and still time (fps) is slowing down. Do you play your fortress any longer than 5 years?

[Ashery]

Abandon central staircases and that'll dramatically change your layout. I go even a step further and only use stairs for multilevel digging projects.

Central staircase just happens to be the shortest connection. How do you build without central staircase without increasing hauls and travel time too much? Before I didn't have exclusively central staircases (in fact I used a central staircase made from winding ramps in my last fort) but still it was the main feature for vertical connections - of course you could substitute with ramps but how to decentralize? Or maybe I shouldn't worry too much about efficiency because I will have huge surplus of everything anyway.

While my main burst of activity occurred during 40d, I generally found/find the need for efficiency to be wildly overstated. The spiral ramp, while having a different look from a central staircase, still encourages the same design philosophy that you indicated you were trying to distance yourself from in your original post.

I'm not quite sure how to answer the "How?" question regarding decentralization. While my first forts followed the common efficiency formula, I quickly got bored with that and started focusing on more atypical designs. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I enjoy coming up with potential layouts more than I enjoy the actual game, heh.

Minecarts can also dramatically reduce the efficiency loss when well designed, and despite their tendency to encourage a spiral ramp that runs almost the entire z-length of a fortress, you don't *have* to incorporate said spiral into your fortress proper.

[Triaxx2]

Stockpile fix is easy. Big central stockpiles only accept one type of item. Build workshops in a 'stockpile sandwich'. One raw material stockpile, descend one level, workshop, descend another level, finished goods for that workshop.

For magma workshops, Finished goods>Raw Materials>Workshop.