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[jonanlsh]

Hi everyone.

I'd like to ask you all for an honest assessment of my fortress. Its my 5th one, and probably my most successful of the five.

The DFMA link is here:http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-11672-polishseals

I hope to breach the next two caverns within the next 2 years.

Thanks for reading!

[Fishybang]

Way better than mine, and ive been playing since 2011, and this is really only your 5th one?

8/10

[smakemupagus]

Looks nice.  Props for the solid dwarfish iron furniture and steel architecture.

[Em3rgency]

Love the design. I have a problem with the living quarters though. It seems like the majority of your dwarves would have to go to their room through other peoples rooms. That just bugs me. Your burial chambers on the other hand have corridor access to each tomb. I think the dead would enjoy visitors through their tombs (even if just on their way to another tomb) more than the living in their quarters. So, in my opinion, the layouts should have been flipped

[jonanlsh]

Love the design. I have a problem with the living quarters though. It seems like the majority of your dwarves would have to go to their room through other peoples rooms. That just bugs me. Your burial chambers on the other hand have corridor access to each tomb. I think the dead would enjoy visitors through their tombs (even if just on their way to another tomb) more than the living in their quarters. So, in my opinion, the layouts should have been flipped

On the subject of that, I intended to seal the dead into their tombs with a wall that fits the surrounding stone.
So its like if the dead woke up, and opened their tomb door, it would just be an unbreakable wall.

[Em3rgency]

well, you would need a necromancer to get in there to wake up the dead first. So maybe a bridge with a pressure plate attached? Necro walks into the tombs past the bridge, steps on a plate, the bridge raises/retracts behind him. He resurrects friends to play with for all eternity.

[Catsup]

9/10 on aesthetics, looks cool

3/10 on internal safety (too much open space, extreme vulnerability to flying creatures; no internal traps, hatches, and doors to limit movement of hostiles that get inside) this fort would not survive well in a evil biome where undead may come back to life inside, and would die if a flying forgotten beast made of steel with deadly dust manages to get in.

2/10 on efficiency (long walking distances between workshops, stockpiles, bedrooms, and the dining room) walking distance is especially increased due to the large circular stairway that is mostly empty space.

[zzedar]

I'd need a bit more data on your stockpile design. What links do you have set up? What are your wheelbarrow settings? Are there smaller stockpiles for your workshops? Are the stockpiles just big lumps for each category, or do you have separate ones for, e.g., flux stone and common stone?

[Drazinononda]

As someone who plays small forts (2x2, pop cap at 60) I'd rate this fort very low for efficiency. Your spiral ramp has more floor space than my entire fort.

It looks nice though.

[DWC]

Like Draz said, your fort is just a totally different style then what I go for, I don't really make rooms larger then 7x7. The main thing that ocd's me are the huge sprawling stockpiles (especially of rock) are terribly inefficient and look pretty bad too. But you certainly are mining out way more rock then I do, so it's more an aesthetic issue probably.

I'm also a little awed by the acres upon acres of dead invaders and detritus strewn everywhere.

[jonanlsh]

I'd need a bit more data on your stockpile design. What links do you have set up? What are your wheelbarrow settings? Are there smaller stockpiles for your workshops? Are the stockpiles just big lumps for each category, or do you have separate ones for, e.g., flux stone and common stone?

On the topic of that, stockpile links are a nightmare. I tend to let my fortress run in the background, only taking direct intervention when traders come or when stupid kobolds or goblins pay a visit, or any other game pausing events.
All non-stone stockpiles have wheelbarrows to 0, as I have 50 idle dwarves at any given time.
All stone stockpiles have wheelbarrows to the max. I subdivided some of my stockpiles into smaller zones, to maximise stone hauling.
I admit, I have used quantum stockpiles to quickly clear large areas of stone (cough cough tomb cough). I try to reclaim all that stone after its all neatly in a pile.

[zzedar]

All non-stone stockpiles have wheelbarrows to 0, as I have 50 idle dwarves at any given time.
All stone stockpiles have wheelbarrows to the max. I subdivided some of my stockpiles into smaller zones, to maximise stone hauling.

Personally, I like to have a few wheelbarrows ready for furniture installation -- one small stockpile near the bedrooms that only holds a few items of furniture, set to take from links only, pulling via wheelbarrow from the much larger stockpile near the workshops.

With stone, I sometimes (depending on how far away the stone is, how quickly I'll be churning through it, whether I'll be using it constantly or in bursts, etc.) will start with wheelbarrows to fill it up, and then disable them once I've got a nice baseline, since having a lot of dwarves working on it may be better than fewer but faster dwarves. This has the advantage that the hauling helps to keep them in shape. (Of course, a lot of dwarves pathfinding all at once can reduce fps, but it's probably not that large an impact).

Edit: Waitasec. Am I missing something or do you have no rock blocks whatsoever in your stockpile?
Second edit: Oh, I see, they're in with the bars, is that right? Doesn't look like you have many of them, unless they're all in bins. I'd make some more. On that note, I'd also get more bins -- with so many bars sitting out of bins, you must have a bin shortage.

[jonanlsh]

All non-stone stockpiles have wheelbarrows to 0, as I have 50 idle dwarves at any given time.
All stone stockpiles have wheelbarrows to the max. I subdivided some of my stockpiles into smaller zones, to maximise stone hauling.

Personally, I like to have a few wheelbarrows ready for furniture installation -- one small stockpile near the bedrooms that only holds a few items of furniture, set to take from links only, pulling via wheelbarrow from the much larger stockpile near the workshops.

With stone, I sometimes (depending on how far away the stone is, how quickly I'll be churning through it, whether I'll be using it constantly or in bursts, etc.) will start with wheelbarrows to fill it up, and then disable them once I've got a nice baseline, since having a lot of dwarves working on it may be better than fewer but faster dwarves. This has the advantage that the hauling helps to keep them in shape. (Of course, a lot of dwarves pathfinding all at once can reduce fps, but it's probably not that large an impact).

Edit: Waitasec. Am I missing something or do you have no rock blocks whatsoever in your stockpile?
Second edit: Oh, I see, they're in with the bars, is that right? Doesn't look like you have many of them, unless they're all in bins. I'd make some more. On that note, I'd also get more bins -- with so many bars sitting out of bins, you must have a bin shortage.

True that. I have a slight wood shortage in my embark zone. All my bins are made out of either iron or steel. Currently the bins go to the Trade Depot stockpile for trading. Getting the steel and iron bars is the hard part. Its a rather slow process, not helped by the size of my workshop and stockpile area.

[Psieye]

Impressive architecture and horrible management of the smaller details of industry - doubly dwarfy.

I tend to go the other direction: I don't give much attention to architecture and I'm already magma smelting by the end of spring in the first year after charting out where the 3 underground layers are.

[jonanlsh]

Impressive architecture and horrible management of the smaller details of industry - doubly dwarfy.

I tend to go the other direction: I don't give much attention to architecture and I'm already magma smelting by the end of spring in the first year after charting out where the 3 underground layers are.

All my fortresses before this one have been massive wrecks of management and architecture. This fortress was a chance to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible, with management taking a back seat.