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[Loctavus]

That is not to say I don't know but I'm curious about what the habits of the community are.

Myself, I generally use a great big single meeting hall which forms the hub of my fortress. This is usually positioned with the main staircase of my fortress running up and down through the middle of it, so my guys hang out here when they have not much to do and have reasonably short distances to go when something crops up, or they need to attend to their basic needs.

My defences are usually designed to prevent anything hostile ever reaching this room. That said, when something does disaster usually follows. Typically because the something is a titanic steel firebreather.

I don't use statue gardens or a meeting place from the well. When I tried statue gardens in my earlier days of dwarf fortress I found half my fort being locked down for ages due to parties highly irritating. Especially as it seemed to be a permanant state of affairs until I tore down the statue garden again.

[Telgin]

In the past I didn't bother much with meeting halls.  I just let the dining hall serve as one and left it at that.  Parties weren't a huge problem for some reason.

In my second to last fort I tried a new technique intended to increase the number of friends (gasp!), which involved setting up numerous smaller (2x2 or 3x3) meeting halls in various locations.  That worked, and had a few side benefits.  I never had parties (presumably because of lack of space) and it made things look slightly more natural since dwarves would group up to socialize in places like my temple.

[VerdantSF]

I've stopped using them.  I had a memorial hall that created a lot of new friendships in my fort.  Then 2 popular dwarves died of old age and a tantrum spiral hit.  I have a mature fort (72 years at the time of the spiral) with lots of amenities/mood boosters.  Despite decades of everyone as happy as can be, the memorial hall friendships ripped the fortress apart.  I went from around 140 dwarves to 70.  Luckily I had lots of food, booze, coffins, and empty jail cells, or it could've been worse.  No more meeting halls or gathering spots of any kind for me!  If dwarves make friends in the course of their every day work schedule, that's fine, since it can't be avoided.  But I'm no longer going out of my way to encourage fortress-wide friendships.  Tantrum spirals are second only to FPS death in forts destroyed.

[matskuman5]

I always make big and fancy meeting halls, specifically for dwarves to make friends.
It adds challenge to the game, trying to hold everyone from dying.

I also designate them from tables, so they make parties.

Usually my second most important goal of a fortress is to
make every dwarf as happy as possible and to have lot's of friends.

[VerdantSF]

Challenge is great, but the tantrum spiral that hit my fortress wasn't from an avoidable death.  It was from old age.  With older forts, you eventually reach a point where one or more elderly dwarves die every year.  Before allowing friendships to increase with the memorial hall, my fortress was fine with the inevitable age-related deaths.  Once friendships increased, it all went to hell, despite the legendary food, legendary dining hall, palatial bedrooms, etc.

[Sirbug]

I've got large meeting dining rooms, statue gardens (often more then one), well meeting rooms, memorials. Why deny dorfs entertainment?

[matskuman5]

I very rarely get a death from old age as my fortresses are pretty young, and even then the dwarves can get through it.

They usually can get through a maximum of three deaths, but any more increases the risk of tantruming.
The thing is, the dwarves can handle a few deaths in a season, so a few deaths of old age don't matter,
but big massacres at once? They tantrum and go insane that makes big disasters much more difficult.

I like it because I usually get through things like a siege or a forgotten beast killing lots
of people easily, but with friends, there's the tantrum spiral and that makes it much harder.
I'd have to say, handling disasters and massacres is one of the most fun parts of the game and one of my specialties.

Also, I usually have a mediocre meeting hall, and communal bedrooms, but my dwarves still stay happy for some reason.

[VerdantSF]

I very rarely get a death from old age as my fortresses are pretty young, and even then the dwarves can get through it.

Oh, I got through it, but not until 61 dwarves lost their lives.  Many of them were third generation dwarves, the grandchildren of the original settlers & first two migrant waves.  Believe me, it's not fun watching a 72 year old fortress teeter on the brink of self-destruction.

[Loctavus]

Problem for me without a meeting hall is how to stop all my guys just wandering around and getting themselves perished by something. Friendships do seem to be something of a tantrum inducing hazard but I found the idiots hanging out outside and in other unhealthy spots. It was always someone I actually cared about that got wiped out in an ambush too, though I don't like loosing guys. I guess this is where personal bedrooms are best used. I tend to use dorms for my early years as I find designating bedrooms rather irksome. I really should put more priority into making them and try again without a meeting hall.

[0cu]

Set up an inside burrow?

[silhouette]

Im currently experimenting with using a meeting hall and an "airlock" (for seperating invaders and the fort) For seemless transfer for the migrants into the fort, while trying to keep the goblins out.

I set up one meeting hall zone inside the airlock, so the migrants run in there as soon as they land on the map, and then i switch the bridge switch to prevent the goblins following them in.

Honestly it would probably a lot easier with just using burrows.

[ifm2181]

I generally have two meeting places: one inside, as the dining hall, and one outside of the fortress in a secure, walled-off location, either as a statue garden or a well if I'm not in some frozen wasteland. The point of the second one is just to avoid cave adaptation. Those unhappy thoughts are ones I want to avoid.

[Loctavus]

The vomit stains too?