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[Methadone]

So I am curious how deep people generally establish their permanent fortresses. In my experience, I tend to be pretty close to the surface (w/in 15 z-levels), but reading the wiki/forum it seems that people tend to establish much deeper. Do you guys build a temporary fort then dig out a more permanent one much deeper, dig deep to begin with, or stay near the surface?

I like above ground farming (or floored-over above ground farms), getting my dwarfs some light, and establishing my defenses outside. Do deep fortresses have advantages beyond the magma access? I'd love to know what people think.

So many questions!

[Gavakis]

Once I dig something, it's usually permanent. I often build above ground in forests, and make water-defense based fortresses. It takes a while to make, but, loads of fun.

Oh, yeah.
I usually build really far down, probably snuggled up against the 1st layer of caverns.

[Beast Tamer]

I usually make an above ground city for most of my dwarves, then place a standing garrison in the first or second cavern dedicated to cavern defense. I may try making an underground fort, but I decided to wait until the next update so I can have fun with climbing GCS's.

[itg]

My fortresses start two or three levels below the first stone layer and then expand up and down from there. I never really stop digging/building, so after a while I'll have useful structures on practically all z-levels of the map.

[Paaaad]

My current fortress proper starts at z=-11, with a few things (Farms, a well, and defenses primarily) above that. It would be shallower, but the bottom layer of soil and the first three layers of stone are an aquifer. Plus I ended up going deeper then I needed to to get past it.

[Bumber]

Usually within 15 z-levels of surface. I might do something deeper when we get caravans from deep sites.

Spoiler: Usual Layout (click to show/hide)

My forts are generally built into the side of a mountain with:
Z+1: Utility, e.g. archer fortifications, any necessary irrigation for farms, and pitting hatch (for barracks.)
Z+0: Meeting area, dining area, tombs, hospital, farms, barracks, relevant workshops and stockpiles for this floor, and lumber stockpile (plus wood furnace.) Trade depot is in its own little building outside.
Z-1: Wood/stone/jewel/clothier workshops, furniture/goods stockpiles, and water reservoir (plus river access.)
Z-2: Stone/ore/gem stockpiles, smelters/kilns/ash, and tunnel network (to the depot, any windmills/waterwheels, etc.)
Z-3 to Cavern (~Z-10): A shaft of living quarters going down from the main stairwell. Rooms are 3x3 (exception for nobles,) 20 per floor. Mineshafts with separate access via stairwell near Z-2 stockpiles.

Caverns and below are accessed via a separate stairwell at the bottom of the mineshafts (guarded by drawbridge.)

[TruePikachu]

Yeah, death is inevitable when dealing with fortresses. Oh, you were asking about how far underground?

I can't really say how far I go for the fort proper, but one needs to take into account that the caverns can cause planning issues, so don't start too deep if you are doing a shallow fortress (shallow with respect to where on the Z axis your fort is). One should also allow space above their fortress proper in order to make a weaponized enterance (so you have space for stuff like lava resivoirs, ballistia and arrow catches, etc.).

I generally put my main stockpiles on the level such that there are 2-3 levels between (noninclusive) it and my enterance, followed (going down) by my food/dining room/offices, my primary workshops, my stone stockpile, my forge level, a reserved level for magma for the forges, and the bedrooms. Everything else is variable.

Something else to remember is that if you start higher up, you get more space; specifically, you are guarenteed `x` levels without caverns, and `x` is ≤ the number of levels above the top of the first cavern and the bottom of the surface; if you start in a mountain, above the lowermost point on the surface (in the area for the fort), you are pretty much guarenteed more space.

[Urist Da Vinci]

In my best fortresses, I made a starter dwelling underground near the surface, but away from where I wanted the main fort to be. The starter fort would later be repurposed or abandoned as the main fort came into existence.

[Remuthra]

In order to establish a nice overcomplex death labyrinth to protect me from the surface, I usually dig the first level of my fortress proper at about 20 z-levels down and behind a few thousand tiles of subterranean path. From there the fortress is organized by floor, with each having a specific purpose. Until it's finished, which typically takes at least a couple of years, the dwarves pretty much have to stand in the rain.

[blapnk]

I like to build my fortress around the first caverns, which usually isn't that deep the way I generate worlds. I like the fun of fitting my fortress around the cavern features. When I do go for a deep fortress next to the magma I dig down straight away with a very basic surface camp. I find it becomes a pain to move everything down from a temporary surface fort if it leave it too long

[Eidre]

I generally establish my primary entrance at ground level into the side of a cliff or (if on a plain) one level below the ground. 

This level acquires my first stockpile (to get the embark kit off the surface), farms, surface and soil-based workshops (butcher, farmer, tanner, fishery, still, kitchen, ashery, soapery, sometimes loom and clothier) and trapped and drawbridged entry tunnel (usually a checkerboard pattern to limit line of sight for marksgoblins).  When I've got a military going I put the barracks here as well to for easy access to the outside and the main entrance.  Trade depot and trade goods stockpile go here as well, although usually horizontally separated from the main entrance to the fortress with a drawbridge-secure pathway.

One z-level down is for the other workshops (craft, mason, mech, carpenter, bowyer, jeweler + associated stockpiles), an initial small dining room, manager/bookkeeper's office, and small dormatory, in the soil if possible to speed up the dig-out. 

First stone level gets my main dining room and food/drink stockpiles, as well as the well and hospital (if I can make a cistern or get access to an aquifer from there).  I put these in stone so they can be later smoothed and engraved for greater value.

I will generally dig up/down/out feelers from the central stairwell to find ore, and put the metal industry on the z-level that minimizes ore-hauling distance to the smelters.

Depending on where all the workshops have gone, I typically reserve the next level down for a furniture/bin/box/pot stockpile, then do levels of 20-30 appartments stacked on top of each other until I dig out and furnish enough to house all of my dwarves (I usually run with a pop cap of ~150, so normally 5-8 z-levels of 3x3 boxes with beds, cabinets, coffers, and doors).

Once all of this is accomplished, I usually do a deep dive to find and open the caverns, then start the process of making big tree farms and pastures in the unused portions of the soil z-levels when the spores start to spread...the eventual goal being complete divestment from the surface to reduce civilian attrition from goblin ambushes.

If the fortress is still healthy at this point, I usually dig down my 3x3 central stairwell to the top walkable layer of the cavern and build some basic dining and dorm facilities, a barracks, some traps/drawbridges, and maybe a loom, butchery, tannery as the scavengers (hunters, web-gatherers, fisherdwarves) start to gather from the caverns.

Somewhere around this point of the game, I usually make a critical error in judgement (sending the militia out to fight the 100+ goblin seige; fighting the deadly dust FB instead of closing the cavern drawbridge and sacrificing a few fisherdwarves; accidentally breaching an aquifer in the top level of my fortress; etc) and spiral my fortress to its eventual doom or FPS death.

[Fluoman]

My fortresses are, usually:
An entrance (trapped)
Farm plots + tree farm
11x11x11 fortress proper, in rock. By depth: 9 workshops, 9 workshops (some are magma powered), magma, dining hall + levers + air pumps + offices, 3x3 rooms, hospital.
Four 1x1 stairwells at every level.
I use quantum stockpiles whenever I can, because this layout is very compact.

[Skuggen]

I generally start the 'proper' fortress at the first full stone layer, organizing the z-levels by purpose (general stockpiles, workshops, living quarters, noble quarters). Generally have a moat with a drawbridge around the main entrance, and a trapped back entrance.

[Methadone]

Thanks for all the responses. In my head I was picturing massive forts at z-60 and wondering how that even worked; it looks like I'm a lot closer to the norm than I realized. Of course, my newest embark has caverns at z-7 (!), so not much room to work with.

[timotheos]

I have a nice 10 z-level fort plan which I use most of the time.
I used to start it in the first rock layer with farms in the soil above that and tapping a volcano to get magma. But recently I've moved away from volcanoes and instead build my main fort down by the magma sea, with just a barracks and craft storage area near the surface.
My current fort had a magma pipe into the 3rd cavern so I am currently based between the 2nd & 3rd cavern.