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[hlavaczech]

How does your ideal the dwarf fortress look like - I mean the one in your fantasy, the place that you imagine your dwarfs would live in - not the one that is a result of optimized contruction given the game mechanics?

I have several favorite designs and I would love to know more about other people's ideas.
- Underground city: dug with streets & "houses" and channeled stream, in a large artificial cavern (Moria style)
- Underground dens and workshops encompassing a large pit with magma sea at the bottom (something like Orzammar in Dragon Age)
- Occupied cave, respecting the layout of cavern with only few artifical walls and ceilings, mostly from wood.
- Above ground fort/castle/city
- All buildings in one layer, sort of reminescence of 2d version/or vice versa "vertical shaft" with 1-2 workshops at each layer.
- An open pit (starting at surface level), with wooden wall around it and watchtowers; dwarves living in abandoned mining shafts.

And where does your dwarves live? What is your source of inspiration?

[StupidElves]

My imagination constantly changes where and how I want my dwarves to live.

I tend to keep my dwarves living on the first Z level I find that has stone, with the workshops under that.

Once I'm able to start producing stone/metal blocks I begin construction of huge towers and cathedrals to house my dwarves, in order to keep them away from the sickness that keeps them from being functional to far out of the caves.

The most fanciful one that I created looked like a group of galleons in the water, or at least I'd like to think that's what they looked like.

[bennerman]

My imagination constantly changes where and how I want my dwarves to live.

I tend to keep my dwarves living on the first Z level I find that has stone, with the workshops under that.

Once I'm able to start producing stone/metal blocks I begin construction of huge towers and cathedrals to house my dwarves, in order to keep them away from the sickness that keeps them from being functional to far out of the caves.

The most fanciful one that I created looked like a group of galleons in the water, or at least I'd like to think that's what they looked like.

1. The disease is cave adaptation.

2. Might I recommend stonesense? I seem to have trouble with it, but most people use it to great effect to give a nice 3d picture of your map. Then you can know if it looks like galleons

[StupidElves]

I think I will use that.

Thanks for this information.

[Tawa]

I always want mine to look either like:

A) You ever seen the opening of the first Hobbit movie? (Not the animated one, the 2012 one.)

Like that.

B) I've tried several times to imitate Helm's Deep and failed miserably every time.

(Mountains always have sandy soil in surrounding areas; trying to irrigate it, I fail to the point of abandonment. Case in point: the time I tried to dig out a hole to keep water in, my digging-dwarf fell in and died.


)

I decided that this time, I'm just going to go to a plain and dig a hole. Afterwards, I'll build a castle on top of the hole, and build a moat around the castle. Full of sharks or alligators or something to eat the goblins.

[Drecon]

Basically one giant storehouse with stores of just about anything. All dwarves have nice apartments with lots of storage space and of course a number of smaller dining halls that serve as meeting areas for groups of friends.

[vjek]

Central staircase with no more than 20 steps off the staircase (X/Y) to reach anything, including well, bedrooms, stockpiles, clothing, weapons, food, tables, and workshops.
Typically I use less than 10 Z levels, including all bedrooms, for an ~80 population dwarf fort.  Keeps pathfinding load to a minimum, very easy to manage.

[Crashmaster]

I get my inspiration from the lay of the land in my embark or build to suit a super-weapon or defense strategy I want to try out.

[Snaake]

Moria (as depicted in Fellowship of the Ring) was pretty spot on to how I imagine practical dwarf fortresses to look like.

For more high-fantasy/awe-inspiring versions it would have more of not just Moria but also Ironforge from WoW and Erebor (the Lonely Mountain, also known as "that dwarven city in The Hobbit where the dragon lives"). Helms Deep is boring in comparison. It would have walkways over vast chasms, large open spaces hewn out of the rock itself with the floors smoothed and engraved pillars, magma forges, maybe an artificial river or lake in one part, magma smelters. But also regular (3-wide) streets with houses and crafters' workshops dug into the side walls shophouse-style (bottom floor for workshop/store space, maybe cellar for storage, 1-3 floor above the shop for the family's living quarters). The entrance is into a cliff face, with fortifications and military rooms, some archer towers etc. hewn into the cliff as well. Roc/Giant Eagle/insert flying creature here rookeries too, and a temple and/or watchpost at the mountaintop.

Maybe once the new version comes...


P.S. Tawarochir: you don't need to irrigate soil (includind sand/clay floors). Only rock floors need to be irrigated.

[Mr. Strange]

#1 Inside the crater of volcano, with workshops carved into the walls and connected by narrow walkways. Top of the volcano is floored and fortified with towers and contains collapsible entry ramp into fort proper.

#2 TES dwarves inspired city deep underground filled with +science+ that has multiple smaller outposts dotting the surface, all connected by trap filled maze.

[Tawa]

-snip-
P.S. Tawarochir: you don't need to irrigate soil (includind sand/clay floors). Only rock floors need to be irrigated.

No, for some reason, I can build plots on sand, but I can't farm there.

Hence the reason I'm never going to make a true mountainhome, since I can't figure out how to irrigate.

[vjek]

-snip-
P.S. Tawarochir: you don't need to irrigate soil (includind sand/clay floors). Only rock floors need to be irrigated.

No, for some reason, I can build plots on sand, but I can't farm there.

Hence the reason I'm never going to make a true mountainhome, since I can't figure out how to irrigate.

The only common reason you wouldn't be able to farm on sand is if the sand is in a mountain biome.
Put the farm in a non-mountain biome, and sand/soil/clay is all you need, no water required.

[Snaake]

-snip-
P.S. Tawarochir: you don't need to irrigate soil (includind sand/clay floors). Only rock floors need to be irrigated.

No, for some reason, I can build plots on sand, but I can't farm there.

Hence the reason I'm never going to make a true mountainhome, since I can't figure out how to irrigate.

The only common reason you wouldn't be able to farm on sand is if the sand is in a mountain biome.
Put the farm in a non-mountain biome, and sand/soil/clay is all you need, no water required.

... and correct me if I'm wrong, but just to make everything perfectly clear, you can't farm in a mountain biome even if you do irrigate the soil/sand/clay. It might be possible to farm on muddied rock in a mountain biome, I don't know, but I wouldn't count on it.

[vjek]

... and correct me if I'm wrong, but just to make everything perfectly clear, you can't farm in a mountain biome even if you do irrigate the soil/sand/clay. ...

Correct.  There is no farming in a mountain biome, at all, ever, no matter what.

[Baffler]

I typically mine out a huge area, and build bridges and stuff crossing it, with the fort around the periphery and farms at the bottom of the cavern. I usually make my own pit, but I often incorporate the existing caverns. It's more a means of making mining more efficient by eliminating the long mining tunnels and shafts than anything else, but it looks good in stonesense too.