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[Insanegame27]

How viable is it to give everyone the mason labor and just bring some food, drink and stone blocks and make a castle?

[Insanegame27]

And has anyone got any good layouts?

[Chevaleresse]

I generally do a 15x15-20x20 or so rectangle designed around a central staircase or two, and build up until I have enough room for everything. I leave a spare level or so for bedrooms and set up quantum minecart stockpiles immediately.

You're better off starting with miners, masons, and a planter/brewer though; better for the long term and you can mine out an emergency bolt-hole.

[Duuvian]

Build corners first. After the corners are in place you can put in the rest of the wall. You'll also want a scaffolding for each level being worked on so walls can be placed. The scaffolding can be taken down or expanded into a full floor after each level of wall is completed.

[LMeire]

You'd be better off bring stone boulders and making them into blocks, then you could spend more money on food.

[Aranador]

I love building above ground castles.

Definitely pack as many boulders of your favourite rock as you can (granite is my usual) and get someone turning them into blocks.

Learn how to build corners and circles - fortunately the new 'do not simply drop the deconstructed block' thing makes it far easier.

Learn how to build a roof without needing external access or leaving gaps/stairs (basically, use a ramp in one bit of the lower wall, build the roof, then remove the ramp and put in the last wall)

Learn how to build archery galleries, get advanced and build restrictive over hangs to force enemies to get closer before they can fire (helps against enemy elite bowmen) and get really advanced and learn how to build shutters that can block off a firing line totally at will.

Learn how to build openable bridge doors that leave your fort totally sealed in either state (excepting what ever bit you just opened up to)

Or - just go for awesome appearance, rather than a fortess defence intended flying enemy  proof bunker

Much prefer 'real' architecture compared to digging - although it is waaaay slower and more complicarted and harder to defend.  But if it was easy, why would you do it !

[Dangerous Beans]

do it like a real dwarf: find a nice steep mountain, and carve the castle out of the mountain

i have started a few and finished a couple  . i found round designs slower and harder than square designs. they all have the benefit that you can pull parts down and rebuild them when you mess them up.

as for designs, there is plenty of info on wikipedia. you should also work with what you have in the embark: is there a bend in the river you can stick a keep in? a small hill you can turn into a motte? or is it flat and empty enough for you to build a massive starfort?

[Duuvian]

I do that too but I also like to make a skyscraper of a castle on top of it. The nice thing about natural stone though is that it can be engraved.

[Insanegame27]

Thanks for the tips. I am going to do a few things.
firstly, I am playing MDF 6.1.
secondly, I was lucky enough to have genned a world with three main landmasses joined together in narrow land bridges, for reference, I'll call them A, B and C
A is connected to B, and B is connected to C, A is nearly connected to C because there is an island between them and small stretches of water that i was able to swim in adventure mode
I represents Island


AAAAAAABBBBBBB
AAAA     BBBBBBBB
AA           BBBBBB
AAAA            B
AAAA            C
AAA     IIII   CCC
A         IIII  CCCC


I intend on making castles and watchtowers to restrict access to landmassses and trading routes across all land bridges, while making the Island into a massive castle
In short, It's a megaproject. It's a small world. I intend to make it smaller

[slothen]

don't bring stone blocks, that's dumb.  Possibly bring stone itself and turn it into blocks, but better just mine the stone yourself and still do the same thing with mason enabled for everyone.  You can have one mason with a few levels of skill, have him make blocks, then have the others with no skill levels but the labor enabled to just do the building.