I remember being influenced by a particular DFMA upload many years back. My personal philosophy regarding fortress design is that constraints are beautiful - and even more beautiful are the times you break them!
Those constraints come from the shape of the earth that I dig.
From the subjective rules I place upon my design.
From the narrative that a Fortress represents.
From the characters that I roleplay.
And from the bugs, artifacts and strange interactions that the game contains.
I used to find symmetry appealing but more and more I enjoy organic, open spaces. Curves and multi z-level rooms are my favorite ways to give a fortress an epic, lifelike feeling.
Some examples (sorry if the images are too large):
A lakeside fortress with rooms that wrap around the cliffside.
Not particularly aesthetic but this represents the first time I tried a more organic, curved shape. This was a pit dug into the soil of a freezing alpine embark, centered around the theme of hunting.
These farms were dug underneath a castle I had partially constructed. They are accessed by crossing over a deep river canyon, and provided more than enough food.
More curves.
I enjoyed the negative space created by these offset storage rooms.
The dining room and food storage of Doomforests, a still-active community fortress I recently partook in. It sort of looks like a medal, doesn't it? I wish there hadn't been soil in the way but I made it work.I will plug my DFMA profile. I create lots of Points of Interest so you can navigate the mazes that are my fortresses, and for the most part each fortress is experimental in one way or another. DFMA doesn't get enough traffic in general - there are tons of brilliant designs posted there without comment.
http://mkv25.net/dfma/browseby.php?author=SalmeukI will also give some tips for people interested in making their fortresses look nicer.
1. Pay attention to the black space you create. A 3-tile wide space in between rooms will create a single line of black, unseen earth that can frame your rooms.
2. While a single, massive farm plot might be more efficient, taking time to set up smaller plots can lead to a greater sense of reality. And it's so pretty when your crops are growing!
3. Smooth early. While not at all necessary, smoothing gives me a feeling of completion and encourages me to spend time on beautiful designs.
4. Work in small sections. Never designate your entire fortress at once (well, never say never but it never works out for me). Beyond giving your miners a break, this lets you take time to consider the perfect addition to what you already have.
5. Lastly, work freely. I used to get designators-block and worry about this or that design, and I would end up abandoning fortresses because they ended up imperfect or incomplete. Giving yourself the freedom to make mistakes lets you be truly creative (this goes for everything in life, by the way 
)!
Ultimately, the game that is Dwarf Fortress isn't very good as it stands - various bugs and incomplete mechanics prevent you from truly experiencing the story that would be a growing fortress. That being said, Dwarf Fortress is the best creative outlet I know of. Letting go of the need for logical consistency and objective design limitations can really breathe life into your forts.
I can go into more detail here, but the just of it is that you shouldn't limit yourself based on the logic of the game, but instead limit yourself based on your own, arbitrary humanity. This is a game about stories and characters, grand narratives and epic events - not a game about objective efficiency or perfectionism. Let yourself go, my friends!
Author
Topic: !!Feng Dwarfy!! (Read 19797 times)