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[HedonismDroid]

After lots of experiments with fortress designs, including standart layered design (finished goods warehouse level, production level, raw materials level, housing level, ...), above ground designs (small circle fort with moat, skyscrapper housing/production), experiments with various starting conditions and sites, I've come up with several thoughts:

• Starting with digging skill dwarfs is a waste. In a year my brave team of 7 initial dwarfs with no mining skill became proficient miners
• Totally above ground fortress is a luxury. Since 40.xx, one tree gives more than 1 unit of wood, simplifying the process of creating above ground fortresses - wood is easy to carry and cutting even a small square of trees gives tons of construction materials. After a couple of game years of development, it turned out that despite all the pros, cons outweigh - you cannot finish a basic deisgn in a year, construction leaves no useful resources (you can use the stones you dug out to make finished goods bins for initial trade), after two to three levels of 36-room living tower and 12-workshop-11x11-warehouse industrial tower, you find your woodland pretty bald, and finally, you have no well, no traps and no means to defend as first goblin tea party arrives
• First you don't know where to put all these useless drunks, then there's never enough of them I had an export-oriented fort with initial team as military teachers. When I had somewhat 20 spearmasters and formidable defence, i found out that I've been lacking dwarfs to make enough weps/armor, grow the required amount of food and expand my fortress because most of the dwellers became haulers to toss all the stuff dead caravans dropped after surprise goblin hug contest, all the goblinite goblin caged strippers dropped, and all the rotten clothes flashing dwarfs dropped. This stopped all the hivelife in the fortress for merely a year and made trading with other civilisations obsolete.
• Survival on haunted location is close to impossible I tried digging in with my initial team, breaking the entrance stairway, digging out initial fort then waiting for migrants. It's obvious to say that food supply was critical and all migration waves were disasterous. Poor migrants were immediately enlisted into militia and had to fight the undead with bare hands, trying to reach fortress entrance while initial team was constructing the stairway back. Then the starvation came. However, I had somewhat successful expirience with fortresses on the endge of haunted areas, using reanimation chambers to keep my crossbow army well trained.
• Sedimentary layers are too valuable to build fortresses on them The view on a raw limonite wall the living room has because I was too lazy to cut it out with the rest of the vein and build a wall there instead is making me greedy and sad. Also, if I plan a well or water-filled chamber, I dig out same chamber at the lower z-level so i won't miss all the resources i could lose due to "dump stone located" messages. Taking into account an opportunity that there will be digging creatures, I've decided to build fortresses one z-level above caverns or around them.
• Rooms and furniture take too much space and efforts
• Four 5x5 stone warehouses with 3 wheelbarrows each is better than one 11x11
• All your efforts to make centralized short-travel frotress will not stop dwarfs from doing something but something you need them to do
• Crossbowdwarf corps take too much efforts to establish and run
• Meeting places are full of dwarfs of different trades so it's hard to see where to apply some micromanagement

Based on these, I've designed a fortress that would fit my needs in effectiveness, organisation and others values I forgot to mention.

[edit: had neurons and axons mixed up, fixed]
The basic idea is that the fortress is spread widely across one deep z-level in the way human neural system works - cities are neurons, roads are axons. Each neuron city stands for a certain kind of industry or need, while the roads interconnect them for traffic and goods flow. Each city is self-sufficient, small and belongs to a specific burrow. The level under the city level is a roller powered railway system. Every city has two routes to central - brain city - cargo station, one for import of food and raws, one for export of goods. Every city includes dormitories of 1x1 bed-and-door unoccupied rooms, dining hall with waterfall, food stockpile, small meeting place (central square), well and workshops. For efficient space usage, stockpiles can be placed on railway z-level. The level above the city level is a water, magma and power supply level. The military outposts are neuron cities on the ground level, brain city main entrance and cavern level. Main military center (including training ad barracks) is at the fortress on the ground level. Military dwarves MAY have personal rooms with racks and armor stands. The brain city is for nobles, offices, hospital, kindegarden, spreading the goods and other stuff.
What are the pros?

• Concentration of specified workforce. You know what kind of workers live in the city and local meeting hall shows the percent of idlers
• Short commute time
• No need in haulers Exapt the brain city
• No messing around Citizens of a certain city don't leave their burrow
• Much easier management
• If brain city falls, you can retreat to neurons if you have traps on the roads there
• You can move small neuron cities like miner city or builder city
• You can make neuron city for some sorts of jobs if they take close place to each other Like fishers, above ground farmers, butchers, tree cutters and tree burners

And the cons are:

• Time It takes time until one city produces goods needed at another city, which is crucial for farming
• Extra efforts
• Military responce time

I want to know your opinion of this idea and would gladly read any suggestions.
P.S. Sorry for my english

[Foxite]

cities are axons, roads are neurons

Please excuse my OCD for pointing out the most minor detail in a post like this, but wouldn't it make more sense if the roads are axons, and cities are neurons?

[HedonismDroid]

cities are axons, roads are neurons

Please excuse my OCD for pointing out the most minor detail in a post like this, but wouldn't it make more sense if the roads are axons, and cities are neurons?

My bad. Got that mixed up. Really, that would make more sence.

[Albedo]

The basic idea is that the fortress is spread widely across one deep z-level in the way human neural system works...

If the human neural system was limited to 2 dimensions, mapping it might(?) create a diagram a mile square - that's a blind guess, but 3-d is BY FAR the best (and "only") way to be truly efficient.

You don't have to make it a perfect borg cube (although...), but making workshop pods maybe just 5-levels high cuts travel time massively, and more is even better.

• Starting with digging skill dwarfs is a waste. In a year my brave team of 7 initial dwarfs with no mining skill became proficient miners

Yeah, this is 100% subjective.

If(!) you start in a calm/forgiving area, yep, don't need Mining skill to start, but only b/c there is no rush to get your dwarves and supplies underground.

HOWEVER, if you start near a Tower, or at war with Goblins, or in a Savage area, or an Evil area with evil weather - or just have very little soil that speeds up digging (and training) - then things start out less forgiving, and you may regret the speed that a trained miner enjoys.

So def a "ymmv" thing, and your mileage is based on what else is on the map with you.

Survival on haunted location is close to impossible...

See above.

Also, if you know it's haunted, then it's "Make mine COMBAT!", and you have to focus on that over other skills. Starting with 6 combat-oriented dwarves (probably hammerers) and a Miner (for the above reasons) allows you to go out and clear out the "welcoming committee" before your migrants arrive.

Other aspects of the fort grow MUCH more slowly, but it IS quite doable.

• Rooms and furniture take too much space and efforts

If you say so. Others may disagree, but "fun" (small "f") is where you find it, so ignore them. .

• Crossbowdwarf corps take too much efforts to establish and run

See previous.

• Four 5x5 stone warehouses with 3 wheelbarrows each is better than one 11x11

Yeah, the "3 wheelbarrow" vanilla limit on stockpiles is just absurd.

(DFHack allows you to set the number at whatever you want - mui mas bueno.)

• Meeting places are full of dwarfs of different trades so it's hard to see where to apply some micromanagement

Dwarf Therapist allows instant view of "no job" dwarves. Try it, you'll like it.

• All your efforts to make centralized short-travel frotress will not stop dwarfs from doing something but something you need them to do

Welcome to DF.


(and your English is great, didn't even notice any hiccups that a native speaker/typer wouldn't have made!)

[Varnifane]

The basic idea is that the fortress is spread widely across one deep z-level in the way human neural system works...

..but 3-d is BY FAR the best (and "only") way to be truly efficient.

You don't have to make it a perfect borg cube (although...), but making workshop pods maybe just 5-levels high cuts travel time massively, and more is even better.

What he said.

I've set up something like this vertically before. Actually in all deep maps I run 3 different cities with separate outposts for each of the caverns. And I typically don't resort to burrowing because assigning a full suite of rooms to a dwarf near their job usually keeps them in the same small area without the hassle (at least I consider it a hassle) of reassigning burrow for temporary assignments.

For the rail system I wrap it around the cities with "stations" on the appropriate levels, although I typically guide carts because tantrum spirals happen when the legendary miner's cat dies and he brains someone in a fit of rage.

I like the defensibility of the neural design, and it has a fun feel to it. "We haven't heard anything from Easttown for six months. Send the Musty Cheeses over to see what's going on."

FPS will be a problem as will food/drink distribution and you'll probably find yourself producing three times what you need to keep all of your cities stocked.  Although it's fun when you look up and find your legendary weaponsmith scavenging for food.

Lastly, I'd love to see a picture of what you have in mind.

GL, and keep us informed on your progress.

[NW_Kohaku]

Yeah, I tend to work with "pods", where I segregate each of my industries horizontally, and then dig them deeper to expand.  (Hence, I have lumber in the west, stone in the northwest, metal in the northeast, food in the southwest, and cloth and other in the southeast. Military and major defenses in the east, and the center is the living quarters, food stockpile, and dining halls.)

In my most recent fort, I'm trying to work with fully independent (and totally segregateable) fortresses, especially putting military into micro-forts, and keeping most civilian activity inside a central fortress complex that has no access to the outdoors. 

This should, hypothetically, keep syndrome and tantrum spiral problems to a minimum, as segregation should prevent friendships from blooming across the segregated forts.  (Although care must be taken to keep spouses and relatives in the same fort.) In the case of a disaster, the dwarves of one fort can be ordered to shut down cart-paths with drawbridges, and wait out whatever killed the other fort, before trying to establish a new outpost fort.

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

I have considered this before, with the majority of dwarves in isolation, but the level of micromanagement needed seems like too much. Also, unless there is a highly efficient minecart system, hauling will risk being an inpenetrable bottleneck.

[NW_Kohaku]

I have considered this before, with the majority of dwarves in isolation, but the level of micromanagement needed seems like too much. Also, unless there is a highly efficient minecart system, hauling will risk being an inpenetrable bottleneck.

Minecart efficiency shouldn't be too much of a problem.  Pushed cart tracks are blazingly fast once set up.  It's a hassle to set them all up, however. 

Rather than having every sub-fort have its own duplicate industries, it's easier to just segregate industries, and train your dwarves from scratch if they ever need to abandon a different fort.  The food fort just shuttles food off to the other forts.  It's a little more labor for the haulers, but since carts auto-quantum-stockpile, you can compensate with lower distances between stockpiles. 

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

Perhaps I should build a highly meritocratic hive city like this.

[fractalman]

After lots of experiments with fortress designs, including standart layered design (finished goods warehouse level, production level, raw materials level, housing level, ...), above ground designs (small circle fort with moat, skyscrapper housing/production), experiments with various starting conditions and sites, I've come up with several thoughts:

• First you don't know where to put all these useless drunks, then there's never enough of them /li]
  
  
  
  • Rooms and furniture take too much space and efforts

Eh...that depends.  If you're worried about FPS, then the best thing isn't 1x1 bedrooms, but the massively overlapping exploit bedroom.  If you're not...then, well, I personally can whip out 3x4 lavishly decorated and engraved bedrooms for everyone in the space of a year or two.  (by lavishly decorated, I mean I put an expensive, highly decorated rope from the caravans, a chair, a table, and a food and drink stockpile, so that tantruming dwarves can be put into the most lavish timeout ever, where they can eat proper meals and everything. 


It's hard on the FPS, though.

All your efforts to make centralized short-travel frotress will not stop dwarfs from doing something but s/omething you need them to do

My fortress is a highly compact fortress with a maximum of 30 travel distance for 70% of jobs, and an average distance of about 8 from within those jobs.   I could do even better by carving out a staircase cube, but do not wish to rearrange my fortress at this time. (There's not much I can do about the wood-hauling or stone-hauling distances, which probably make up 30% of the jobs). 

They also do what I want them to do. To get dwarves to do what you want them to do, there are two tricks: never assign more jobs on repeat than you have dwarves/2, and get Dwarf Therapist.   (divide your Dwarves by 2 because some of them will always be needed for hauling, sleeping, drinking, eating, or other non-workshop tasks such as hauling.)

[HedonismDroid]

Thanks everyone for replies.

Also, if you know it's haunted, then it's "Make mine COMBAT!", and you have to focus on that over other skills. Starting with 6 combat-oriented dwarves (probably hammerers) and a Miner (for the above reasons) allows you to go out and clear out the "welcoming committee" before your migrants arrive.

Dwarf Therapist allows instant view of "no job" dwarves. Try it, you'll like it.

I once tried something like that at haunted area but with marksdwarfs instead of hammerdwarfs. Thought giving 'em 5 crossbow 5 hammerdwarf skills should be good so they can be as effective in ranged combat, as in melee. Obvious to say, they never shot a bolt. Never again. And combat diggers were the only firepower I had when tried to dig in. Also, I bet there was a huge influence of a mod I've been playing (i guess it was Masterwork) that led to my failure - there was an option that all underground crops grow the whole year and above ground crops grow one season, and I checked it. Silly me. Constructable fishing pond wasn't productive enought to save starving miners from hunting vermin.

About dwarf therapist - I'm using it, even stopped playing for a while until 40.24 version came out. Still it's not helping in the matter I already mentioned. Say you have 10 stonecutters, and there's two medics, three hunters and two stonecutters idling. You think you don't have enough workshops or tasks assigned to make all stonecutters busy, but the problem is, eight other stonecutters are actually doing their job. Then you look at idling doctors and chose whether to assign them to haulers or leave idle so they can start curing your soldiers ASAP. After all, you think "well, here we go, all idlers have something to do now" - 11 idlers turned to 7. Over and over, you cannot turn this value to 0 unless you assign all of them to conga haul stones.

So I thought like "let them idle, but the way I can manage them easier". About the rooms, I usually cut 1x3 rooms for every dwarven family, but when I hit the need to expand living quarters, I find all my miners assigned to different tasks and reassigning miners, waiting for rooms to be cut, stone to be hauled, furniture to be produced and placed takes much more time than you expect in your fortress that is full of dwarfs you try to get busy. Another thing is, as result, all my dwarfs (as Therapist says) tend to be happy to extremely happy. Maybe I can achieve continuous average happiness with less efforts?

When I get a time to try my idea out, I post screens and results.