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[Derakon]

quote:Originally posted by MaxVance:
<STRONG>Am I the only one who doesn't bother with any formal organization? See here. About the only organization I do is putting workshops off to one side and sleeping areas off to the other.</STRONG>

I've stopped trying to optimize for efficiency myself, since I was just re-creating the same fortress every time, which got boring pretty quickly. But I do try to at least make interesting designs, so for example, my sleeping quarters are entirely irregular, and my main workshop area is a huge open space with symmetrically-placed but pointless walls. I also try to work a bit with negative space, e.g. carve out rooms that leave a circular area unmined. All in the name of keeping myself from getting bored by the time the fourth year rolls around.

[Hypcso]

I typically build aboveground castle type forts, complete with ramparts and large walls. Normally only one entrance.. Dual drawbridges ( which are topped by a heavily fortified 2/3 story up marksman tower connecting to the divider catwalk ) leading to a massive hallway 3 stories tall and two seperate corridors 8 spaces wide/up to 100 long with engraved columns on the sides. At the end they intersect oneanother with a divider in the middle. On the divider is a catwalk with spaced fortifications along it in case something gets trapped in there and my ballistae can't take care of it.

I usually make another 8 wide hallway along here that extends about 10 in each direction, then make a 6 wide hallway at the end of each. Inbetween the two 6 wides I put my ballistae barracks/ammo batteries with inset floodgate doors flush with the hallway walls. Nobody is going to see them coming until it's too late. The 6 wides typically open into a large open air courtyard where the trade depot sits, surrounded by pubs/work spaces and military barracks. I also usually put a mosaic of some sort here although i've been too lazy to do so in my newest fort.

At the opposite end of the courtyard normally sits my castle structure which can house up to 400 dwarves comfortably in 4x3 rooms. I tend to dig down and make a basement for storage, as well as a bunker complex with enough beds and food for every dwarf in the fortress, in case of a siege. A large mausoleam usually goes on the bottom with different wings for different castes of dwarf.

[eisenfaust]

My current fortress is built on a flat plain next to some hills, right next to a brook.

The entrance is a 3-wide set of ramps that goes down into a medium-length 3 wide hallway. The hallway then widens to a 9 wide room, where the trade depot is. Behind that room is another hallway with a set of down ramps onto level 2.

The trade-depot room is linked to the brook, and has a drain to the deepest Z level. (This is how you get around bringing an anvil at the beginning.) I kill all caravans unless I want migrants that year. I've even killed the few liaisons that dare venture my way.

Also on the upper level, behind the ramps to level 2, is the lever house. Its the mechanical center of the fortress, and the most defensible position.
Behind that is light industry, barracks, death pits, farming, and epic storage.

Level 2 is living quarters, meeting halls, and the grave-pools. I use a 4-to-a-room stateroom style living setup. A rounded 9x9 room with 4 beds, each defined as its own room with no overlap. In the center is a small dining room and food/drink cache. There is no big dining hall.

Level 3 is noble quarters. Royal rooms all around.

I've only got a magma pool, so heavy industry is in it own zone, not connected to the rest of the fort except by a stairway that goes directly into my ore storage. I've got 20 magma-powered workshops next to 5 staterooms, so every one of my metalworkers, engineers, furnace operators, glassmakers, and miners has a bedroom close to the action.

Below heavy industry is mining.

I've only got a magma pool, so heavy indu

[GeneralValter]

Aesthetics are for wimps. I make labyrinths of tunnels, with arbitrary bedrooms, workshops, strip mines and dining halls meshed together in a non-euclidean nightmare of architectural demon-craft.

In other words, I usually don't have a building plan.

[nil]

I have the high traffic locations--bedrooms, zoo/statue garden, dining hall, food/drink production, and trade depot in a line.  Each section is one level up from the last (connected by half a dozen staircases), and I'm diverting the brook down either side to produce mist and power.  My workshops, farms, noble rooms, etc branch off from the main sections; since each is on it own level and not overlapping, there's lots of room to expand in every direction.  The barracks are next to the entrance and the trade depot, and the path to the depot is a long trench that will go over a drawbridged pit and be flanked by a pair of towers.

It's my first fort with the z-axis so it's pretty boxy, but I made a kind of fractal bedroom design that I'm pretty happy with.

[Khosan]

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-2527-glovedravens

My latest fortress.  It's currently run by a grand total of 11 Dwarves.  I've got immigrants off until I feel prepared to accept them.

What's awesome is my first civilian layer, it looks a lot cooler zoomed out than I thought it would.

[A_Fey_Dwarf]

I usually have a vertical floor plan. My newly created desert fortress has a workshop/farm area on z+1 which is completely open, the only walls are the cliff faces. On the surface level there is my metal/glass industry and trapped entrance. About z-5 is my engraved dining hall with food stockpiles. z-12 through z-14 contains all of the dwarven bedrooms. Finally my tombs are on z-15. I have made a rule for myself that every dwarf has a 5x5 fully engraved tomb with a precious metal statue beside a precious metal sarcophagus (luckily only 3 dwarves have died). It's a pretty basic plan that is efficient and dependable.

[RC]

How are you turning immigrants off?

Well, I have to get myself to use the z levels.  I try to make a design beforehand, but what happens is that I place the storage rooms to far away from the sites that need them.  I always want to get everything off the wagon and inside the cave.
Well, from reading your posts, Im getting a better idea of how to build.

[gerkinzola]

Khosan
a bit of advice for you on level 24 (http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-2527-glovedravens) only make a few fortifications so like maybe --+--+-- (-=wall +=fortification) so less chance of soldiers being shot while still having a wide view range

[Akroma]

I just dig as it come srandomly into my mind

the mountain makes the fortress, not the fortress the mountain

my dwarves always die....

fuck you, mountain

[Khosan]

quote:Originally posted by RC:
<STRONG>How are you turning immigrants off?</STRONG>

Set the max population to 7.  You'll still get a few stragglers at the start (hence why I have 11 Dwarves now), but they're useful as haulers and other things (2 of them are champions, legendary in Wrestling, Armor-Using, Shield-Using and Crossbows, one of them is my primary stonecrafter, and the last is the fortress-bitch, he does everything from Engraving, Furnace Operating, practice bolt crafting, and I should set him up as my vermin catcher too).

quote:Originally posted by gerkinzola:
<STRONG>Khosan
a bit of advice for you on level 24 (http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-2527-glovedravens) only make a few fortifications so like maybe --+--+-- (-=wall +=fortification) so less chance of soldiers being shot while still having a wide view range</STRONG>

Eh, I probably could, but it'd be a pain in the ass to get my mason back up there to reconstruct the top level.  The upper left in particular, since the mason is bound to get stuck.

[critical miracle]

Loving this topic. Still on my first fortress and thieving ideas from yalls.

I built my first fortress into the side of a hill near a brook. The only planning I did was to keep the trade post and barracks on the same Z level as the brook, crafts and food under that, and living under that. The design is influenced less by planning and more by "oh look, loam! I'll put a farm here." and "oh look, coal! I'll build a smelter here."

I built my well after years of dorfs complaining about nasty water, and alot of my construction has to take the shafts into account. I'm pissed that I dug a LONG 3-wide tunnel through the mountain to the west and cleared all the boulders and decorated the cliff side entrance, only to find most traders come from the opposite direction. So I'm using it as my burial highway and Indiana Jones trap gauntlet. In the meantime, my back door (which was originally used by fisherman going to the brook and access to my refuse pile) has been remodeled to accommodate traders and sieges.

So yeah, the learning curve and environment influence my design more than sketches on napkins. I imagine the only thing I'd do differently is allow myself more room so that all the levels are built outwards from a common stairway running up to the surface.