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[birdman]

I have a bad habit of building quick and dirty on the surface and getting a full 5 z-layers of fort occupied. This is good for getting set up early, workshops and military by the end of the first year, but in the end it bites me in the rear. If I want a better metal industry or an easier way to jump-start my micro-generators when they die, or really any adjustments, then I've already filled up all the space close to the surface and have no room for piping, electronics, etc. Frankly I'm in the process of rethinking the way I fort as to avoid that in the future.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Electronics? Is that a mod?

[Fleeting Frames]

I think birdman refers to powertrain from windmills and waterwheels.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Hmm... electronics is circuits, so I suppose you could call macrokinetic power systems like axles and mills the medieval equivalent of electronics.

[anewaname]

The scholars had decided on the name for the fort's newest health hazard... The spirit would be called "Electricity".

The tarnished copper screwpump sat idle now. None would approach it since two dwarfs had walked across the gleaming zinc floor to touch the pump and been put in horrible pain and hospitalized.

Now the scholars speculated on how to remove the spirit from their screwpump, and what to do with it if they did. Could they cage it? Or weaponize it?

[doublestrafe]

The copper pipe section was fine; the enormous copper corkscrew likewise was fine. If only they hadn't used the cat hairball press cake block...

[birdman]

I hardly ever think about the fact that dwarf fortress "power" is all kinetic energy, since in-game axles and the like all conduct "power" like it's electricity, and since terms such as "dwarven computing" and "water reactor" come into play regularly when power is involved.

Besides, with the way my reactor is set up, it looks more like a water turbine than anything else.

[scourge728]

PTW

[Aatch]

I generally plan in 3 phases:

• Bare Essentials. I dig out a soil layer for a dorm, dining room, a couple small farm plots, food and drink production, stone and woodworking. I also set up basic defences, just a building over my entrance with a bridge to seal it up. This area tends to be in use for a while and often grows as I need stuff (cut gems for a moody dwarf, for example).
  
  The set up is really quick, I'm generally underground and working on the next phase before the first merchant caravan arrives.
• "Proper" fortress. Once the basics are set up, I'll start work on the long-term accommodations. I'll plan out rooms for at least 100 dwarfs (though I tend to only mine out some at first), a decent sized dining room and a hospital. I also plan out workshops and stockpiles, I try to use a flexible system because I'll often change stuff as I go along. As stuff gets built I transition everything down and eventually convert the previous area to be primarily agriculture.
  
  This is also where I start doing the water works, I almost always embark on a river of some sort and use that to (carefully) fill a reservoir for wells.
  
  At the same time, I'll be making stone blocks and building up the surface in various ways. I like to make a 3-storey structure with the bottom being a tavern, the middle being rooms for the tavern and top being a barracks for military. I also start building out more walls than I had before so I can better deal with an incursion.
  
  This phase takes a while, since it grows with the needs of the fortress. I don't tend to plan out much beyond the bedrooms + workshops so things like noble's rooms, mausoleums, temples and libraries are added in as I feel like it, gives the fortress a nice organic feeling that a meticulously planned one probably wouldn't. 5-10 years is pretty standard
• The Projects. Once I have a stable, functioning fortress that can at least handle a siege without needing to just wait it out, I start on bigger projects. This depends on how I'm feeling at the time, but right now I'm working on an outdoor arena for my military to fight captured goblins in. I don't always get to this phase. Sometimes my fortress will die before then, other times I'll get bored of the fort and move on.

It seems to work reasonably well as a general framework. I don't like planning too far ahead because I'll inevitably lose track of what I was doing. I also like organic growth where I fit stuff in where I can, when I need it. I'm not too concerned with efficiency overall, I prefer the aesthetics of a more ad-hoc, yet still deliberately designed, fortress.

[Dracko81]

When I start a new fort it always goes about the same.  Long entrance hall which has a raisable bridge by Autumn.  The first room that is carved out is the farm in a soil layer, followed by 11x11 rooms with an industry building in the centre.  Basically get a masons workshop with 102 stones piled around, craftsdwarf workshop with stone, carpenters workshop with wood, etc.  The trade depot room is the same with the surrounding stockpile being for statues which is my primary export.

The reasoning for statues is because I find crafts to get far too much profit per stone and it limits my spending.  They are also heavy which means trading can be harder.

I try to put the rooms into grids of 2x2, 4x4, 4x8.  This is due to the expansion that happens later in my industry where the rooms become 23x23 with 16 workshops.  While I will have stairways leading down I always have 3x3 corridors with ramps connecting each level for mine cart use later.

Typically I'd have 20 statues for trade by Autumn and variably 3 to 6 industry/storage rooms set up.  The second year is spent trying to get a squad of dwarfs ready for training, full plate gear with the best metal readily available.  I will also spend that year setting up 100 bedrooms, about 10 offices and the hospital.  Industry expansion usually happens here too so you can spam items through the manager and keep dwarfs happy.

A fort is never really complete I've found as you will need stone for something, metal for new armour and all that.

So to sum up, end of first year to a functional level.  End of second year to hopefully defensible and productive.

I'm not sure what is leading you to having an unplanned layout.  But I will try to mark rooms for digging without digging the doorways very early on to ensure my corridors are laid out where I need them to keep the room size I want.  Marking the doorways for digging as a room is dug out.  I'll also usually only work on one room at time for hauling early on since it can take a month to run 100 stone around with just 7 dwarfs less 2 miners and 2 part time farmers.  Most industries aren't needed early on unless you are trying to do something special like cloth, leather, gems, glass and clay.  While I dig out a room for them and store the stuff in them, they are usually idle until something is needed.  Initial dining room and beds are just put in the corridors until I have time to make dedicated bedrooms and a real dining hall with connected food and booze storage.

Don't know if any of that will be helpful, but hopefully someone's comments will be.

[Iduno]

I have a bad habit of building quick and dirty on the surface and getting a full 5 z-layers of fort occupied. This is good for getting set up early, workshops and military by the end of the first year, but in the end it bites me in the rear. If I want a better metal industry or an easier way to jump-start my micro-generators when they die, or really any adjustments, then I've already filled up all the space close to the surface and have no room for piping, electronics, etc. Frankly I'm in the process of rethinking the way I fort as to avoid that in the future.

That's the issue I used to run into as well, which is why I spread the fortress out more with my minimum of 4 empty levels between each used level. Having the extra space is also great for adding a cistern and well. I would like to keep the farms on the same level as the entrance, but I have bad luck finding soil. On the up-side, it probably saves space to have farms on a level above the rest of the fort.

[Pvt. Pirate]

I have a bad habit of building quick and dirty on the surface and getting a full 5 z-layers of fort occupied. This is good for getting set up early, workshops and military by the end of the first year, but in the end it bites me in the rear. If I want a better metal industry or an easier way to jump-start my micro-generators when they die, or really any adjustments, then I've already filled up all the space close to the surface and have no room for piping, electronics, etc. Frankly I'm in the process of rethinking the way I fort as to avoid that in the future.

That's the issue I used to run into as well, which is why I spread the fortress out more with my minimum of 4 empty levels between each used level. Having the extra space is also great for adding a cistern and well. I would like to keep the farms on the same level as the entrance, but I have bad luck finding soil. On the up-side, it probably saves space to have farms on a level above the rest of the fort.

this contradicts my approach to not have any soil outside walls.
so i try to never embark on more than "little soil" and if necessary remove the outer soil walls and replace them with contructed magmasafe stone block walls.
but i prefer digging my entrance into a cliffside (which are a rare sight due to erosion! (ง'̀-'́)ง damn you Armok for your erosion!)
then i dig the trapped entryway snakepath with a pit and many trapped bridges, behind my fortifications, so the enemy walks in and while dodging the bolts fired from behind them, they jump into the pit and land either on spikes or cagetraps and taking the only path out, they walk over many more cagetraps.
after that comes yet another snakepath with cagetraps along the walls leading to the trade depot and into the actual fort.

[Sarmatian123]

1. In 1st year.

First I scan landscape. Pick middle point of the map. Then decide what level is lowest level on it. Then I dig 1x1 stairs down to that level-1, there my basement will be. I put bridge on top of stairs to block any access on demand. I mine out basic room for storage in my basement. Move all my stuff in, while digging 2 more rooms there. 1 for sleep/eat/administrator. 2nd for workshops.

2. In following years I am a terraformer.

Usually I deal with breaching aquifer, caving soil into basement for under ground agriculture, caving soil into 1st floor so I can keep grazing animals there, digging straight to lava and adamantine while avoiding caverns (takes some reloading cough cough why it is not implemented). Then I build huge on top fortress, alike Mountain Halls, with 4-5 floors and double walls and move all my Dwarves from basement to live and work there above ground. With all lava workshops of course. Usually like in 4th-5th years it all happens. Then I am skilling up all my artisans to fit whole my fortress in master quality adamantine armor and weapons.

I stockpile all metal I can get in bars in 1x1 quantum stockpiles and strip mine the whole area to level of my 1st floor, while providing ramps at edges of map. FPS usually kills my interest in game then. Specially, if there are some aquifer levels breached during strip mining at edges of the map. I guess there are some fps issues with blood and other pollution and litter in unbreached caverns. Though lately I got myself some more powerful cpu, so maybe some hope there will be for digging into *FUN*, as playing for 8 hours to just move fortress forward by 1 season, will kill your attention span.

Could fps be faster if Dwarf Fortress used GPU in some capacity? I don't mind ASCII graphics, though 3d graphics could be huge stepping stones for this game tbh. I know for bitcoin mining people use GPU for calculations.

[Fleeting Frames]

There's also some fps issues with stripmining, Sarmatioan123. (Though haven't checked if it is still around in latest version.)

[Dragula]

I've become such a spoiled player and I just use fastdwarf 1 when getting the basics up and running (I then turn it off of course) but it's nice to get to the meaty part of the game fast.