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[hotcakes]

i am trying to plan my next fortress and i want it to be set up very well. So please post a SS of your fortress or the general idea. Also how wide should a hallway be to minimize congestion for 200dwarves is 3 spaces enough?

[Warlord255]

A 3-space hallway is decent enough; as for fort design, it's entirely up to you.

I usually plan mine out with dig designations, but don't designate the accessible tiles - so the design will lie embedded in the dirt, but not get mined out until I am ready.

[Plank of Wood]

Plans are only made so they may be foiled. DF is all about adaption, your average steel producting, wood chopping, soap making fortress won't work in a sinister desert.

3 wide corridoors do well at the beggining of your fortress, move up to 5 wide corridoors once you've hit 100.

[Ashery]

I usually plan mine out with dig designations, but don't designate the accessible tiles - so the design will lie embedded in the dirt, but not get mined out until I am ready.

Same.

Hasn't prevented me from making mistakes, however ;p

Currently have a multi-level fishery designated, several more levels to my tree farm, just finished most of my entrance hall designations, and a few other minor projects.

The width of your corridors depends on how many dwarves will be regularly using said hall. Back in the 2d version, I could definitely see the arguments for a five tile wide main hall, but on a well planned vertical fort, you could get away with two tile wide halls in most areas. What becomes an issue in vertical forts, however, is how many traffic jams are occurring due to having too few stairwells.

And while adaption is essential, you still need a well planned fortress design that'll remain relatively efficient over time and possess the potential to adapt to situations that weren't expected.

[The Chemist]

I have found octagons to be a very nice configuration. I have 5 octagons a level, but it could easily be made into 9. you have a central axis in one octagon and connect the other four with squares. you can fit 8 3-tile rooms and 4 4-tile rooms in an octagon as well. so 12 people per chamber. the segmentation also allows for potentially very good threat management. you can have full open acess, with 3 squares through each joiner square or you can partially close it off.

[Ashery]

Forgot to go over the actual setup I use ;p

The basic design uses a 35x35 area.

From this, you get a 3x3 setup of 11x11 rooms that can be further broken up depending on the floor.

Hopefully more of the main fort will be finished on the next upload of my current fort as it's far easier to show than type/describe. The first upload has a sketch of what it'll look like, but it's far from complete. The tree farm replicates what my stockpile levels will look like, but I made a mistake and the corners were 12x12 instead of 11x11 as the design should be ;p

[Bobokapi]

i usually use a main stairwell that's 3x3 of stairs with a statue in the middle (8 stairs) and i try to make my fort stay as close to the main stairway as possible, using more z-levels than i need to, but i think it works best because the dwarves never have to walk very far on one level

[Ashery]

i usually use a main stairwell that's 3x3 of stairs with a statue in the middle (8 stairs) and i try to make my fort stay as close to the main stairway as possible, using more z-levels than i need to, but i think it works best because the dwarves never have to walk very far on one level

...heh...

The current fort won't have a single underground level unused in the main fort...Wish I had another floor for tombs, actually :\

[Bobokapi]

I guess I've never gotten far enough for that to be a problem yet because of trying new mods

[Ashery]

I guess I've never gotten far enough for that to be a problem yet because of trying new mods

I haven't gotten there either...it's simply that every level has a planned use

The main fort, is, however, a simple 35x35 design with a couple levels dedicated to waterfall setup and drainage. So despite there being nearly a dozen inhabited levels, I'm still rather short on space. Doesn't help that almost a third of the fort will end up being stockpiles, heh...(Three dedicated levels as a sound buffer and each of the three workshop levels will have about half their total area dedicated to raw material stockpiles.)

[Zako]

I have a problem in planning forts. I want to make a HUGE fort with 100's of dorf's but I just know that the features I want (magma tube, underground river, veins of minerals, cliff structure) will ALWAYS get in the way! I want to adapt to these features, but I still want my fort to look not too haphazard, like there is some element of organization in it at all times.

Some help please?

[Dorten]

I have a problem in planning forts. I want to make a HUGE fort with 100's of dorf's but I just know that the features I want (magma tube, underground river, veins of minerals, cliff structure) will ALWAYS get in the way! I want to adapt to these features, but I still want my fort to look not too haphazard, like there is some element of organization in it at all times.

Some help please?

If something gets in the way, you can jus dig/pump it out and build walls and floors and whatever to make the place consistent with the rest of your fort. Everyone is doing that!

[Ashery]

I have a problem in planning forts. I want to make a HUGE fort with 100's of dorf's but I just know that the features I want (magma tube, underground river, veins of minerals, cliff structure) will ALWAYS get in the way! I want to adapt to these features, but I still want my fort to look not too haphazard, like there is some element of organization in it at all times.

Some help please?

None of those features pose *that* much of a challenge. Rivers can be dammed/diverted, magma pipes tend to be visible from the surface (Although if it isn't and you happened to build you main stairwell over the pipe, you're a bit fucked), cliffs can be seen before plans are put in place, and veins don't matter all that much unless you want to build your noble quarters on top of a natural platinum floor that you'll engrave.

If your world is set to show all features on the embark screen it's even easier to avoid'em. Rivers are the main issue then as you don't know what z-level they're on. An example for this is my current fort that was linked to earlier wrt the magma pool in the middle of my planned entrance. Will hopefully be draining the pool into a cistern sometime within the next year so that I can finish up the entrance.

I suppose having a basic 35x35 blueprint makes things easier as well due to the fact that it's small enough to fit almost anywhere. It can be reduced to 27x27 as well, although that'd reduce the pop/level from 48 3x3 to just 20-24 3x3 with a bit of stockpile space.

So the best I can say is to come up with a modular format that's flexible. It may not be the most aesthetically pleasing format, but modular plans are definitely the simplest way to go about planning a fort.

[TettyNullus]

I have a problem in planning forts. I want to make a HUGE fort with 100's of dorf's but I just know that the features I want (magma tube, underground river, veins of minerals, cliff structure) will ALWAYS get in the way! I want to adapt to these features, but I still want my fort to look not too haphazard, like there is some element of organization in it at all times.

Some help please?

Do it the Dwarven way, MINE IT OUT! ( For magma, obsidian it with water and dig down, for the river, drain/redirect it, for the cliff, dig it out anyway, for the veins.... what? walls not good enough for you, dig it out! ) But in all seriousness, I've always just stripped every levels I could get to from bottom up and just drill through everything, set up a nice, organized fortress using 3x3 stairways and 3 wide corriders and 9x9 room patterns ( 7x7 interior space, though ), not too much trouble other than several million tonnes of rocks laying around to be cleaned out after all the digging and rebuilding 

[Zako]

You use 3x3 rooms? I just make 2x2 pods with a door in the corner next to stairs.