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[winner]

I take your designs and make them slightly more efficient. Halls horizontally on the first level and vertically on the level below. That way I don't get as much wasted space but there is just as much access.

[SheepishOne]

Just use a simple design that can be repeated easily, or even modified from its current form. I use a 3 tile wide 'cross' of varying depth and connect them to pathways. If you space them correctly (just one space away) there will always be room increase existing room sizes without barreling into the next door ones. It also allows for relative freedom in the designing process and is pretty fast to set up. The repeating shapes really do help to remove errors from your mind, in the below example I messed up the symmetry in a section, but it isn't easy to pick up or all that glaring. It could be the microcline pockets that distract you though :/

For example:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Dorten]

Agreed. Repeating designs rule the world. Just pick some pattern in which you can place anything and you can think that your fortress is constructed out of these blocks. much easier to control.
samples:
http://www.mkv25.net/dfma/browseby.php?fortressName=Pagebend
http://www.mkv25.net/dfma/browseby.php?fortressName=Squashshoot

[Martin]

Agreed. Repeating designs rule the world. Just pick some pattern in which you can place anything and you can think that your fortress is constructed out of these blocks. much easier to control.
samples:
http://www.mkv25.net/dfma/browseby.php?fortressName=Pagebend
http://www.mkv25.net/dfma/browseby.php?fortressName=Squashshoot

Damn. Pagebend has really raised the bar for what I should build next. That's awesome...

[winner]

a 3x3 grid of 3x3 rooms [with a 3x3 staircase in the center] is what I always use. Like I said one layer has the halls oriented vertically and the next has them horizontally. For storage I just do an 11x11 room with stairs in the middle. [it conveniently is the same size as shift arrow]

[Duke 2.0]

Agreed. Repeating designs rule the world. Just pick some pattern in which you can place anything and you can think that your fortress is constructed out of these blocks. much easier to control.
samples:
http://www.mkv25.net/dfma/browseby.php?fortressName=Pagebend
http://www.mkv25.net/dfma/browseby.php?fortressName=Squashshoot

Damn. Pagebend has really raised the bar for what I should build next. That's awesome...

 Indeed. This fortress is perhaps what has inspired me the most of all the fortresses on the archives. Heck, it even features the tileset I u-
 Wait, did you update diagonal walls?

[anomaly]

halls are 3 tiles wide in my fortress, i can't really ever see making them larger than that...

i think as far as fortress design, i have a simple utilitarian design which relies heavily on the Z axis, it also allows for great scalability.

[Duke 2.0]

 Actually, I recently got into a habit of doing above ground fortresses and must thus depend on horizontal efficiency. Still, I find if you have a large open space it pays to surround your roads with restricted designations and fill the roads with high traffic designations. I got what, 12 extra fps from that?

 So yes, be sure to designate major halls as high traffic areas. this allows for pathfinding to move down them faster as opposed to other areas they don't want to go.

[Martin]

 Actually, I recently got into a habit of doing above ground fortresses and must thus depend on horizontal efficiency. Still, I find if you have a large open space it pays to surround your roads with restricted designations and fill the roads with high traffic designations. I got what, 12 extra fps from that?

 So yes, be sure to designate major halls as high traffic areas. this allows for pathfinding to move down them faster as opposed to other areas they don't want to go.

And when expanding your fortress, make room for doors and floodhatches that you can lock off unused sections of the fort - no pathfinding to places you can't reach.

[Duke 2.0]

 Indeed. Tombs don't need to be accessed if nobody is dead. And those mineshafts with no minerals in them are just a waste of pathfinding!

[greggbert]

I use the "Losing is Fun" mantra.  Every fortress I build is one step closer to the perfect fortress.  In my first fortress I discovered EXACTLY how to lay out my food storage and processing.  In my second fortress I figured out how to lay out craftsdwarf workshops and stockpiles.  In my third I mastered the aboveground keep and the underground trash compacter.  In my fourth I figured out how to make scalable housing.  On my fifth, the best way to lay out ores, smelting, melting and woodburning.   I'm still working on how to do plumbing but I'm very close.  Eventually I'll have the perfect fortress design and then I'll rule the world.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Planning?
What's that.
My oldest fortress is composed of over a decade of brain farts and impulses.
The workshops are often MILES form the workers and stockpiles.
Well, the workers might be quite close, as they probably won't have a bedroom.
Oh, and expect frequent flooding from botched waterfalls.
Oh, and expect years of hard labour on a large castle that I'll have a purpose for but then forget and leave it empty.

[Felblood]

I used to build very horizontal forts, but now that I have the hang of it, verticality is king.

My latest fort is built in a really lumpy stretch of ground, with a stream, so I'm digging three huge 3x3 stairwells strait down 8 levels, and building my fortress between them. A vertical shaft, with hatches on each level, will allow me to supply water to wells and swimming pools on each floor, and a number of walls will be built around the site, to allow for bottle-necking and trapping.

The main halls are all 3 wide, except for the occasional 4 wide, where it was just easy to shave out the hallway side than to widen the room on the other side. Modularity was intended, but got lost in my manic digging frenzy.

The farm is right above the food stocks, which are right above where the plant workshops will go. There is a separate stairwell for this, to keep farmers from interfering with traffic.

Most of the other workshops are still on the surface, and everyone except the broker lives in the farming dormitories still. As other complexes get added, I will move the relevant houses closer. There will be a legendary dining room and a secondary food store every three floors, to keep hungry dwarves from overloading any one stairwell.

[Martin]

Dorton, mind uploading your tileset? I found your old one, but I'd like to see elements of the one you're using now.

[Kel the Oblivious]

In the beginning, my forts were pretty poor. The main area was solely horizontal, making it that my dwarves would spend a long time simply going from the sleeping quarters to the dining hall, and would almost always start back for bed without doing a single piece of work. Now, I have it set up with stair ways connecting layers of sleeping quarters, extending as far up and down as possible, a legendary dining hall in the center of it, work shops only a couple of spaces away, far enough to not disrupt sleep, but close enough to get plenty of work done.

And I make little micro cities around vital areas, such as brooks for fishing (Screw rivers, I don't want the fish eating my guys) And around the magma pipes/pools. This reduces travel time by a great deal.

In the end, I have about three different dining, sleeping, and meeting areas. And they all have above ground meeting areas. No dwarf puke marring MY halls, thank you.