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[Helmaroc]

I've been playing DF for about a year and a half, but since my first few forts, the layout has been pretty much the same. Simple, but boring. A trade depot and entrance at surface, food, farms, workshops, storage on the first level underground, and housing on the second. Of course, there are other things spread about the 3 levels I use, and I often mine to the bottom layer in an attempt to find minerals, but the basic idea is the same.
Whenever I see a pic/video of someone else's fort, they look drastically different. Above-ground buildings, complex trap systems, walls, etc.

How do you layout your forts, and which way do you find the most effective?

[dornbeast]

It's not about effective all the time.

Sometimes, it's about doing silly things.  I've carved a 21x23 tower out of the stone and built a zig-zag descent down one side of the pit.  When I close the drawbridge connecting the top of the tower to the rest of the world, the only access is down ten z-levels, running past traps and marksdwarves sniping through fortifications, through a maze of channels with more traps, and in via the barracks.

The goblins haven't made it to the barracks yet.

Make a grandiose plan.  Demonstrate that dwarves can do A*N*Y*T*H*I*N*G.

[Skelodwarf]

If you are looking for effective, you just have a 3-wide hallway into the mountain side, a depot, and then everything else. And fill the hall with traps.

If you are looking for a fun addition to gameplay, try and make the entire place look prettyful.

Look at BrokenAbyss or whatever it's called, and then try and match it's glory.

[Slappy Moose]

Adding magma to any fortress design works wonders.

[Heron TSG]

do stuff like these people.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-2449-mountainbanners

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-4547-flarechannel

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-3993-abbeytunneled

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-4476-fortressoflakes

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-4896-walledwar

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-5304-gearmanorsthecityofstone

[Helmaroc]

These are all good suggestions, and I'll look into them, but how do you setup a fort? Or, if it's always different, how are you building your current one?

[Jeff Carr]

I am by far not an expert, but I build a castle above the ground with farming, farms on level 1 below that, with the kitchens, 3rd and 4th levels are work shops, and the deepest level is my starting bedrooms (later turned into the crypt). 

My latest has a military fortress as well as the castle, and the only way to the civilian area is into the fortress, through the guards, and over the bridge between the fortress and the castle.

The only civilians in the military area are my two wood cutters, who each have a small pack of 6 war dogs as pets...

[ElSTyskel]

Jeff - How do you do things like that?  I've been playing for a while now, but I don't know how to order and organize construction/workshops for things like that.

[Jeff Carr]

Jeff - How do you do things like that?  I've been playing for a while now, but I don't know how to order and organize construction/workshops for things like that.

This latest castle is square with 21 square long walls between 8 square towers.  Each tower has a stairwell going up 8 z levels to the top, and down 3 z levels into the ground, broken up by hatches to prevent falls.  The center of my castle has a tower with 4 stair wells going down all the way to the last z level, and up 3 z levels where they come up directly around the trade depot. This is where the bridge from the fortress connects to it.  (The bridge comes across on z level 4, but drops before entering my tower, which gives the balista in the tower on z 4 the ability to fire straight down the bridge.

Anyway, the first 2 z levels under the castle have the same dimensions, mainly because the moat goes down that far.  The moat is 2 squares wide and 2 z levels deep, except where it runs through the two western towers to run 4 water wheels inside those towers on ground level. 

The way I set it up is that prepared food, booze, finished goods, and stone are stored near the center stairwells, and raw materials are run up and down each tower stairway.  So seeds and plants are stored in one tower, with appropriate workshops and kitchens near that tower, dyers and looms further out from that towards the center, and clothiers workshops right next to the center.  Each tower is similar, but for a different material, even the refuse tower, which is near the butchers, tanners, and leather workers.  That tower was channeled all the way down 4 levels and had floors put in with a 2x2 floor grate in the center

The 3th level underground I build custom for workshops as I need to expand.  I haven't expanded this one too much yet, but part of my plan is to dig a tunnel that goes under the military fortress, stack wood and goblin weapons at the ground level on floor grates there, and drop it a shaft to that level, so I can bring them inside without endangering any haulers except my woodcutters.  If I do that, I'll probably move all of my smelters to that level.

[Aspgren]

My current fort is a longhouse that I built into a tower. The tower became the center of a small city surrounded by a wall.

After I realised that dwarves don't really need and don't really care for houses (they are happy in the "common rooms") I stopped building and the 2 upper floors of the tower are unused. Building on this thing isn't fun since there's no magma or bottomless pit on the map ...

[Foa]

I just place a base hex, then it grows into a hex complex, then a hex hierarchy...

Anyways, it is all in a hex grid regardless of all of the irregularities.

[Heron TSG]

mine is currently a huge underwater (in a dwarf-made lake) fortress. although the fort itself is irreversibly tiny, it is compact and CRAZY efficient.