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[Blakmane]

I agree, challenges are they way to break to OCD. Try an under-magma/water fortress, a glacial fortress, single dwarf challenge etc. Either that or megaprojects.

[Creamcorn]

Maaan are you guys picky, the only things I look for are sand and flux I barely even try to avoid aquifers!

[Mipe]

OGC is my enemy. It gets messy whenever it interferes with my fortress building!

[Zaranthan]

I got fed up with overplanning my mine shafts, so I started just hollowing out the entire site and building walls as needed. I find the organized chaos of dropping rooms wherever there's space when I need them gives my fort a good, natural feel. The key is not to optimize space, but to squander it! Even on a nanofortress, there are far more tiles than you'll ever need. Don't shy away from sprawling caverns.

[Greiger]

Whenever I get bored I just cut out some resource I'm used to having or doing something weird.

I'm about to build an aboveground fort.  Nothing can be underground except graves, tombs and Water systems.  Even mining must be done open pit quarry style.  Basements are permitted as long as they have no natural ground above them. Buildings must at least try make sense architecturally. (ie. No buildings only 3 tiles wide on the bottom floors that explode outward higher up to use less building space.) Megaprojects can break this rule as long as the building serves no real purpose. Seiges on. No magma on the map. Final Destination.

That oughta be entertaining for awhile.

[Scarpa]

Pick some crazy natural features and incorporate them into your fortress. That will force you out of a pre-planned layout.

[Leafsnail]

On my second fortress, so pretty much random.  Ok, completely random apart from my mine shaft layout.  I think my megaproject will be to build a huge tower of wood.

And then burn it.

[Soadreqm]

Building a fortress around some feature or other tends to give them a nice, organic feel. Build a fortress to, say, a cave river. Pick a long river, and situate all housing, production and whatever other facilities you want right next to it. Try to favour the river as a route from one part of the fortress to another. Use ramps instead of stairs whenever feasible. Pretend cave-ins are still in and have supports in every large room. Maybe some small rooms too. And make some important tunnels too narrow on purpose, and later move all the walls and workshops around or floor over parts of the river to make them wider. And give the dwarves some time off whenever there's nothing vitally urgent to do. That way they'll be partying all the time and ignoring you, making friends, and going insane with anger and grief when anyone in the whole fortress dies.

EDIT: Oh, and also, If you have any extra artifacts you don't like, like basalt mugs or something, leave them outside. The kobolds will steal them, which causes more kobolds to come next time, stealing more stuff. And suddenly you have about ten kobold ambushing parties hopping up from every shrub.

[Leafsnail]

EDIT: Oh, and also, If you have any extra artifacts you don't like, like basalt mugs or something, leave them outside. The kobolds will steal them, which causes more kobolds to come next time, stealing more stuff. And suddenly you have about ten kobold ambushing parties hopping up from every shrub.

Plus it sends the maker into a tantrum (if you haven't already applied magma).

[Rysith]

Take a turn in a succession game. You'll be stuck with years of previous anarchy and cross-management.

Building around a feature is also nice, which can be anything from a cave river/chasm to a particularly nice rock formation.

Find an area with steep cliffs, and build a cliff city: all workshops and rooms must have a wall exposed to the outside, preferably with windows for the bedrooms. Bonus points if the entire thing is done "aboveground", so you aren't using stairways on the interior. Extra bonus points if it's actually suspended, rather than carved into the cliff face.

[Magnnus]

Design an aboveground asymmetric fortress. Also minimal traps and minimal underground expansions.

 It does wonders.

I was actually working on that, but the irregularity irks me so I kinda let it fall into obscurity. I'm thinking about going back.

[Time Kitten]

Take a turn in a succession game. You'll be stuck with years of previous anarchy and cross-management.

Building around a feature is also nice, which can be anything from a cave river/chasm to a particularly nice rock formation.

Find an area with steep cliffs, and build a cliff city: all workshops and rooms must have a wall exposed to the outside, preferably with windows for the bedrooms. Bonus points if the entire thing is done "aboveground", so you aren't using stairways on the interior. Extra bonus points if it's actually suspended, rather than carved into the cliff face.

I'd also make hanging bird cages with metal up down stairs as chains to hold them up....

That can be detached with random levers.

[Retales]

I've had pretty much the same problem. All my forts seem to follow a certain pattern, and even in dangerous areas I've managed to survive. However, my latest fort, Lusterlens has proven to be very problematic. I got this idea I thought was pretty cool, but didn't think there'd be this much trouble.

Apparently dwarves in reclaim parties are pretty much friends with each other. So if one or two dies, a lot of dwarves will get really upset. The tantrum cascades that have destroyed my fort once and almost a second time support this theory. So I suggest you take a reclaim party to a dangerous terrain

[Lesconrads]

Trying to dig into a nice rock-formation would be very dwarven, I think

Sadly, I haven't really found any map with small, spiky mountain-stuff... it has to be a pain to cram those rooms in the available space - fuck pre planning ^^

[Techhead]

Build an above-ground fortress. In a Terrifying Biome.
If at first you don't succeed...
Reclaim, reclaim, and reclaim again.