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[RandomNumberGenerator]

Up until now my forts have been ultra-functional with little aesthetics. My last fort I tried to add some aesthetics in, but I didn't have much planning and thought go into it, so while certain parts of the fortress looked nice, the general layout looked rather shabby. I just found a new map that looks rather decent, which I want to turn into an aesthetically pleasing fortress, though I have a few constraints:

1) According to the location finder, there is an underground river somewhere on the map. Aside from this vague information, I don't have a clue where it is. I'm on a 4x4 map, so I don't have too much to search, but exploratory mining + aesthetics don't seem to go well together. Since the entire map is stone, I will need to tap this soon to get muddied tiles to obtain food and booze. I embarked with 50 food/100 booze, not exactly sure how long that will last.

2) In addition, there is apparently magma and HFS on the map(my first HFS map, yay! Wish me luck...). Not nearly as urgent as the river(well, maybe the magma for getting metalsmithing operations going... I only embarked with 20 Tower Cap logs). However, I have no idea how to make these areas actually look nice.

3) I just created what is, in my opinion, a really cool Central Plaza for my fortress to revolve around. I'm attaching a picture of this plaza below. Basically, there will be 4 shops in the middle once I unlock the Dwarven Economy. It consists of a large area in the center with 12 4x4 stone pillars surrounding it(these are the black indents). I'm considering making the surrounding area all workshops/stockpiles. Any ideas for making the surrounding area look nicer than it currently does? The moat will end up encircling the whole fortress, and I'm thinking about making a barracks/gatehouse by the drawbridge.

[MrFake]

1) I feel the same about mining and aesthetics, but I've learned to suck it up.  I devote one or two z-levels for mining and just dirty them up as much as I need.  To find that river though ... I don't know how to do that easily without reveal.

2) Good luck.  I've yet to pop my HFS cherry.  I always channel magma away from its pipe (never had a magma pool).  I do this on a separate layer from the fort, sometimes my mining layer, but always low enough on the pipe to keep up flow.  Then it gets pumped up to wherever it is being used.  The idea is that it may take longer and more work, but only having magma flow on a z-level far below your fort frees up a lot of room for design.  My magma forge room is just a couple of channels with magma pumped in below, and the workshops are placed in rows along the channels.  It's clean, but as boring as any workshop room, so I'm open to suggestions too.

3) I think it's cool too.  I'd only suggest you design everything to be larger or spaced farther apart.  My biggest regret after a few fort years is that I initially size everything for a pop. 80 fort, but at pop. 150+ it all seems so cramped.  Lately, I've tried to leave lots of undug rock between rooms and halls, either for expansion, new rooms, or just general flexibility in design.  Personally, I'd at least want to push that moat farther out to leave room for lots of cool things between; I'm thinking battlements, barracks, fortifications, death traps, etc.

[RandomNumberGenerator]

Well, after spending some time messing around I found a nice way to wrap workshops and stockpiles around the central area. Now I just need a plan for expanding the fortress. I would rather not use reveal... if it only revealed features maybe, but since it reveals veins/clusters as well I don't like it. Even if I use a backup to 'unreveal' I would still remember were some of them are... then again with an aesthetic fort that might not be a bad thing.

I did use the depot trick however. There were three(?!) black spots on the map. One of them is magma obviously, but I don't know about the other two. Are they the entrance/exist for the underground river? One is part of the river and other is HFS? Or something else entirely? Is anyone more knowledgeable on this topic willing to enlighten me?

As far as the current layout goes, it looked like this. I gave some considering to moving the moat, but to be honest there just wasn't much room unless I moved the entire complex, which was too much work.

[RandomNumberGenerator]

Alright, another update on the fortress. In year 4 now. I think I overreached on this one. It kept me interested at first, but now I'm getting bored with it. I botched the pumping system to get water from the UG River to the fortress. I have no way to get the magma up to the fortress either. Dwarves are very disorganized, and I'm running low on food and drink; caravans can only supply me with so much, and since I have no water I can't make my own.


(Central Plaza; never actually got the Dwarven Economy going though. I like the look of it, but I think it was a little too big.)

(Outside Courtyard; Bridge allowed access to outside refuse pile/trade depot without needed to worry about thieves, I might do that again)

(This is below my Plaza. Bedrooms and one massive Dining Room. That empty space over to the left was supposed to be the gardens, but I never got the plumbing working.)

I think I might breach the HFS and let the demons kill my dwarves. Maybe come back in adventure mode and loot the place, unless the demons are still around. Then again, I don't have much stuff of value - my fortress's wealth consists almost entirely of carved walls. Few things I learned from this fort:

1) Making ultrafunctional fortresses isn't fun.
2) Making purely aesthetical fortresses isn't fun either.
3) A fortress with elements of both of these does sound like fun.
4) Double-check your plumbing, and double-check the wiki article on plumbing.
5) Magma can not be pumped up multiple z-levels with rocks and wood. Metal is needed.
6) If you make your fortress too spacious, it takes ages to get anything done.
7) Embarking on a mountain map is interesting. The lack of food and wood provide unique challenges.
Assign jobs to immigrants BEFORE they crowd up your halls. Otherwise it's hard to tell who is who.

[Doppel]

Devote the lowest level to exploratory mining. I'm assuming you have a magmapipe though.
If you really care about aestethics then instead of stripmining you could fashion this level into a (pre-designed) labyrinth of sorts.

What i like is having a nice looking fortress, but more importantly one which is somewhat unique and incorporates the form of the landscape, unless i'm going for a 100% artificial fortress. (meaning, flattening everything/hollowing out, etc,...
I try to make my forts as pleasing to the eye as possible without the loss of too much efficiency. On top of that i like to have a number of projects, be it an elaborate deathtrap, or something purely aesthetical such as a artificial river, and so on.

[RandomNumberGenerator]

For my next fort I want to make an underground garden.

Are tower caps/shrubs green like normal trees, or brown?

[Phantom]

They are Purple Aces Of Spades

[RandomNumberGenerator]

Ah, so they look like plump helmets. Well that's fine, at least some color gets added in.

I ended up opening the HFS and letting the demons out. They killed everyone. Before the fort was vanquished I quickly made an Adamantium Short Sword and Adamantium Spear, as well as some adamantium clothes(mainly backpakcs and quivers) since I wanted to be a human, not a dwarf. I came back in adventure mode(11 ranks in Ambusher) and snuck around the place looting it, since there is no way I would ever be able to kill the demons. So far I've found:

12 Aluminum Flasks(Can I put water in these? If not I might just sell them)
An Adamantine Sock(I bet the dwarfs would be jealous... if they were still alive)
Assorted Felsite Goods(earrings, bracelets, idols, etc. Make a nice profit)
2 Steel Battleaxes
A sh*tload of copper weapons(too bad I started with an iron sword)
And my only artifact - an emerald floodgate.

No sign of either adamantine weapon, or the backpacks/quivers I made. I think the demons might have picked them up since, well, they're adamantine.

[Grimlocke]

Its usefull to know that, after a fort is abandoned, any item the weighs more then 1000, will NOT be scattered around. Any items that do scatter around however, are allways still around somewhere. Unless some dwarf was still holding it, which isnt likely when all dwarfs are dead.

So if you realy want them, keep looking, but be prepared for it to take long. They might just be under some stone, so you have to use 'look around' to find it.

Lastelly, about estactics, I usualy build my forts around one large shape which functions as the central corridor. Like, I could make a large, wide taping cross, make all the rooms above it, and make the workshops attached to it on the same z-level. I generally just ignore any natural resources I find in my walls, and just smooth them as well.

What I hate most is some ugly big glob of microline being right in the middle of my central chamber. The only choise there is to use constructions and paved roads