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[Demetrious]

Since I've discovered a great new site and thus my paranoia demands I procrastinate, let's chat about "custom" rooms you always end up making.

For instance, I've found that although I make provisions for the basics- dining hall, main meeting hall, barracks, workshops, storage and farms- I always end up making a small, square room where I can stash two catapults and a channel at one end of the room to train up siege engineers. Of course, I need to keep it as far away from housing areas as possible. And then there are "hospitals," which currently means A. a well in close proximity (if at all possible,) and B. a room sparkling with more magnificence in the form of engravings, windows, statues, and the like, then can be possibly imagined (to keep wounded dwarves happy.)

And how about store-room design? I like to make a series of medium-sized store-rooms with support pillars left in the natural rock, which allows me to roughly segregate them by function, but in most of the fortress snapshots I've seen on... that... (website where you can upload forts who's name I have forgotten,) I notice that a lot of people tend to hollow out one GIGANTICAL room with some huge support pillars here or there (or just a central shaft,) and fill the whole shebang with junk. How many people here use that approach...?

[RandomNumberGenerator]

I always seem to place my workshops into either a 6x3 room(containing two shops) or a 14x6 room(containing 4 with a two-tile passageway). I've done this for my past 5 forts. My next fort I want to branch out, not only to mix it up a little, but to make room for specific stockpiles to force my dwarves to use certain materials.

With bedrooms, I always use this design, or some variant of it. I want to try something different, but everything else I've found just looks plain ugly or takes up too much space. If anyone has any good ideas I'm open.

[Demetrious]

I always seem to place my workshops into either a 6x3 room(containing two shops) or a 14x6 room(containing 4 with a two-tile passageway). I've done this for my past 5 forts. My next fort I want to branch out, not only to mix it up a little, but to make room for specific stockpiles to force my dwarves to use certain materials.

Oh, man, workshops. That's a good topic. I started out on my first fort by making square rooms nine tiles wide by eight high, perfect for cramming four 4x4 workshops in nice and neat with a one-tile passageway in the middle- and a similar-sized storeroom below that had no doors to neighboring storerooms. I did this because I was paranoid (lock in rampaging dwarves) and to force dwarves to use particular materiels (the glass-studded mechanisms just pissed me off.) I never ended up worrying about either application, though, and subsequent designs just used bigger rectangular rooms with bigger storerooms below. I think next time I'm just going to knock out a huge swathe of room and throw up workshops willy nilly.

With bedrooms, I always use this design, or some variant of it. I want to try something different, but everything else I've found just looks plain ugly or takes up too much space. If anyone has any good ideas I'm open.

My "main" fort is using this design, which I consider to be a feat of divine brilliance. They look AWESOME, and they've got little courtyards to stick a statue in, and everything- and it houses an insane number of dwarves in a very tight space. This go-around I've got the Greek Cross design designated out, but unless I can think of something clever to stick in the corners, I think it takes up a bit too much space.

[Shurikane]

I can no longer make a fortress without a Dwarven Slap Chop.   

[Kietharr]

Pretty much always set this up:

Forgeroom: Always in magma if I have it, I put 3-4 smelters and two forges. I have one forge autoproduce battle axes and one auto produces caps, using the cheapest metal I can find. I stop autoproduction occasionally for necessary items but I keep it going until I have a legendary armorer/weaponsmith for masterwork armor out of the good metals. I don't waste steel or adamantine by giving them to a crappy smith. Bar stockpiles nearby but far enough away that fire snakes can't burn my wooden bins, also ore stockpiles nearby.

Stoneworks: Two mason workshops, two mechanic shops and one craftsdwarf shop. One mason shop starts on chairs the other on tables to make my first legendary dining hall, both mechanic shops set to autoproduce mechanisms for the entire game because you can never have too many of them. Craftdwarf shop set for stonecrafts so I have early game trading goods. I put a stone dump in here so all of the junk stone in my way ends up here for mass furniture and mechanisms. Eventually the craftdwarf shop is removed.

Butchery area: Butcher shop (two if needed), tanner shop (two if needed) two leatherworks, two craftsdwarf shops, cages and the kennel. I also put the refuse area right next door. Craftsdwarf shops are set to auto produce bone bolts and totems, leatherworks makes armor if I have no metal, but usually ends up making a bunch of backpacks and waterskins, a few quivers and lots of bags and clothes. Leather is cheap so I end up buying a lot of it and making all of my clothes out of it.

Lumber Yard: x2 Carpentry shops, Bowyer, Wood furnace (multiple if I have no magma), and a huge wood stockpile.

Farms: One room for each of the major crops, make a farm that focuses on that crop, though they have other ones on off seasons. Size of the room depends on the crop, I have a small 3x3 farm for dimple cups and a big 8x8 farm for plump helmets. One central room with a farmer's workshop and quern for plant processing, keep food mix off and a stockpile for all processed crops linked to the workshop room.

Bedrooms: Usually stack them for 2-4 levels around an up/down staircase, carve out 3 wide rows as long as you think is reasonable for your dwarves to walk then cram in as many 3x3 rooms as you can.

Living area: Usually right below the farms, I put my dining hall and statue garden in here, also the dwarven gym (bunch of unlinked pumps that I assign my dwarven reserves to operate for a toughness boost) and usually the noble housing end up here.

Siegeyard: Not always made, but if I want siege equipment I have a few catapults here. I usually carve out an area in my mines for it because otherwise I'd have to haul stone to it. Destroys useless stones.

[Skorpion]

Stockpiles: Built into the largest area of soil or cleared stone floor I can make. A giant. humungous room without any sort of support pillars, with access at one end. Stockpiles added as needed. Starts with one big stockpile, then more excavation as I need more room.

Farming: Farm plots stuck next to each other.

Workshops: A giant room in the top layer, with whatever workshops I need plunked down wherever they fit. Rearranged later for FPS efficiency when I have more dwarves.

Bedrooms: A regular pattern, set up with corridors and a slot for a door in case I need to protect against flooding.

Butchery: Above-ground, next to the refuse stockpile, and inside the curtain wall. Ceiling channeled out if necesarry.

Exterior defenses: A curtain wall around a courtyard, so I can slap down workshops and suchlike. If I THINK before I dig, there's an entrance sunk under the walls with ramp access. If not, a kinked walled area. This stops archers firing in and killing everyone, and gives me a nice small entrance to defend with traps. Usually 5 tiles wide, and with precious metal roads added for the king.

Elf drowner: A sealable chamber with a trade depot in it, and door access seperate from the sealing. Pumps set to add water, grates over the intake, and a channel down into the brook to get rid of the water, with a grate over to keep the clothing inside.

Magma foundry: A channel taken off the magma pipe, with a wall sealing it off from the pipe so nothing can waltz in. An arm is taken off with single-tile lumps added for smelters, and a forge stuck at the end. More workshops = more arms and more channel.
When I start screwing with the magma, I tend to seal off the magma itself from the pipe with obsidian, so I can drain the top of the pipe right down.

[IHateOutside]

With bedrooms, I always use this design, or some variant of it. I want to try something different, but everything else I've found just looks plain ugly or takes up too much space. If anyone has any good ideas I'm open.

Do you know if theres a macro for this design. I like it.

[MC Dirty]

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[geoduck]

I'm paranoid, and try to put any workshop that can spawn insanity in a room all by itself. Lately I've been lumping all the food workshops into one large room: still, farmer, fishery, right next to the food/drinks stockpile. Furniture goes in a separate stockpile on the other side of the dining hall. The craftdwarf and the mechanic shops go as close to the entrance/trade depot as possible.

[Chewykittens]

For workshops I end up making 2 5x5 workshops next to each other then an 11x11 storeroom next to that, flanked on the other side by 2 more 5x5's. Sometimes I take off the corners to make it look prettier but I find that by stacking two of these setups (4 5x5's in a row and 2 11x11's) you get a nice base size for a fort and a few levels of these can fit a decent industry.

[betamax]

I do everything obsessively in 11x11 blocks. Living spaces are 16 2x2 rooms, (which makes 11x11), with access via stairs. Workshops are a 3-wide corridor with 3 3x3 rooms on each side, meaning every workshop is in its own room. Each workshop block has an 11x11 store above it and an 11x11 one below it. Noble housing is 4 5x5 rooms. The dining hall is an 11x11 room with a workshop block next to it.

All kind of boring, but it fits together nicely.

[Megaman]

I wind up building a giant lumbering tower/castle/fortress/ultimate achievment of dwarfenness. oh and underground bedrooms carved out of the  soil 10 spaces away from my farms and LEGNDAREEEEE dining rooms.

[Itnetlolor]

I usually build out of necessity. Like my previous, self-proclaimed more successful fort, I kept it more linear 2d-style to segregate the parts more properly, and have a more proper production/trade center.

Of course, my last fort was built centrally around a dining room and trade/production. The ate up the most Z-space.

I haven't really dedicated too much time into elaboration/mixing.

[Grendus]

My fortresses are usually 31x31 underground towers. There's a 3x3 staircase in all four corners, halfway between the corner stairs, and one in the middle. From that 31x31 structure, I can make several different designs.

Storage: four 9x9 storage rooms. There's a 3 square wide path between all my staircases dividing the tower into a grid. Each storage room has a one tile thick wall between it and the hallways, with an entryway on all four sides. Usually I make these in the soil layers for incredibly easy storage.

Workspace: 16 4x4 workshops to a floor. The design is similar to the storage layers, but each storage block is further subdivided into a grid with four rooms. Each room has the middle two sections of its' walls carved out, creating two sets of double doors. I usually train up my masons making the few hundred doors I need to secure these against failed moods.

Training: I connect three of the storage blocks and just leave them open. One becomes a barracks stuffed with beds. One becomes a legendary dining room. One becomes a statue garden. The fourth block is divided down the middle. One of the half-blocks becomes an archery range. The other becomes an ammo stockpile.

Housing: I use a strange build, since the grid system doesn't quite work. Essentially I create two rows of 2x2, then a 2 tile wide path. The next row has two 2x2 rooms, a 3x5 office, then the middle stairs, another office, and two more 2x2 rooms. Mirror on the other side. You end up with a large living space for most of your dwarves, several large offices for early nobles like the bookkeeper, manager, and mayor, and a massive need for doors.


For magma, I just carve out magma channels underneath a standard crafting level. Magma channel levels are usually the first ones I stripmine for building materials and shaft for metal. On the surface I build a wall, unless I'm on a mountain. Usually I build and fortify the second level for marksdwarves, though sometimes I make a craft stockpile or even grunt housing up there (potash makers have to sleep like filthy humans, serves em right).

[RandomNumberGenerator]

With bedrooms, I always use this design, or some variant of it. I want to try something different, but everything else I've found just looks plain ugly or takes up too much space. If anyone has any good ideas I'm open.

My "main" fort is using this design, which I consider to be a feat of divine brilliance. They look AWESOME, and they've got little courtyards to stick a statue in, and everything- and it houses an insane number of dwarves in a very tight space. This go-around I've got the Greek Cross design designated out, but unless I can think of something clever to stick in the corners, I think it takes up a bit too much space.

See, I'm not a big fan of using z-levels. I like to be able to see everything on my screen so I can keep track of what's going on, and when using multiple z-levels you need to keep switching between them. I prefer spreading out horizontally, even though I know it takes dwarves longer to get places.