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[Jordo]

I've never set up a good metalcrafting industry. therefore, my military is always full of unarmored wrestlers. They're actually quite dangerous if all of them are champions.

[Fishbulb]

I always designate my farm plots as restricted traffic areas. I don't know whether it makes any difference, but I just like seeing my planters walk along the perimeter instead of tramping over the rows. It works for me, somehow.

I also designate high-traffic paths in my outside areas. The fort I'm building right now has a large walled-in lawn area with 10x1 farm plots for aboveground farming (I'm playing Dig Deeper, so there's quite a bit to grow). I've got paths criss-crossing it to save the plant life. Which is kind of silly, since I modded my dwarves, dogs and cats with "grasstrample:0" anyway. Which, in turn, is a remarkably elfish thing to do. I'm going to go hang my head in shame now.

Oh. And at least for the first few years, every dwarf gets assigned their own war dog.

I just realized I have another: I always keep a furniture stockpile right next to my still. It's set to accept only empty barrels, and only wood ones. The metal barrels go into another empty stockpile near the farm. As much as possible, I try to keep the booze in wood barrels, and the food in metal barrels. OCD at its finest.

[assimilateur]

I give one guy the profession of Undertaker. 

Is he also a champion Wrestler?

I think you meant dabbling comedian and professional liar.

[MrPomponopolis]

I always make a row or ring of refute stockpile in front of my main (and only) entrance. Anyone near would be greeted by the dead, mutilated bodies and bones of their friends who tried to screw with my fort before them. It gives it a nice Vlad the Impaler touch.

[JoystickHero]

I don't do too well with space efficiency or good pathing. My fortresses tend to have big, wide hallways, with large, square or rectangular rooms. When I build in places with lots of cliffs, I'll often extend rooms outside of the mountain with walls and ceilings out of a stone a different color than the surrounding rock. My mountain forts end up looking like castles that mountains have grown around.

My hill forts are usually only a couple levels deep, and terribly space inefficient. Guess I'm a hummie at heart.

[Amalgam]

I have a sort of coppice management system where I never designate areas to be chopped if there's too many saplings around. I just suck it up and chop some trees further away. I used to define restricted areas so dwarves wouldn't trample groves with lots of immature saplings, but due to the way dwarves path large distances they tend to use certain roads anyway. I almost never use more than one miner, and, historically my forts tend not to have a military because it takes dwarves away from my work force, which is just barely sufficient at 40-50 dwarves. Most of the time I absolutely MUST have a mountain where I embark because a hole in the ground for an entrance feels kind of wrong, but I'm breaking away from that with my new coastal glacier fort. I can't stand boulders and I usually smooth them away the first opportunity I get. I tend to cluster workshops using similar resources together for pathing reasons and plan this stuff out all at once so I don't end up getting land-locked. I have an irrational phobia of letting my engravers engrave anything until they're legendary, I only let them smooth. I find it incredibly difficult to slaughter pets after their owners have passed away and tend to keep them in a cage somewhere. Despite my best efforts my forts are usually paradoxically haphazard and perfectly uniform at the same time since I rarely use anything other than a square or rectangular room, pretty unimpressive altogether. I'm a scatterbrain and a shitty architect.

I have an odd habit of putting little "engravings" on the coffins of my dwarves and deceased pets using the note system. I usually depict how they died and pick out a suitable symbol to represent them, most typically the dwarf symbol with whatever color their profession was and a red background. Dwarf fortress is special because it's the only single-player game I find myself roleplaying in. I guess I've read one too many community forts >.>

[Jack_Bread]

I usually give my starting 7 5x3 rooms which get replaced with nobles when they die.
My entrance starts with a meeting hall, then goes onto stockpiles(which I designate with SHIFT+up/down, SHIFT+right/left), and then neat rows on workshops.
My bedrooms are always far from my workshops and 4 z-levels down.
My dining hall is 2 z-levels down and my barracks is 1 z-level down.
SYMMETRY.
I don't build tombs until my first dwarf dies.
My main hallways are always 3 TILES LONG. Side halls are 2 TILES. Doorways are 1 TILE.

[ungulateman]

I usually give my starting 7 5x3 rooms which get replaced with nobles when they die.
My entrance starts with a meeting hall, then goes onto stockpiles(which I designate with SHIFT+up/down, SHIFT+right/left), and then neat rows on workshops.
My bedrooms are always far from my workshops and 4 z-levels down.
My dining hall is 2 z-levels down and my barracks is 1 z-level down.
SYMMETRY.
I don't build tombs until my first dwarf dies.
My main hallways are always 3 TILES LONG. Side halls are 2 TILES. Doorways are 1 TILE.

You took the words right out of my keyboard.

Wait, what?

Also, I always play in calm woodlands with heaps of trees and vegetation, without running water, and minimal magma. I keep getting killed by bad digging design, whether it's magma or water.

[Vieto]

well, I name my dwarves alphabetically based on Migrant waves, with babies always getting the name theme of the parents.

starters: A
1st wave: B

etc.

Also, I always build a big courtyard wall around the entrance to my fort.

[Funk]

a build a dry moat and fill it with spears then drop spare pets/nobles/elves in.
just keep the moat out doors.

[DwarfOfDefeat]

i ally with the kolbolds and make them a huge feast for dwarfmas and i train an army of ratmen to "soften up" any intruders

[Lord Shonus]

well, I name my dwarves alphabetically based on Migrant waves, with babies always getting the name theme of the parents.

starters: A
1st wave: B

etc.

Also, I always build a big courtyard wall around the entrance to my fort.

What do you do if Charlie has a kid with Erin?

[ungulateman]

I never bring steel battle axes - I use a wood furnace and some copper bars and smelt some copper axes instead. Thank you, deconstructable wagons.

I class my dwarves by usefulness.

Class S - Champions, Nobles, Children, anyone who can't work. Treated as demands go, although champions may get a kicked out tomb or a nice artifact if I have one.

Class A - Miners, Woodcutters, Carpenters, Masons, Growers, Brewers. Any jobs necessary for survival go here. These dwarves get the best treatment available. 5x5 bedrooms, offices, everything engraved, closest to food / drink, personal mausoleums.

Class B - Record Keepers, Engravers, Animal Trainers, Armorsmiths, Furnace Operators, Metalsmiths, Weaponsmiths, Stone / Wood / Bone Crafters, Butchers, Mechanics, Building Designers / Architects. Very useful jobs go here. They get normal (my normal is another player's "pretty good") treatment if possible. 4x4 bedrooms, small office (except Record Keeper, he gets a pimped out one), smoothed and eventually engraved, small personal tombs.

Class C - Bowyers, Animal Trainers, Gem Cutters, Leatherworkers, Wood Burners. Useful jobs go here. They get "meh" treatment, and I get around to them later than the Class As and Bs. 3x3 bedrooms, smoothed and a high-quality shared graveyard.

Class D - Pretty much every other non-military, non-trading skill. Given shittiest rooms possible and drafted into the Engraver Corps or sent out with a wooden weapon and no armour as fodder or for hunting. Also do pretty much all the hauling. 1x1 or 2x2 beds, thrown out after death and given insulting nicknames. Any Class D who hits legendary in a job gets to become a Class B citizen.

[dolalmoth]

I have a long hall where I carve history--like the Chamber of Marzubal in lotr

Also I have a zoo where I keep goblins and elves captured in my cage traps

[GrafZeppelin]

My tombs are always based by "caste":

Zero Room, Medium Size, Outside the main Tombs: Tomb of the Foreigner. Any bodies that I deem worthy to be placed in (i.e. a human warrior who bravely fought off goblins/carp/etc but did not survive, or a truly honorable goblin warrior who provided a nice challenge) are placed here.
First Room, Biggest: Tomb of the Worker. Any common schmucks who never made it to legendary (or never made an artifact) are put here.
Second Room, Large: Tomb of the Craftsman. Any legendary worker or artifact maker is put here. (possessed moods, dontcha know)
Third Room, Medium: Tomb of the Soldier. Soldiers go here.
Fourth Room, Large: Tomb of the Hero. Champions go here.
Hallway: Leads to the various Nobility tombs.
Final Room, Medium: Tombs of the Founders. Leads to the 7 tombs of the founders, which may or may not be occupied. The Leader of the Founders' room leads to the Treasure Vault, which is hidden behind a floodgate controlled by a lever at the top of the fortress, usually.

Strangely enough, I don't do the same with my living quarters, and everyone has just about the same living quality, not counting nobles.