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[Crossroads Inc.]

Usually if I have room, this is how I do most of my fortresses

[smjjames]

Still, many of the design stuff will be thrown out the window once the new version comes out. While more 'traditional' styles will still work and getting the basics set up is still a priority, the fact that the 'entrance dance' will be nonexsistent and so many other changes taking place means that there will be changes in design.

[Jude]

Z LEVELS.  Do not think on a flat plane.  Think in terms of spheres; how fast a Dwarf can go from point A to point B.  Put the farms right above the kitchens which are right above the food supply; it's so much faster then having them all on the same level.

Z levels are ze key.

This is the only thing I really do towards "efficiency." Otherwise I do the organic growth thing. Makes the game way more interesting really; why would I want to have the same fortress every time?

[KenboCalrissian]

My first fortress was really haphazardly arranged with a single stairway going down the center... terribly slow development.

I'm building a castle with a centrally located Trade Depot, and generally speaking I have my trade good stockpiles in rooms surrounding the Depot on the same level.  Workshops are built in twos and usually on the level below with a few exceptions (really, I could probably do with reorganizing those).  Additionally, I have smaller raw material stockpiles either beside or between workshops.  I have a separate "tower" for each specific industry, and by tower I mean a few internally kept rooms built to the same dimensions on top of one another, several doorways to allow easy traffic movement, and a stairway in each.

The only thing slowing me down at the moment is I still have only a single stairway leading down underground, where all my castle building rocks are.  Now that I've realized this, I'll be building some more stairways next time I play.

[slink]

As time has gone on (I have been playing for about a year), my hallways have gotten larger and my living quarters have gotten smaller.

I started with 5x5 bedrooms.  I eventually turned off economics so that I did not have a bunch of bag-Dwarves sleeping in the hallways.  With a grand dining hall, plenty of superb booze, and food ranging from raw rat weed up to masterpiece roasts, my non-nobles are content with a 2x2 room and a bed.  Married couples get an additional bed for the spouse, even if they don't really need one.  I just wish that I could still assign rooms after the economics kicks in.  I would like to resettle families into their own sections as they have more children.  But, oh well.

I started with 1-square tunnels, and wondered why everyone did that funny blinking while they walked.  You know, the one that means Dwarves are lying down on the floor so others can pass?     Then I got really expansive and gave them 2-square tunnels.  Eventually I got up to 6 for the mains and 3 for the alleyways.  In my current fortress I am experimenting with a design that is 6-squares and 8-squares for the main hallways, alternating, and no alleyways.  I think I am getting less overhead from pathing.  With the new design I am also making all walls 2-squares thick so I can be sure the engravings are on the side where I want them to take effect.  It will cut down on the number of rooms that I can put on one level, but hey, I hardly ever use more than three levels anyway.  Five levels of rooms will not be a big burden, and it will make me feel more as if I am getting some use of the rest of the area.

Like others, I tend to place my farms in the top couple of layers.  That is because that is where the dirt is located.  Milling needs to be one layer underground if wind- or watermills are used.  That means that the raw food needs to be stored in those top couple of layers, and the rest of the food follows as well as the textile industry.  Butchering, and therefore tanning and leatherworking, also follow.

The dining room needs to be down far enough to be located in rock so that it can be smoothed and engraved.  The homes for the nobility have the same requirement.  Since bedrooms for all the Dwarves need a quiet area, those tend to end up in the nobles' neighborhood also.

Woodworking, stonecarving, glassbowing, gemcutting, masons, mechanics, and bonecrafting can be where-ever it is convenient, but preferably on the opposite side of the dining hall from the bedrooms.  Stockpiles in dirt levels are more convenient, but this is balanced against the nuisance of digging under surface water (What, damp stone again?  Try the next square ...) and the danger of too much sprawl.  My current fortress is the first one in a long time that has no magma, and I am enjoying the freedom from having to drag everything off to one corner of the map to accommodate the magic eternal fuel supply.  Of course, without coal seams I would be in very bad shape without the magma, but it is still a welcome relief.

One lesson I learned again today is: Keep the traps outdoors!!!  You cannot use the "go outdoors" settings to control the Dwarves from cleaning the traps if you put the traps inside.  I lost a pile of good workers who just could not quite believe that there were goblins right there in the hallway, yes indeedy.  However, having the trade depot indoors is a good thing.  It means I can carry out trade while the goblins are impaling themselves on Large Iron Daggers outside the entrance.

[Jetlaw]

Thanks for everyones contributions so far!

It's nice to get an idea of how others build, I tend to play the metagame somewhat and I find most of my enjoyment comes from building the designs that are as close to perfect as possible. Multiple stairs all over the place and building by Z-Level are my biggest priorities. I've also started erring towards embark locations with many soil layers so I can have large, stoneless stockpile options early on in my fortress' life.

But my biggest problem is that *EVERY* time I build a new workshop level I have this personal crusade against just leaving it at that. I almost always build two Z-levels above and two below of stockpiles equal to the size of the newly dug workshops. This makes my Fortress take forever to get started - The first Dwarven Caravan usually leaves empty handed as all I have are prepared meals and booze (which I prefer to use only for my dwarves at the early parts of the game) and it's not until deep into my second or third years that I get enough immigrants to really start making my fortress run as I desire.

[Jualin]

Spoiler: Basic layout for each level (click to show/hide)

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Using this same standard 57x57 area I've managed to fit in, in seperate designs:
Space for 72 5x5 farms (usually 3/4 is taken up with food stockpiles and food-related workshops)
64 3x3 work rooms with space for 16 extra 5x5 work rooms should the need arise.
4 19x19 storage areas (usually doubles as a map-wide system of underground halls to allow convenient travel to anywhere without having to expose my worker dwarfs to an excess amount of "fun".)
144 2x2 bedrooms, with space for 16 1x8 "noble" rooms.
400 basic graves.
(The mess hall is entirely improvised each time, though it always has the same symmetry as the rest of the fortress)

The order, from top to bottom, usually goes:
1. Farms in a soil level.
2. Workshop level.
3. Stockpile level.
4. Mess hall.
5. Bedroom level.

[SquirrelWizard]

I typically think in waffers opposed to spheres. I'll have a fortress that will span a couple of z levels but is connected by one central stairwell shaft and usually with rooms with similar functions grouped together (IE anything dealing with food is one one floor, anythign dealing with crafting on another. ect)

[sonerohi]

When you embark, find a cool name. Think about how the dwarves at Breezystones live that they got that name. Go with the themes, not in spite of them. Take advantage of natural formations.

[Kishmond]

I almost always smooth out and follow the contours of natural formations. For example, if a tiny hill sticks out of the ground somewhere in a flat area I will trim off the excess bits on the outside and make it a guard tower. I did the "every-fort-has-the-exact-same-layout" thing for a while and it got boring.

Also, I don't take advantage of Z-levels very much.

[Deimos56]

Usually, my interesting stuff all takes place above ground.
When it doesn't, anything goes, otherwise I use a set-up something to this effect: 3 tile long corridors running between blocks of 7x7 rooms, usually a 2xZ block, where Z is whatever I feel like putting. Everything is seperated by 2 tile thick walls to allow engraving on both sides if I feel like it.

Noble rooms, or at least those with requirements above the mayor's, tend to be a 2x2 block of 7x7's with the seperating walls removed and replaced with a random pattern of pillars... They don't especially care that this is the same design used for the barracks and meeting hall.

I'm a bit lazy, so all the workshops and stockpiles usually end up on the first 1-3 Z-levels underground, with about 5 Z's of blank space between them and the living areas and meeting hall.

Usually, though, this doesn't happen as I tend to have a different build at semi-random. There's apparently a 50% chance, though, regardless of situation, that a magma pipe will turn out exactly where I don't want it.

[Darkerson]

This has been very interesting getting a peek at the inner workings of everyone else on how they have their mind set when designing their fortresses!!   
Personally, I'm just now starting to break away from the whole symmetrical design philosophy, as trying to achieve a "perfect" design for me gets old and boring rather quickly. It just doesnt seem to hold my interest that long and i usually end up abandoning the fortress. Ive been trying to be more spontaneous and "organically" grow my fortresses as of late. My only problem with that though is I don't always plan ahead enough for future expansion and it gets a little cluttered, but as far as attention goes, its more intriguing by far. Anyway , I hope this thread goes for a while, its been a fun read so far!!   

[Grendus]

I use a 31x31 inverted apartment design. Once you realize that going up or down via stairs is only one step, you realize that multi z level designs are ridiculously efficient.

Farms always go on top in a storage room (4 9x9 rooms with a 3 tile wide hallway in between them), mostly because I like to save money on embark by bringing along very little food and booze and getting that first crop up soon. After that, dig storage in all the soil layers and maybe one or two stone if there's not much soil, then a crafting level and a magmaworks level. Under that, a barracks, then a whole floor devoted to a legendary dining hall and meeting areas, then two or three levels for noble quarters and siege practice, then the remaining floors for housing exploratory mining. The entire design is very efficient, to get from housing to the surface is 16 steps.

It's not very aesthetically pleasing, but it's very easy to organize and easy to run, if you want to oversee something else you just hit '<' or '>' and go look at it.

[Slogo]

I started with 1-square tunnels, and wondered why everyone did that funny blinking while they walked.  You know, the one that means Dwarves are lying down on the floor so others can pass?     Then I got really expansive and gave them 2-square tunnels.  Eventually I got up to 6 for the mains and 3 for the alleyways.  In my current fortress I am experimenting with a design that is 6-squares and 8-squares for the main hallways, alternating, and no alleyways.  I think I am getting less overhead from pathing.  With the new design I am also making all walls 2-squares thick so I can be sure the engravings are on the side where I want them to take effect.  It will cut down on the number of rooms that I can put on one level, but hey, I hardly ever use more than three levels anyway.  Five levels of rooms will not be a big burden, and it will make me feel more as if I am getting some use of the rest of the area.

Are you using traffic designations? If you designate one tile wide along the walkway (the middle if a 3+ walkway) as a High traffic areas you can greatly improve the dwarves ability to get through a hallway without colliding.

Without the designation dwarves come in at all angles and often can't step to the side to avoid an oncoming or slower creatures. With a high traffic lane all the dwarves will walk down that and then use the side steps to avoid any collisions.

A 3 wide hallways has always been wide enough for me, I could see a 5 wide with 2 high traffic lanes making sense too.

[Lord Shonus]

The important thing is to decide what is important in the design of the fortress, and then build your design to fit that. For example, there is no mechanical reason to only bury dwarves on the absolute lowest level of the fortress. However, I almost always put my tombs there because it fits my aesthetic sense of "dwarvenness." Don't get too bogged down in "efficiency", because, not only does that lead to bland, unentertaining fortresses, it also means you'll only be able to play on very limited sets of terrain.