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[Blackburn]

I have the worst designs ever. I don't even think of z-levels, I just make some sprawling complex filled with halls and rooms, all crammed together like a maze. I build like ants do. Just keep going, adding things as I need them until I run out of room on a level, then I dig down and start the process over.

It ends with a sloppy mess. I envy some of you organized, creative guys.

[Lord Dakoth]

Haha, no worries. When I first started playing all of my fort layouts were pretty random and messy, too. I'm guessing that you're relatively new because I haven't seen you around before.

After you design a dozen fortresses, some habits start to grow on you. For instance, all of my designs are centered around a "cross" layout (as you can see from my screenshots.) I guess that has to do with my personal obsession with symmetry.

I'll just share some general rules of thumb that I find helpful.

-Always make hallways three tiles wide. This will cut down on traffic later in the game, and save FPS since your dwarves don't have to re-path so often.

-Put stockpiles one Z-level above or below their respective workshops. This will minimize walking distance, so your dwarves can crank out goods much faster.

-ALWAYS leave one or two empty levels between major floors, "buffer" levels if you will. It will save you the trouble when you find out that your magma pipeline needs to go through your dining hall.

-Design fortresses around a central 3x3 shaft of Up/Down stairs. It will minimize walking distance so a dwarf can get anywhere in the fort in a timely fashion.

Maybe I'll take some screenshots of the MASSIVE 71x71 castle I'm working on. Later.

[Derakon]

Ahh, see, if I find out that my magma pipeline needs to go through my dining hall, then it'll go through the dining hall! Preferably with glass walls on either side to give the dwarves something to look at. Adds character, y'know?

[eerr]

two very large stockpiles that hold the majority of goods without descrimination

(universal stockpiles)

are very space-efficient.

if you don't have room for more stuff, either
stop making so much stuff, use some of the stockpiled goods(furniture!), leave it in the workshop, or dump what you don't need.

that said, I haven't made any myself, but I found it fantastically useful even in the incredibly aged sparkgear fortress.

[BlazingDav]

Personally I'd say my forts are built around my defense ideals, several vaccum chambers perfected by the use of bridges and z-levels

i.e I dig an appropiate hole into the mountain to let in caravans, ramp up to another z-level where I build a bridge over the hole where nothing can technically break through it even fliers which I plan for as well, not that I have anything more dangerous than an eagle on my map, I just do it, anyway, I repeat this a few times, the last one gets to be the direct entrance into the fort, one before gets the trade depot (AKA drowning chamber) and the one before that is my spindly lane trap detour down some stairs (which has a bridge hanging over it behind a dry moat for sealing purposes) where I keep a long corridor with a ballista at one end behind a fortification observing a 10 tile keep away rule, a fortified drain, then a let in point for water OR magma and behind a corner at the opposite end, a tame animal *preferably a kitten* with an open floodgate for company

Somewhat overkill, but then the only thing I really want to *or possibly can* call the super efficient part of my fort would be my defence, I take no prisoners, unless I get round to building cage traps. Automation is a later development for when my fort is bristling with activity I do keep a military though for the sake of it and emergencies.

Naturally I always look for underground rivers, magma pipes and bottomless pits in my forts for the spice of life =P

[Mohreb el Yasim]

two very large stockpiles that hold the majority of goods without descrimination

(universal stockpiles)

are very space-efficient.

if you don't have room for more stuff, either
stop making so much stuff, use some of the stockpiled goods(furniture!), leave it in the workshop, or dump what you don't need.

that said, I haven't made any myself, but I found it fantastically useful even in the incredibly aged sparkgear fortress.

close to my stockpile theory:
"if you have enougth stockpile for a quantity of item needed (for example finished good enougth for one hole year, caravan - buying off, then just don't make anymore, production will slow down from crowded workshops, but who cares anyway you don't need new items of that type ... (and quite space eficient way too 'cause with bins it is not a much of space you need ...

[Blackburn]

Thank you kindly, Lord Dakoth. I'll keep your tips in mind. I've been thinking of trying a new technique...not a very efficient, useful, or practical technique, but hey, Dwarf Fortress is about trying new things. And seeing how horribly wrong those new things can go.

Stockpiles under workshops...this is one of those things that make me wonder why I didn't think of that myself, since it makes so much sense.

Been using 2-tiles-wide halls, might bump up to 3 sometime...

[Darkerson]

Maybe I'll take some screenshots of the MASSIVE 71x71 castle I'm working on. Later.

That would be great! Thanks again for all the advice!

[Vicomt]

Maybe I'll take some screenshots of the MASSIVE 71x71 castle I'm working on. Later.

That would be great! Thanks again for all the advice!

seconded..... does it have magma?

[Copper]

In my last couple of forts I've been looking for a nice way to make scalable, at least marginally efficient, yet aesthetic workshop spaces. I think I've got at least an approximation of it in this design:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(examples are just examples, ideally one whole floor is devoted to a single industry)

Four together form a cog shape - early on one cog can hold basically everything and later you can stack a stockpile level on top of and below each industry level.

I've never really been past ~100 dwarves though so I don't know if it scales that well, but it seems to hold up to medium amounts of dwarves well, as long as I make a bunch of small work zones, all feeding the level spanning stockpiles above and below.

[Aspgren]

It's important for me that my dwarves get along. I shower them with common rooms, a popular one is a huge dining hall centered around a very well made table. A well is present and designated as meeting center. Beds along the walls. Buckets stored in an adjacent room.

Health is also important. I make sure to remove many parts of the roof in the food storage and install grates leading to the surface. This helps to prevent both miasma and cave sickness. If the food storage is deep in the fortress, chimney systems can be lead straight to the surface using what I call the "dwarven drill" .. basically position walls around the area you want to mine out. You don't have to put them diagonally. (Edit: Scratch that. You have to put them diagonally.) Order a miner to make a channel and he will dig the ground out from under his feet. repeat and he will make a straight chasm deep into the ground.

Security is a top concern. I like to produce dogs, all marksdwarves are assigned war dogs for protection, should they get into melee combat. Parents as well as dwarves who work outdoors are also assigned canine protection. Apart from this I make sure that the barracks are closer to the entrance than the living quarters, any ambushers who make it inside will not surprise my miners - they will surprise my axedwarves... it's very rare that they make it this far however, as I tend to strategically position arrow towers and destroy them before they have a chance to challenge me.

[eerr]

I have lots of strategies for making a good fort.

Of course, They usually require planning.
So I dig whatever's convenient.

[Stromko]

Here's the general design I've been using over my last several forts.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-5354-weaverwalls

The recurring element of each Z level (the way the rooms are designed out all the way down to the bottom) is the element I keep using, because it just seems to look good and work well. Eight 5x5 rooms surrounding a large open area, with walls (natural or otherwise) dividing up the space as needed. Hallways of any kind are kept to a minimum.

I've used this design for a strictly horizontal (all main fortress areas being on the same Z axis) fortress, just plotting out the design in a grid so there were a bunch of these almost-circular rooms, connected by a large open area in the center that I used for farming. I eventually turned that into the main dining room, building a room to match the others out of constructed stone with entrances on the corners.

One will notice I don't really do anything about rocks, unless they're in the dining room or some other particularly pretty area. They're used for crafting and masonry as needed, hauling them somewhere (even if you take advantage of 'quantum stockpiles') is simply too much trouble, and they're a valuable resource right where they are.

[Hurion]

Mine are almost always a 3 wide corridor going into a mountain for quite a while, with the barracks and trader on that z level, along with a large farm (which I generally dig out later on and cap over half of with glass) that isn't connected to the corridor, but to the stockpile. Above the barracks I build a tower with no door to the aboveground that guards the entrance. At the end of the corridor I build a 3x3 staircase down to the bottom z level where I build the tomb, and the apartments are one z level above that. Underneath the barracks level is the stockpile level, which isn't connected to the main staircase, but rather to the production level underneath the stockpile level, which is connected to the main staircase. Other things are interspersed between the apartment and production levels. The dining room and well are usually connected to the food stockpile.

I set up the stockpile to correspond to what production is going on underneath it, metal bars goes above the forges and smelter, wood goes above the carpenter, food goes beneath the farm and above the kitchen, and a 4th area is for misc stuff.

[Darkerson]

Thanks for the link to your fortress Stromko, that was a very detailed fort design indeed!