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Yes, a large part of the fortress.

13 (12.9%)

Maybe early on, after that it's all about stone.

33 (32.7%)

No, dirt is only for farming.

45 (44.6%)

Other (please explain)

10 (9.9%)

Total Members Voted: 101

[UristMcGunsmith]

I go with the flow. I just start making a fortress wherever, and after I'm settled if I feel like re-digging a fortress in stone just so I can smooth and re carve it, so be it.

[They Got Leader]

Dirt is for farming and mass storage until you clear out an area of stone. It just tends to be more useful. Stone can be carved, and smoothed and made into fortrifications and very nice bedrooms. Soil is useful for being cleared once dug, so mass stockpiles are easy to make, farming is obvious, and the last major use of soil is for sand. That's about it.

[yaklin]

for the most part my barracks, weapons and armor stockpiles, archery ranges, and farms are in the soil layers
unless its sand i cant stand the look of it then i just have farms and stick everything else in the next non sand layer

[Quantum Toast]

Soil's handy for farming and storage rooms (no rocks lying around clogging up the stockpiles), but all the living quarters, tombs, etc. get built in proper stone since constructed walls/floors can't be engraved. Though the initial barracks might get dug in soil just so it doesn't take me long to get room to set up some beds.

I hardly ever expand past the first 5 layers, as I like seeing things laid out easily.

Same here, I don't tend to spread out over a lot of levels unless I need to reach something like a water source. And even then, I usually have nothing but several floors of up/down stairwell between that and the rest of the fort, unless I find something interesting to mine out.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Farm, farm workshops, and stockpiles go in the soil. Sometimes other workshops but rarely.

Actually I save my soil digging for my first wave of dedicated miners. I train them up on the soil and for exploratory mining. When one gets legendary I turn him off and have him do something else. When my whole mining corp goes legendary I turn them all on again and extract all the goodies I uncovered exploring.

[KenboCalrissian]

Soil is where all the workshops, stockpiles, and farms go.  In my first fortress I also have my primary living quarters entirely in white sand.  What's the point in setting them up in rock if I can't smooth/engrave it without the nobles throwing fits about it?

Urist McCrafter cancels craft item: Interrupted by sand in crotch

[andrea]

Stockpiles, stockpiles, stockpiles. That is what dirt layers are for. I use them in that way both in underground forts and in aboveground forts.

[Shoku]

I used to use them for storage but I guess I handle production well enough now to get stone out of the way for things.

[Beefree]

REDUNDANCY INCOMING:

I also use my Dirt Layer for just farming, stockpiles (Except food that goes right next to my dining hall), and workshops. When I make my forts I typically try to layout a small barracks in the stone layer and build 7 beds right away then get to work on everything else so there's no unhappy Urist McNoble's having tantrums and throwing a Stray Cat into a pond.

[GoldenH]

I don't like dirt.. i don't use it for stockpiles either, i try to build a obsidian reactor for stone and destroy the rest of it with drawbridge dump zones.  I found out that if I forbid the bins in a stockpile, then i can have dozens of bins on the same square with no noticeable side effects, and that is fine for everything else!

[Noxious]

I personally use the soil layers for initial then cheap housing, most of my workshops and stockpiles. I use rock for dining halls(no matter which layer they are), noble housing and tombs.

[Hyndis]

Farms only.

Real dwarves live in fortresses of stone reinforced with iron forged from magma.

Sometimes I'll have to dig through a soil layer to reach stone, but I then use iron or obsidian blocks to turn that dirty stairwell into a proper stairwell. Even the farms are encased with stone. The ground itself is left as dirt for the areas that the farm fields are, but all of the walkways around the farm fields and the walls are made out of stone blocks.

Even above ground, stone block roads. Dwarves shouldn't be getting their feet muddy. The only time a dwarf ever walks on dirt should be when the dwarf is farming food, or chopping goblins up with steel axes.

[UristMcGunsmith]

Scratch my previous post. Decided to make a fort using no soil layers and it's not all that different. I just need some irrigation. Other than that and a bit more hauling, it's not all that uncomfortable. And it's fun smoothing and engraving everything, even the mountains.

[Beanchubbs]

I mainly just use soil for a beginning 'camp' until I get some migrants. Then I usually move most things to the stone areas. Right now, I'm making my main defense area in the soil tunnels that I have dug out just because they are easier to dig through and you don't have to build walls in them. Other than that I just use them for farming, the 'slums' of the fortress, and a reserve food stockpile.

[Jude]

I usually embark on mountainsides, so there's maybe some soil down at one edge/bottom of the map. I put my farms there and everything else I dig into the mountainside.