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[Xehon]

It seems that every DF player has their own "handwriting" when it comes to fortress designs. I think it might be interesting to investigate the different styles that we all have and draw insight and inspiration from them.

I personally, for an example, hate building diagonal doors, large staircases and mish-mashed fortresses. My fortresses are dominated by large hallways that sprawl into complex pathways and go up and down via ramps. My fortresses are usually quite large and inefficient when it comes to commuting distances. I also like to make pillars(smoothed and egraved walls turn into pillars when they're adjacent to less than 2 other wall pieces) everywhere, even my stockpiles have them. Same goes for statues. I put them everywhere. My newest fortress, which is quite young, has almost 300 statues, thats a bit more than doors, which I'm a fan of too. I also hate digging into veins and different color stone, so that I go out of my way to avoid them and ofter either use stone sense or reveal.
Here's a map of my latest fortress. It should be a good example of what my fortresses tend to look like.

So, whats your building style? What odd quirks and habits to you have, when it comes to fortress designs?

[ed boy]

I like my entrance layer to consist of a long underground hallway leading to a trade depot + staircases, with my dining room/mmeting hall behind that, with everything symetrical.

If the next z-level down has soil, I build farms+workshops on that level. If not, I build farms either above or on the same level as the meeting hall (if on the same level, there has to be two on either side to make things identical). If it has no soil, I use the z-level just below as a stockpile for everything except stone.

I try to keep symetry, but only insist on my entry level.

[Danarca]

I'd prefer to do like you, lots of large hallways (Not as big though, just standard 3 tiles wide, maybe we a few statues), with ramps leading up and down.
Unfortunately it's hard to get started, since it usually takes a few years before the bedrooms complex, the dining room, the farms and the craftssection are finished >.<

I need to watch replays ;p

[smjjames]

Given that I generally have FPS issues later, I try to make it so that the pathing works well, although I don't really use traffic zones much.

The burrow stuff in the next release will suppousedly help with FPS somewhat.

[ed boy]

I tend not to have hallways (i mine everything out instead), and only designate the barracks, the dining room and rooms for nobles.

[RedWick]

I build gate towns with a road running through.  The idea of just sinking a couple of stairways into the ground and building around that central stairway is completely foreign to me. 

Examples:
Shotrake
Dance of Spears

I like my fortresses to feel like locations where I'd feel excited exploring.  Having large rooms carved out that serve multiple purposes works, but it lacks the flair I really enjoy.

[M.R. Siegal]

I like to build vertically, with stockpiles usually directly above or below the workshops that use them.  My bedrooms are always square and the bed must have an open square next to it, the idea of being able to crawl over a cabinet or chest to get to the bed is abhorrent to me.

I pretty much always drain a pond, floor it over, muddy it, then cover the opening with glass to make a greenhouse for growing above ground plants underground.  In fact, I almost always have some sort of glass-enclosed meeting area for my dwarves.  I apparently like to do things with glass.  In my last fort I diverted a river, channeled out the bottom, refloored it with glass then let the river go its natural course.  I then dug out the area under the glass riverbed, smoothed and engraved it, put a good state in it and made it a garden.  I liked the idea of having my dwarves be able to look up from the underside of a river.  I called it the dwarfarium.

[Itnetlolor]

Hallways in my forts, especially high-traffic zones, are usually 3-wide; also to allow for wagons to have an alternative entrance.

Wavehandle is still one of the best examples I use. Having primary-designation zones also works very well, provided industry can work from it. From the same fort, I have a prison in front of my food stores (for processing and brewing and torture of prisoners), I also have livestock storage within the same zone close enough in proximity to the butcher/tanners. Much beef to go about the fortress.

I somewhat like to keep some sort of realism/plausibility throughout the fortress/project. Again, Wavehandle, as well as Bloodfist are examples. Wavehandle also having a sewer of sorts for constant water supply and such (no back door through here; you fall in, you deal with the carp.); as for Bloodfist, the ship is a mere skeleton still, and is being constructed in a sky/dry-dock.

You can say my design style is similar to my drawing style: realistic to an extent, but still loose enough to be fun and creative. Plus, if I'm not planning, you would notice parts where I truly wing it, and try to make something work. I also have a habit of making things modular so that I can easily modify, or cheaply build upon something.

Also much how I draw, I usually come up with a purpose, and then build the mechanics of it all, all this before I make it stylish; if it needs to be. But like above, I mostly wing it with my designs with as little precision/effort as possible. I apparently had tons of moods now that I look back at my sketchbook and forts.

Reference Maps:
Wavehandle
Bloodfist

I noticed. Project idea aside, I think what truly makes Bloodfist enough of a megaproject in itself is how I'm building it. It adds a challenging flair to it. Build the scaffolding and support structures and such before actually building the construction itself. Much like how archways have a process in building them, as well as wooden boats.

[Lemunde]

I use 2 tile wide hallways since I stick to a low population.  1st level is where all my storage is.  2nd level is for most of my workshops.  3rd level is quarters and dining. 

I tend to build an above ground fort in the process.  This is where my trade depot goes and sometimes I'll build the manager's office there too.  Marksdwarves man a fortified area just above or around the entrance.  Sometimes I'll build a short tower outside the fortress in front of the entrance that can only be accessed from under ground.

I don't farm plump helmets.  I usually forage for berries and end up farming strawberries and prickleberries and sometimes even sunberries.

Personal quarters are a low priority.  I usually reserve them for nobles(in my case, noble), founders or any dwarf who reaches legendary status.

I try to avoid too many repeating patterns.  I don't pre-plan where everything will go too far in advance.  I build when and where the the mood hits me.

Dragon Skull
Orbcomet
The Black-Brew of Guile

[SkyRender]

I have a very specific design I use.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 To sum it up: my forts fit into a very clean 35x35 cube of space and span about 10 Z-levels.  Makes for short hauling jobs and huge amounts of stockpile space.

[ed boy]

where does the depot go?

[o_O[WTFace]]

I sink a moderately long caravan pathway into a mountain, build a trade depot room, then attach my central staircase to that.  No other stairs are allowed, everything passes through that staircase if it goes up or down (except for exploratory mining and pump towers and such).  The stairway is designed to accept a waterfall running through it, if I get around to that.  From there I try to build everything for efficient movement.  The first few z levels get workshops around the stairway, with massive open stockpiles around that.  Below that is my meetingroom/barracks/refuse stockpile level, then below that its 4x3 housing grids, then facilities for housing nobles and "recycling" the extra ones.

Instead of an atom smasher I use multiple craftsdorf workshops build around a stone quantum stockpile, resulting in a never ending flow of raw stone up, then processed stone out. 

Like the rest of the people here I try for symetry and 3 wide hallways.  Statues and engravings go everywhere, eventually. 

[Crowbar]

I tend to have a very pragmatic approach to fortress construction.  I always start off with everything very orderly (okay, food stockpile goes here, and the kitchen will go there) but as time goes on and my fortress increases in population, I just end up digging out more rooms and making more beds as I go.

So I always end up with some pretty ugly-ass fortresses.

[Silfurdreki]

I always build my fortresses around quirks in the environment, not terraforming too much unless necessary to make room for some construction. Because of this (and also that I want the fortresses to look good through dwarven eyes) I usually en up with pretty inefficient fortesses.

I also like building rooms several z-layers high, not because it does anything ingame, but because I imagine them being grander that way. I mean, would a real life cathedral be as impressing with a 2 metre high ceiling?


Examples of my fortresses are:

Silverwaters
Roomtyphoons

[Tcei]

I've been obsessed latly with creating circle-tower type forts. Mostly underground. This current fort Im experimenting with keeping all operations underground save for wood cutting. This includes drawing seiges/ambushes underground and into my kill chamber were my champions are rather than sending my champions above ground. The idea is that I can close off the chamber and have my dwarves clean at my leisure rather than lemming-rush out side my front gates to get murdered by an ambush while my military is on break.  Im also debating tapping the lake above the fort to create an automated cleaning system or tunnle the magma over...*ponders*