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[Retro]

Since a 10 year old fort's entrance can be larger than your starting seven's entire 1st year fort, I've adopted a principal of temp housing and haven't gone back yet. Admittedly, this temp housing can last up to two decades, but hey, legendary dining room. It's worth it when I can move them in, anyhow.

[LoneJedi7]

so much to say, so little room....

ok, for starters your going to want to plan out your fortress as a future big fortress, dont design it to be small.  i suggest you put your masonry (leave room for 2 of them) right by the stairs and entrance as he will be going up and down a lot.  put a carpentry also somewhat close to the stairs or just put a large wood stockpile next to your carpenters shops (leave room for 2 of them). also MAKE SURE you put your butchers shop by the entrance with a Tanners shop next to it, because animal skin goes bad fast after its butchard.  i keep my farm plots and food stockpiles off to the side and make them very large (esp. the stockpile) and leave room for some brewerys close by. if you make a furniture and finished good stockpile (suggested), make them large and put them out of the way, dont put them too close to your entrance as a kobold can easily steal your stuff if you do.  if you make a hotel like complex, make LOTS of room to grow, so you will probably want to put it on a lower z-level to keep it out of the way.  keep 2 craftsdwarf shops somewhat close to the stairs for easy rock and bone access. mechanics shops you will want to put in between the stairs and furnature stockpiles, for there will be considerable traffic there. also if you make an animal stockpile, put it a bit out of the way or near a secondary entrance. stuff like gem cutters put near your gem stockpile several z-levels down, stuff like that that dont get too much traffic dont put by the entrance as they will just waste space. also, whats always a good idea is to tie up war dogs outside every entrance to your fort (preferably be your defense grid so that when the dog sees a stealthed enemy, they will start setting off all the traps). you might want to put all of this 2 z-levels down so you can channel out a moat for protection. 

hope some of this helps.....

[tastypaste]

The top 3 layers are kept entirely empty except for the depot and barracks. This way I have plenty of room for channeling moats.

I use lots of z-levels organized around a 3x3 central staircase (which is walled in and has 4 doors per level all the doors are controlled by a single lever in the center z-level near the dining hall (lots of idlers nearby to pull levers) so the entire stairwell can be shutdown in the event that an invader breeches the fort. When the central shaft is closed the only exit from my fort is a secondary staircase that opens up into a walled farming and tree harvesting area).

Radiating out in the cardinal directions from the central shaft I have 3 tile wide tunnels that are all up/down staircases so the dwarfs can move through 3D hallways. I lay them out in a grid.

I sandwich workshops and stockpiles on their own z-levels. So it goes workshop level, stockpile level, workshop level, stockpile level. All relevant stockpiles are kept directly under the workshops that use those sorts of materials. This greatly decreases traveling time for building.

Then I have a layer for dining halls, zoos and statue gardens. This layer keeps all the idle dwarfs out of the way of the working dwarfs above.

Then a jail cell layer. I like to keep it near the idlers so hopefully they find some free time to feed the prisoners.

Then a Noble housing layer and below that a common housing layer.

Bottom layers are usually just for mining and goblin torture arenas.

I also keep an open channeled shaft from top to bottom with a bridge on top for disposing of Hammerers. The Hammerer enters to pull a lever that is attached to nothing. The door locks behind him. A second dwarf retracts the drawbridge. Hammerer winds up in the clothing collection pit at the bottom. Rinse and repeat.

Outside is usually just loads of cage traps to keep my torture pits well stocked with baddies and an emergency set of pressure plates that close the hatch over the entrance (with a lever inside to open it again of course).

[random51]

Mine change a bit every time I play, but I can give some pointers.

#1  Make use of z-levels to avoid sprawl.

example:

level Y    farms/seed stockpiles/plant stockpiles
level Y-1    plant processing/kitchen/still/processed plants for cooking stockpile/feeder plant stockpile for still/plant processing that pulls from level Y
level Y-2   bag stockpile, barrel stockpile
^
|
|
|
|
|
V
level X+1 Dining room/housing
level X    processed meals stockpile/drink stockpile
level X-1 Dining room/housing

You just stack them and put staircases by the workshops and feeder stockpiles. That way your chef and brewmaster don't have to move more than a few units to get a container and ingredients for whatever they're making.

The key part of this is making it so your craftsman have as short a trip as possible when getting materials and letting your dedicated porters do any of the longer trips.

#2  Build around a central staircase with multiple shafts.

#3 Stockpile trade goods as close to the depot as possible. If you're making crafts on the other side of the map put a finished goods stockpile beneath the depot and have it draw from a stockpile near the craft workshop.

#4 If you're going to use a lake for a well wall in the lake the first season. You can tunnel up to it and build your well in perfect safety later on when you have bucket/rope/blocks. Do it first season and you don't have to worry about getting ambushed... well, except by hostile animals that might already be present.

#5 Avoid doing exploratory mining on multiple z-levels at the same time. The pathing for miners can add a LOT of extra travel if you do this.

#6 When you're not working on a specific level close it off.  When deciding on things to pick up Dwarfs seem to calculate as if they can fly through floors and walls.  If there is a stone directly beneath a workshop/stockpile and a stone two units to the right of it on the same level the craftsman will go for the stone one z-level down even if your staircase is 100 units away.

[ThaMuzz]

I build around a 3x3 central stairwell.

Surface:
Level y: Farms, primary storehouse.  Once the fortress is established, I construct green glass floors and walls for everything but the farms.
Level y-1: dining room (2), food stockpiles, kitches and breweries (2 each).
Section 2: The following layers make up the second tier, and have variable orders
Forge level: (15 magma smelters, 9 magma forges, 9 glassworks), ore and bars storehouses.
Forge-1: Magma pipelines, prison layer
3 Workshop layers
Section 3:
Armory and archery layer
Statue and shop layer
Section 4: The last three layers of the fortress.
Barracks layer
Noble bedrooms layer
Bedroom layer


All floors save the noble and normal quarters fit inside a 22x22 box.
Generally, once the fortress is set up, I begin work on a megaproject, generally a pyramid.  My current pyramid has a base of 88x88.

[Banana]

i tend to build my workshops directly 1 floor below the entrance

I never have anything on the entrance level except some traps and maybe a lever for the drawbridge.

I usually set up 2 carpenter workshops with wood stockpile adjacent, have the mason workshops next to that with a stone dump point right next to the mason workshops with a furniture stockpile around the mason workshops(maybe extended depending on how much room i need)

Then i build the bedrooms below the workshops

and then i just kinda freestyle it