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[shadow_archmagi]

So, in the old old dwarf fortress, you always started to the left of a huge mountain, and then mined right. The further right you went, the more nifty features you got.

In the new one, it's all about moving downward.

This *sounds* nifty but I must confess to one question:

Isn't moving between Z levels a huge pain? I mean, if I have a fort spread across three Z-levels I tend to start to get confused and forget where I put workshops.

With, say, six different features each spanning multiple Z levels, I fee like I'm going to wear my < > keys down.

And designating dozens of updown staircases is such a pain.

I love the new features. Caves full of ant-men is really awesome. Magma seas are awesome. Elf Sweetbread is delicious. I know that having all features on all sites is great.

But moving down seems like using the weakest support (Roguelikes ALWAYS struggle with the Z axis) to hold up the biggest roof.

[Urist McCyrilin]

Thanks to Armok I can finally build a Fortress away from mountains without sacrificing the fun features.

[armadilloHD]

I dunno, whenever I build forts with a lot of Z Layers I build slow enough so that I get acquainted with everything so that even if I myself were a dwarf I'd be able to follow the right staircases and such.

Quite honestly, forts don't really NEED a large underground network.  Of course you need room for farms/catacombs/workshops and the like, but compared to the expansiveness of the map, it's a drop of water. 

[dizzyelk]

I just assign hotkeys to my main gate, farms/kitchens, workshop area, magma workshops, and main control room.

[tigrex]

I find it more stress-free to build forts across many z-levels, for purposes of organisation and efficiency.

[Eagle0600]

Yeah, I usually build my fortresses in a tower-y formation, around a central stair-well.

[Loyal]

Confusing? No, not at all.

I usually group floors up by the "type" of workshop that will be inhabiting them. Foodstuffs on B1, Stone and Woodworks on B2, Metal and Glass on B3, and so on.

If it's confusing, it's because you're organizing your things poorly.

[Eagle0600]

Heheh, I remember. I had this one fortress around a volcano, with a thick aquifer. This meant I was squeezed in between the lava and the water, which did really bad things to my organisation. That fort was pretty fun, even though nothing really happened.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I tend to get lost in overly large forts as well, but with such vast amounts of space you get from a 4x4 area now, I no longer feel like I'm playing tetris with my fort's rooms. There's more space for the grand halls, the stockpiles, the everything. If anything, with so much vertical space it's harder to get lost, because you can keep your fort in a small area, going down.

Also, I see no problem with staircases. Actually, I think I won't be bothering with them except for special cases now - since channeling makes ramps, all you need for a grand staircase-y entrance is a five-wide ditch.

[Scruga]

I just assign hotkeys to my main gate, farms/kitchens, workshop area, magma workshops, and main control room.

how do you do that!?

[MoonLightBird]

The H key lets you assign keys to zoom to an area.

[Scruga]

The H key lets you assign keys to zoom to an area.

hahah thanks. As i was playing with the new version I started thinking "why didn't Toady implement a function to travel z-levels easier" 

[Emily Murkpaddled]

Yeah, hotkey zooms will save you oodles of keypresses. I also remapped my z-navigation keys to PgUp and PgDn, eliminating the extra keypress for > and <. In terms of vertical organization, I think the key is not to feel pressured and to stick to your guns. The fortress format you'll remember easiest is the one that comes easiest.

I like fortresses with picturesque and uneven rooms as opposed to squares and rectangles, and then I put storage in squares on separate floors so it doesn't detract from my prettyful parts. I'm not changing this just because of the Underground. The first zed I'm digging out is -2, and I'll be using through -4 for the purposes of this first 'microfort.' After I'm established, I'll do some exploration below and set up a new microfort.

Burrows make this a lot easier. I can make fire-and-forget developments, for all intents and purposes, if I work it out right. I'm not going to change the kind of fortress that I like to build; I'm just going to build more of them, and in different locations than I usually would, if that makes sense.

[Grendus]

My fortress design flat out requires multiple z-levels. It's perfectly regular, making it very easy to keep track of stuff. It's all a matter of personal taste, but it works well for me.

[SkyRender]

I knew the day was coming where Z-levels counted for more, which is why I perfected a fort design that exploits Z levels to the maximum with 40d.  Learn to love the Z-level, and start thinking in terms of centralized planning instead of sprawling.