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[Spong]

Having downloaded the new version of Stonesense I just genned a new world and found a nice embark spot, embarked and then saved and created a backup of the starting save, but now I'm in the situation where I'm not quite sure what to begin with.

I guess I'm trying to decide between a surface fort (never done one before), a regular fort dug into the mountain or to go down to the cavern layer and make a fort in there.

I really like the idea behind my favourite fort design (that being to dig down to the caverns and make an Undergrotto/Moria style fortress) but my previous attempts have met with failure as it takes so long to set up my dwarves usually go mad, starve or die of thirst before I even get anything up and running, not to mention all the hideous beasts of the depths.
I know that a way round it would be to set up a sort of temporary surface colony and then use it as a base to tunnel down and build a proper fort but whenever I try this I just get so bored and impatient.

I can haz help pls?

[Ironhand]

Why not do both?

Build a castle on the surface as a temporary residence while you build up your military to take on the depths.

[Satarus]

Both.  Use burrows to segregate your residents.  Men up top and women down below. 

[RedKing]

I tend to favor surface forts myself, because they're innately easier to manage in my head. I know what a fort look like, can build an outer wall, archer towers, moat, etc.

Building down (especially into caverns) gives me nightmares some times trying to figure out how to securely create chokepoints.

[Cruxador]

Both.  Use burrows to segregate your residents.  Men up top and women down below.

This would preclude breeding, since they wouldn't meet enough to become enamored with one and other, and thus would not marry.

To fix this, I recommend that you dig a single dining hall, horizontally into a mountainside.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

While I am personally a big fan of surface fortresses, if you are playing the 31 version of the game, I have to recommend that you DO NOT do a surface fortress at the moment. The endless spreading of the blood and the fact the dwarves will not clean inside tiles aboveground means that your fortress will drown in blood. And that has immediate negative consequences as dwarves and all other inhabitants will spend a lot of time cleaning themselves, bringing your fortress to a standstill.

So, I recommend going with the subterranean one and watch the bug tracker for news on the blood situation and surface cleaning situation.

Deathworks

[Ironhand]

Plus, the underground stuff is just so much fun that you can't not check it out.

[sonerohi]

Do both, like someone else said. Build your underground under an interesting surface feature, then fortify above it. Like, on my map I had a brook flow through an extremely narrow land bridge that went to a large plateau before becoming a waterfall. I'm really looking forward to digging behind the waterfall and making my underground in that area, with water piped in straight from the brook up above. To do that, I'd need a dam, which could fit into the walls of a castle on the plateau.