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[Hyndis]

Why all this emphasis on rock blocks?  Why not just build rough stone walls from the raw stone directly?  Sure, a wall built with blocks counts as "smoothed" for value purposes, but you don't care about that for defensive walls.

Crude stone walls are not dwarven.

[beorn080]

Stored in bins, so much more compact storage, mason training to make your dwarves stronger and faster, I think mason skill level effects construction time, but I haven't done testing.

Why all this emphasis on rock blocks?  Why not just build rough stone walls from the raw stone directly?  Sure, a wall built with blocks counts as "smoothed" for value purposes, but you don't care about that for defensive walls.

Crude stone walls are not dwarven.

[BigD145]

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing correctly I believe is the reason. you see very few actual fortifications made of a bunch of random rock piled together and mortared until solid in RL.

Yeah, RL is cleaner and more perfect than that.

[Nobbins]

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=50237.0

For my castle-building experience in a nutshell. The fun part is making it modular, then expanding it until it surrounds a chunk of land the size of Australia.

[Graygan]

Since I'm a paranoiac when it comes to safety(I prefer to lose with fun to big powerful critters, not annoying seiges), I ALWAYS plan to build up a castle type of situation above ground around my entrance to the underground.

I include the creation of a moat all the way around the large fortress(At least 30x30 squares) above ground.  A full on moat with a single drawbridge is a great way to keep everyone safe while you finish training up the military as needed.  Then you can pop open a rathole on the other side of the map, send up the military, and bumrush the seigers from behind.

It's when you get the more fun critters like demons and big ancient thingies of all shapes and forms that it's fun to watch your place crumble.

[Gus Smedstad]

Here's what my castle looks like so far, early in the winter of year 2:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not pretty, but the stacking concept seems to be working fairly well.  I'm visualizing it as a small-town downtown, where unrelated businesses often share a building from different floors, and the access is from stairways in front of the buildings.  Interspersed are some apartment blocks, which I believe is OK for noise provided they're not right over the dining hall, since workshops do not currently make noise.

The mill on top of the food building (kitchen, butcher, tanner, farmer's workshop, kennel) is interesting looking.

 - Gus

[Hyndis]

I try to keep each building made out of a uniform type of blocks. I use different blocks, but each building must be the same type of material to keep things uniform.

Stacking is the way to do it though. Think of it like a series of buildings surrounded by a wall. You can have a production/factory building, a smelting/metalworking build, a farming building (food storage and processing with a dining hall on the main floor and farms around it) and apartment blocks. Nobles also should get their own fancy building.

Here's my take on it:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-6594-snaketributes

Its in 40D. Holding off in 31.XX until the major bugs get hammered out.

[Gus Smedstad]

I prefer uniform colors myself, but I had a fair number of shortages which forced me into some mis-matches.  The fort isn't quite at the point where I can afford to be overly choosy.

 - Gus

[Flintus10]

Instead of building buildings up i prefer to channel down around buildings and build a wall around that. Its much quicker and easier plus its pretty much functional at every stage.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-8283-hailstandards

[LordBucket]

Why all this emphasis on rock blocks?  Why not just build rough stone walls from the raw stone directly?

It's mostly aethetics, but I figure you may as well get the skill gain from making blocks. Legendary masons are nice to have.

If you're in an absolute rush to get walls up, ok sure...use raw stone. But even running Dig Deeper I find it's possible to get a fully enclosed block wall and sufficient defense in time for the first siege.

So since you can, and since you benefit from the training...why wouldn't you do it?

[Eric Blank]

I have a particular fondness of building hybrid forts with below-ground living and production and a huge above-ground defense. It may have to change in the new version since I've never had to deal with flying enemies before, besides wildlife, damn those giant cave swallows. Anything particularly interesting you can think to do without flooring over your fortress would  be great knowledge. also excluding the following:

You could build your walls to the top of the map since fliers cant leave it to go over them, have your fort be like an open-topped citadel. More stone, but incredibly awesome, especially if the interior is entirely used up except for a courtyard/pit in the center. A very basic stone outer wall and underground caravan access w/ cave in for blockage would be prudent during construction. Bonus point if your finished entrance is guarded by a obsidian caster hallway (hall with multiple obsidian caster pairs, water on one side magma on the other) all in glorious obsidian blocks (need to change melting point to above 12.5K to prevent horrible death)

If you set up your first obsidian farm extra early you'd never need to stick your pick in anything deeper than the first layer of soil. Hard to find a flat, volcano-blessed landscape though...

In my most recently genned world, there was a mountain peak adjacent to/as part of a non-mountain region inside a mountain range. If enemies EVER even show up from above ground, I'd have time to prepare in peace, as well as another interesting place to build my super-tree mega-project (requiring abandonment of the current one). Not to mention having tons of z-levels leading up to the peak. Put world tree INSIDE citadel. Elves must be washed (with soap, just to make them angry) before entering past depot.

Excuse me, I seem to be rambling incoherently.

[Ivar360]

Here's my take on it:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-6594-snaketributes

Its in 40D. Holding off in 31.XX until the major bugs get hammered out.

I'm not even gonna try to make something like this... very nice.

[Hyndis]

Instead of building buildings up i prefer to channel down around buildings and build a wall around that. Its much quicker and easier plus its pretty much functional at every stage.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-8283-hailstandards

I've definitely been tempted to do this. Instead of building up just channel out the entire world. Carve tall buildings from the ground itself with streets and alleyways. Its definitely a megaproject though. I've only done this as proof of concept but didn't go the entire way.

Still waiting for 31.XX to stabilize. Mostly waiting on those military bugs to get ironed out before I embark on megaprojects.

[Gus Smedstad]

One thing I like about building up rather than tunneling down is that stone management is a non-issue.  Rather, I'm constantly quarrying new sections just to get more stone.  From the "cellars", I'd say that the ideal is to do both at once - dig out your fortress underground, but as the stone builds up us it to build new structures above ground rather than atom-smash it.

 - Gus

[Corona688]

Why all this emphasis on rock blocks?  Why not just build rough stone walls from the raw stone directly?  Sure, a wall built with blocks counts as "smoothed" for value purposes, but you don't care about that for defensive walls.

Rock blocks weigh a lot less than raw rocks, dwarves will move them faster.