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[Tel_Janin]

I shave off the side of a mountain for my multi-level entrance with pillars. I must mine out the side of the mountain so it's flat and entirely stone, or it doesn't look right. These are dwarves, not hobbits, they live in stone halls not sand holes.

[Eric Blank]

All the dimensions of all my halls and rooms must be odd numbered. This way there is a definite center and central line. I flail helplessly when I can't design my forts this way.
I also prefer a central staircase.
I always, always divide my food stockpiles evenly into one for drinks and one for foods. Seeds go in a separate stockpile next to the farms. Farms are always in 3x5 pots or, recently, divided into 5 1x3 plots so I can grow all the plants available from mods. I almost always make 3 or 4 of these plots in one room.
I always make separate levels for each of the major crafts, from top to bottom; farming, woods, crafts, masonry, metalworking. Then I usually make either 1 or 2 more for living areas or mix the living areas for the dwarves into those of their respective crafts.
I prefer to dig a long 5-wide hall leading to a 11x11 room for the trade depot.
I almost never make any above ground structures unless I plan to make a sealed off area for a bunker, in which will dwell my lever pullers/others that I want to survive absolutely any invasion.
AlsoAlsoAlso, I Insist on naming my starting 7 the same every time, and bringing 3 female and 1 male of dogs and horses and one male cat (then killing every single other cat unless I have a nefarious plan for them.)

[SpacemanSpiff]

I switched from 5x5/3x3 stairs and halls to 6x6/4x4 because I realized the number of squares on the map is even, and there is no dead-center. 

Wait... what?... nnnngggggggggggggg my lovely 3x3 layouts WILL HAVE TO BE CHANGED

[Mysteriousbluepuppet]

I always try to get a good or evil biome, with the best savagery i can find. My fort entrance are always flanked by the barracks, carved in the mountains, with a 36x36 smooted hall on each floor, until 3 above the cavers  ( i do a shaft to get the cave level then collapse it.) where i put 1 floor of farming and 2 tree farms.

Also, with the new euipment system i give each of my squad regulated clothes, as in dyed blue for mellee, green for crossbowdwarves, red for nobles  and black if avalaible for the civilians. I try to decorate helms with horn of ivory if ive got a warthug breeding program underway.

It's a real hassle, but i never really was able to do otherwise.

[melomel]

DF is like OCD candy, isn't it?

No, DF is like the stranger in the trench coat offering the candy.

Except the stranger is actually your father.

And the candy is made out of dead kittens.

I switched from 5x5/3x3 stairs and halls to 6x6/4x4 because I realized the number of squares on the map is even, and there is no dead-center. 

Wait... what?... nnnngggggggggggggg my lovely 3x3 layouts WILL HAVE TO BE CHANGED

AND THAT IS EXACTLY HOW I FELT

Oh, and I am going to screw around with the raws until this stupid area generates phantom spiders.  3/4ths of my embark was temperate evil conifer forest and do I see webs here NO I DO NOT. >:[  I sacrificed savagery for the spiders and they are not here.

[G-Flex]

Also, if, in the embark text, where it says "ere the *** get hungry", if that creature is one that is native to the biome I'm on, I consider that good luck.

I'm pretty sure that's always the case, and that that's the entire point. Although I suppose if there's no predatory creature available at all, it might pick something at random, or some default.

[melomel]

Also, if, in the embark text, where it says "ere the *** get hungry", if that creature is one that is native to the biome I'm on, I consider that good luck.

I'm pretty sure that's always the case, and that that's the entire point. Although I suppose if there's no predatory creature available at all, it might pick something at random, or some default.

I've never had non-native creatures mentioned on embark, but I've had several maps where it just said "ere the beasts get hungry".  All well-populated maps wildlife-wise, too.

[Aspgren]

I hate engraving the floor. I'm like "why do I have to engrave the floor? isn't this room ENOUGH extravagant you goddamned noble??" .. I hate it because with the walls and floor engraved I find it hard to see where the rooms begin and end. It's not pretty.

Also I hate it when there's an engraved wall that's 1 square thick. Because people can see the engraving from both sides and that plain doesn't make sense to me.

[Makbeth]

3-wide main walkways, compartmentalized workshops with doors (helps with the miasma from butchers and kitchens), and building as if the cave-in for large rooms rule is still in effect, but for 10x10 or larger rooms.  9x9 spaces are just too geometrically convenient to pass up.

Also tend to build one massive storage floor either in soil so there's no rubble in the way, or in stone but with armies of novice miners.

[Lord Shonus]

Generally, I avoid having two engravings next to each other.

[Eric Blank]

I hate engraving the floor. I'm like "why do I have to engrave the floor? isn't this room ENOUGH extravagant you goddamned noble??" .. I hate it because with the walls and floor engraved I find it hard to see where the rooms begin and end. It's not pretty

Alternatively, you could dig up some of that oh-so-abundant gold or galena, make blocks of them (carved or smelted, whatever seems practical, you can remove and redo it later, especially if you use rough stone so you get a smelt-able rock back), and panel the floors of the rooms with that. Even the galena's raw ore is worth 5x as much as most stone (being 15* as opposed to 3*, and i think gold is around 30). That may in fact make it far more valuable than the engravings, or at least enough so that it could reasonably reach their demands without withering the aesthetics for yourself too much.

[Borogove]

Non-noble dorfs live 4-to-a-3x3 room with a bed in each corner. 2-wide corridors are the norm with occasional 1-wide tunnels to specific "targets".

Most of my non-metal-industry workshops in one big room; metal industry shops in another big room. No closed workshops - if someone in a mood goes berserk and kills a few dudes, that's just part of the fun. Workshops themselves are placed on a 4x4 grid to give an aisle between them.

I smooth walls for grand meeting halls, nobles' quarters, and ... the crypts. I usually dig out several connected 7x7 or 9x9 rooms in a quiet, cool lower level and line the walls with coffins and place nice statues in the middle of the rooms. At the back is usually a little morgue (graveyard stockpile) where the bodies are brought before they go into the coffins. The crypts are where I do the most careful layout. Never mind if there's blood and puke all over the workshops and rotten loincloths in the bedrooms. When you die in my fortress, your eternal rest is classy.

[Aspgren]

I hate engraving the floor. I'm like "why do I have to engrave the floor? isn't this room ENOUGH extravagant you goddamned noble??" .. I hate it because with the walls and floor engraved I find it hard to see where the rooms begin and end. It's not pretty

Alternatively, you could dig up some of that oh-so-abundant gold or galena, make blocks of them (carved or smelted, whatever seems practical, you can remove and redo it later, especially if you use rough stone so you get a smelt-able rock back), and panel the floors of the rooms with that. Even the galena's raw ore is worth 5x as much as most stone (being 15* as opposed to 3*, and i think gold is around 30). That may in fact make it far more valuable than the engravings, or at least enough so that it could reasonably reach their demands without withering the aesthetics for yourself too much.

Yeah ... but it hurts to waste gold on those bastards.
 I use gold for coins.

[vogonpoet]

I don't understand how you guys cope with such skinny 3 tile wide hallways. My hallways are 5, occasionally 7 tiles wide. Even at the very start - the just double up as stockpiles in the early years.

I always have a lot of stair cases too - at every junction of a 5/7 tile hallway, there will be at least a 3*3 up down staircase. I tend to round off the corners to these junctions as well, so they are more oval or circle shaped than square.

Every workshop must have inputs/outputs above/below, with more short staircases between the three levels, and they tend to be placed in big airy rooms, maybe 9 workshops to a room.

And I try to avoid too much symmetry.

[Shrugging Khan]

Well...most of my hallways are one tile wide, and I get along fine, thank you very much.

I get by by having dozens of staircases and ramps and multiple other accesses all across the z-levels...symmetry? Aesthetics? Not the slightest!

DF actually cured whatever OCD I might've had, I sometimes think.