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[anqxyr]

I am playing DF for only 2 and half month now, but I've seen many bedroom designs in various threads here on this forums and on wiki. And one thing I could never understand, is why all this bedrooms always so small. I'm playing on 5x5 embark map, and could easily place 160 5x6 bedrooms  on one z-level, and still have enough place for huge dining rooms. 3x3 embark will limit this to 57 bedrooms per z-level, but only 4 z-level will be enough to place more dwarf you ever need. And even 2x2 embark zone should have enough place for 25 5x6 bedrooms per z-level, 100 bedrooms for 4 z-levels, and I doubt many people have bigger population with so small embark size. So, seriously, what's your reason? Do you make small overpopulated 2x2 fortress with more than 200 dwarfs? Or do you raise pop cap and make fortress with 500[RIP FPS] dwarfs in it ? Or is it just old habit from times when DF had only one z-level? Or do you have some other reason I'm not aware of?

And here some more questions I wanted too ask, which don't deserve separate threads:

• What does different colors on (u)nit screen mean?
• How long deceased animals are displayed in (u)nits screen?
• I want to make Central Water Supply System in my current fortress, and, as part of it, place well in every living room. How bad is this idea?
  
  • How often will dwarfs fall in the well if it will be in the corner of the room?
  • How many levels of swimming should dwarf have to climb up from well after he fall?
  Water is directly below well.

[OmnipotentGrue]

1. Different professions for civilized creatures, animals will just have a certain colour depending on their species (although babies are red).
2. They'll never disappear from the units screen.
3. This is Dwarf Fortress, do whatever you want! No idea is bad per se, although some have more potential to go horribly, horribly wrong than others... wells in every room isn't really bad at all, if you want to do it, go for it.
    1. I was unaware they even fell into wells at all, though if this is the case I would assume not very often...?
    2. Again, I have no clue, although (again, if this happens) I would assume at least adequate.

I usually give my dwarves 2x2 to start with, but then start giving them bigger and grander 'hovels' of their own later on when I've established everything. Some people just like quick and easy rooms, as it isn't too hard to make dwarves constantly ecstatic.

Also, welcome to the forums.

[MagmaMcFry]

3. Do as you like.
     1. People disperse evenly throughout the room, and any mother drinking from the well will place the baby on the edge, having it fall in pretty often.
     2. Have a ramp next to your well underwater, so people can climb out of it. Take care, the water will be contaminated.
Because babies are dirty, bloodstained, vomit-covered bearded little fleabags that mothers use to polish the spears in the danger room.

[puke]

travel distance and path optimization is one big reason for smaller rooms and central wells.  large rooms have everyone walking longer distances to get between their rooms and wherever else they need to go, and that can really cut down fortress efficiency. 

multiple wells increase the chances that some dwarf will want to throw a party at one, and then you've got half the fortress wandering down to some guys livingroom.

Some other things: nobles can get angry if lesser dwarfs have living accomodations that are too fancy for their station.  if the economy is on, larger rooms are more expensive and poorer dwarfs might not be able to afford them.

[celem]

Also once you approach the 150-200 dwarf mark those big rooms really eat up entire z-levels.  Im a fan of 2x3 personaly, even for nobles when ive got the artifacts/masterpieces to get away with it.

[Aner-Dyfan]

When the dwarven economy sets in, if you have large happy making rooms, they will cost a fortune thus making your dwarves homeless. I put that down as the cause of my first tantrum spiral fort death. Though you can turn this off and have no problem.

Another reason is to make nobles happy, they require better rooms than anyone inferior to them otherwise they get upset.

Smaller rooms take up less space meaning your dwarves have less distance to travel, probably involves less pathfinding too. Which in a large fort would probably eat up frames. They also use up less z-levels, which with caverns is very useful. So many times I've hit them with my 3rd or 4th housing layers (the large rooms for nobles)

A final reason is that even with a fairly small room, smoothed and engraved by a legendary. With high quality bed and metal chest and cabinet you can make it a very good quality.

[Shrugging Khan]

Smaller rooms, more compact overall fortress, shorter travel distances between locations, more efficient fortress.

Also, I like saving space, since space is a rather limited resource in DF.

[anqxyr]

When the dwarven economy sets in, if you have large happy making rooms, they will cost a fortune thus making your dwarves homeless. I put that down as the cause of my first tantrum spiral fort death. Though you can turn this off and have no problem.

AFAIK, economy don't work in DF2010 anyway.

multiple wells increase the chances that some dwarf will want to throw a party at one, and then you've got half the fortress wandering down to some guys livingroom.

Is this true even if I don't create room from well?

[Glanzor]

• How often will dwarfs fall in the well if it will be in the corner of the room?
• How many levels of swimming should dwarf have to climb up from well after he fall?

Water is directly below well.[/li]
[/list]

1. I've only seen dwarves fall into wells if they dodge nearby. So if you don't have your barracks in the same room and keep your enemies out of your fortress, you should be fine.
2. Just make a up stairs or ramp directly next to it and you won't have to worry about swimming skills.

[MarineMorton]

Why is everyone obsessed with efficient forts?
Not running a real business here
My current fort has rooms of 4x4 but limited myself to a pop cap of 10 but with children growing up at 5 (I hope)

End plan is too have grand family homes!

[Dwarf]

First off, large rooms are fine until economy kicks in and Dwarves get mass-evicted due to being unable to pay rent.
Also, many people build megaprojects and such. Every bit of efficiency counts when trying to get it done in a reasonable timeframe.

EDIT: Not mentioning FPS.

[MarineMorton]

Well i could understand if you gone for a 200 dwarf fort but then I would just not bother with bedrooms dorms it is!

FPS sucks bring on super comps for homes!

[Loyal]

I dig small rooms to save time, and because I have no particular reason to make it larger than a 2x2. I can fit a bed, coffer, cabinet, and door (for diagonally arranged apartment blocks) in a 2x2 room, and that's if I decide to give them more than a bed to begin with. If I want to spend the time making huge rooms for everyone I'd rather build it above-ground anyway.

FPS sucks bring on super comps for homes!

Sure! You can pay for them and mail to the rest of us, 'kay?

[TheJackal]

I feel that exploiting diagonal access is kind of exploity. So I make the common bedrooms 3x3, special quarters 4x4 and the count 5x5. This gives me enough room for even the lowliest dorf to have a bed, chest, cabinet, armor stand, weapon rack, and statue. Keeps them happy. In my facist forts this is required.

[slothen]

once you've engraved them, bigger rooms don't make dwarves any happier than a 2x2 room.  In fact most dwarves are perfectly happy with a 2x1 room, but those don't look good.  I usually do 2x3 bedrooms with 3x3 or larger being given to particular dwarves that I like.  There's just no reason to make huge bedrooms for 120 dwarves unless I shift into megaproject mode, but even then I'd build small bedrooms first.