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[FearfulJesuit]

I place each sort of workshop and stockpile on its own z-level. It's very efficient.

What's everybody else's general design?

[rephikul]

surround trade depot with stockpiles, surround stockpiles with workshops, surround workshops with walls, surround wall with cage traps, surround cage traps with dry moat

[squeakyReaper]

I have a trade depot, and the roof to it is a retracting bridge.  I have that bridge area as my stockpile for finished crafts.  When traders come, I rain my crafts from the heavens unto them, making for fast trading.

[LostxInxThought]

I tend to build organically - I make space as-needed and where it fits and is convenient, I plan ahead for design features and aesthetic touches when I know about them before I decide to implement them, but I like building this way so that every fortress is different, this however is not very efficient, and I frequently have dwarves running very far our of their way to eat, drink, or sleep.

as for stockpiles - I tend to have a storage area set aside for when stockpiles overflow, but keep the main stockpiles near the workshops they're used by - the only real exception being food stockpiles being nowhere near the farms, I keep them near my dining hall - which tends to be a far walk from the farms.

burial plots tend to go in the mines - rather than having a district built for tombs, I just find old ore-veins, or hollowed-out magnetite clusters, and put the tombs there, if it's for a noble I smooth/engrave a small area around it, build some metal pillars, put a statue, and make the room out of that.

workshop spaces are built in districts, with related shops and stockpiles contained within the districs and added-on wherever I can fit them, or wherever I want to place them at the time, I build them once I have what I need (labour, materials, etc.).

[rephikul]

I have a trade depot, and the roof to it is a retracting bridge.  I have that bridge area as my stockpile for finished crafts.  When traders come, I rain my crafts from the heavens unto them, making for fast trading.

You can put stockpile on bridge? Thought they are both considered buildings O.o

[squeakyReaper]

I have a trade depot, and the roof to it is a retracting bridge.  I have that bridge area as my stockpile for finished crafts.  When traders come, I rain my crafts from the heavens unto them, making for fast trading.

You can put stockpile on bridge? Thought they are both considered buildings O.o

Anything is possible when you're a dwarven scientists.  My "crafts from the heavens" may or may not include collapsing a few floors and killing the traders.  May.

[Seanp888]

Screw planing ! I just kinda shove my work shops in lines in a big room with a general stockpile in the middle to store what ever comes out in .

[Crazy Cow]

Outside defenses. Staircase to the first level of solid rock. Hallway with workshops on one side, dining room on the other. Stockpiles under the dining room and workshops, bedrooms underneath that. Then whatever else this particular fort needs.

[JacenHanLovesLegos]

Z-levels. I have spent many dozens of fortreses looking for the most effecient fort. I use compact designs. I put outside defenses out of my mind until I'm ready, although I prepare for them.

[TheJackal]

Generally speaking I have a tendency to compact my fort horizontally and spread out vertically. A central staircase offers access to all floors, going down from the volcano summit where the forges are to the mining complex at the bottom. Generally, the layers go like this.

Volcano Summit/Magma Forges
Metal/Bar Stockpiles
Repeat As Needed (RAN)
General Stockpiles
Workshops
General Stockpiles
Workshops
General Stockpiles
Buffer Buffer
Entryway, Barracks, Trading Depot/Stockpile
Buffer
RAN
-River Level-
Water Works
Farming/Food Complex
Dining/Hospital
Apartment System
RAN
Buffer
Mining complex
RAN

I like volcanoes. Also, my levels and such generally have a given layout and/or pattern to them. I like consistency in my designs. Other things, like tombs, or gardens or zoos are put in as needed.

[Chip Masterson]

My fortress design varies from embark to embark, but one thing I've been practicing lately is to start the majority of my usable space 5-10 z-levels below surface.  I usually embark on sedimentary layers, and I've been frustrated in the past when most of my fortress occupies the same space as veins of ore and coal and I can't bring myself to mine them out, breaking aesthetic design.

I've also had great success with perimeter walls containing 4-5 1x9 choke points with cages on both sides and a dog chained in the middle...  12+ unit sieges are no problem for my 4-man squad, especially when I get to fight half of them in a controlled environment in my arena.

Everything else is more or less organic in terms of stockpiles, housing, workshops, etc.

[Sutremaine]

General rules:

1. Central vertical access.
2. Workshops and their associated stockpiles should lead into each other's areas.
3. Workshops should not be on the same level as stockpiles unless the stockpiles are really small or unless it would be annoying to have to change numerous piles in the case of desighn alterations.
4. Production chains for finished goods have priority when deciding what gets to be closest to the depot.

[Uristocrat]

My fortresses tend to get designed for 200+ dwarves from the start.  So this means that all hallways are 3-wide unless they're only for mining or something.  I generally get the twisty-maze entrance up first (parts of the designation may get cut off for a while to allow the minors to prioritize properly).  Some of the things I do aren't really good designs, but I like them, at least.

The major priorities are an entrance with drawbridges that will later become my defense (at the start, there are just a few ramps down in an I shape that will later be channeled out and bridged over), a trade depot with storage nearby, and the start of a workshop level with the mason's & mechanic's workshops at least and probably a forge so my anvil doesn't get stolen.  That lets me get mechanisms and floodgates, so that I can drain some water to make my farms.  While I'm getting that set up, I carve out a basic dining room/hospital level and rooms for the starting 8 dwarves in what becomes the beginning of my huge living area that will eventually give 3x3 rooms to everyone but nobles (who have their own floor).  The noble living level (with 5x5 rooms for all generic nobles; but the monarch will get an epic size room complex / personal statue garden / zoo / etc. when they arrive) generally gets the hall of levers (I build *waaay* ahead of what I actually need) while the mason cranks out doors repeatedly (you can never, ever have too many doors).

After the basics are set up, I start looking for magma from the magma sea or tapping into / walling off the caverns.  Then you work on getting some wells, especially in the hospital, a pump stack for magma, maybe a dwarf wash near the entrance (it's *not* a bad idea to leave another of those channel things lined by ramps, then fill it as a pond and let it wash your dwarves), a giant tomb area and a prison complex (usually near the hospital...).  Or you set up zoos / statue gardens for the rank and file, that sort of thing.

Also, overworld trap complexes, self-locking tunnel systems to allow migrants and idiots on the far side of the map to get to the fortress when under siege, etc.

But, towards the end, FPS death usually claims the fortress

[Zrk2]

I tend to end up with pancake fortresses, it's easy to keep an eye on, but not very efficient.

[Karakzon]

i tend to make fortresses depending on site, but always with a 22x22xhow many to the surface untill i seal it off shaft/meeting room area that is the main room for my entire fort.
it provides a good area for last stands, keeps everyone from cave adaption, and provides a large space to plaster with gold and other goodys to make my dorfs happy. the dineing room and general food stocks are always opposite the entrance tunnel. though the entrance always breaches the shaft on the second z level. the fort is then spread about this main area, and usualy is orgonised into 11 x 11 rooms with a specalised design and the stockpiles next to their related workshops up/down etc.

i always turn my frontal entrance into a barracks/general fort with a trade deport in it. it will always house up to 20 of my dorfs who are millatery personal and will usualy be topped with seige engines for the look of it -i wait till the day catapults shoot up/down z levels with joy- this is my design if i can dig into a sheer or steep cliff face. when i embark on flatter locations i tend to build a curtain wall and a fort further back to give myself room and allow for outbuildings/farms for more interesting crops. i almost always produce too much food :/