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[Korva]

In order to maintain my interest in a fort longer than a few years, I really need to have a Plan(TM) for something bigger. I'll never be creative enough to make a second Flarechannel or Undergrotto, but I'm looking for inspirational examples all the same. However, most posts in the design threads and on the wiki are all about making things compact and efficient. That's not what I'm want here, naturally. To HFS with efficiency, I want beauty, ingenuity and grandeur! So this is a place to show off your projects. Great domed halls with pillars and mosaics, personal palatial suites for every dwarf, lovingly designed gardens and shrines, overly complicated (read: dwarfy) defense structures, organic shapes and fractals, labyrinths and mazes, structures that serve no game mechanical purpose but just look sweet. Links to DFMA uploads are especially appreciated.

Bonus points if you share your methods of finding inspiration for such designs -- and for planning them out, if they get really complicated (such as 3D statues/monuments).

On my personal favourites list so far are Relicrags and Towersoared as overall "normal" forts (meaning mostly dug underground), Chasmcity and Roofdwelling as surface forts, and the Divine Quarter from Blackstone.

[Firnagzen]

Flarechannel, by Quantum Sawdust.

[dwarfhoplite]

your towersoared's main floor is awesome

[Girlinhat]

Any time you invoke Flarechannel you're making an unfair argument.  You can't compare that steel masterpiece to our common copper swords!

[Triaxx2]

Ha. Mine is a Adamantine plated masterwork...

Or, you mean fortresses...

Anyway, Towersoared would be my vote. Airfail looks pretty cool though.

None of my fortresses look very spectacular, they tend to be very fortressy.

[dwarfhoplite]

I don't have that much to show either. My fortresses never seem to "finish" i usually get bored or overrun by gobbos.

Currently I'm working on Rawbeer, aboveground fortress made entirely of microcline!
I'm posting a pic when i get main floor somwhat sorted out

[Korva]

None of the forts I linked to are mine, just my favourites! I wish I could come up with something like that, that's why I'm asking for inspirational designs here. It doesn't have to be a whole fort -- a screenshot of a bedroom complex or a particularly spiffy dining room is welcome too.

[Lectorog]

I generally pay little heed to efficiency, but fanciness usually isn't what I aim for. My forts seldom last to their first siege or ambush, so not much build time in my style. With the new release still looming a fair way ahead, though, I feel a megaproject coming on...

The best I've made would probably be this sphere but there's not much fancy there. It was hard as hell to plan, though. Almost disturbingly efficient, considering how wasteful its construction was.

[NinjaE8825]

Ideas, none of which I have tried out:
1 Fortress is a deep, circular hole in the ground. Rooms and workshops are dug into the sides of the hole, connected by thin bridges to a central pillar.

2 Fortress entrance is a three tiles wide bridge of carved stone spanning a huge dwarf-made chasm that stretches all the way down to the upper cave level (and two or three Z-levels up from the bridge itself). Two tiles away from the bridge there are three level of fortifications patrolled by marksdwarves.

3 Above-ground fortress, BELOW GROUND. Which is another way of saying "put it in the caves".

[SheepishOne]

I generally try and mess around with or otherwise improve at least one aspect of my fort building when I start fortresses. My last was simply building with adamantium. The one before that was a volcano island fort, which I must say made me pretty giddy. Started setting up green glass lighthouses in the waves (took forever to time the build orders and have dwarves on hand). But once it was up the waves would come crashing into the side of the building, creating a mist that would flow through the windows and please/clean passerby's. However I didn't really get to add the clean aesthetic I was going for as a new version came out and changed everything. I am rather proud of my sleeping quarters, though. Since islands in that edition never really got traffic (or any kind of trade) I had to appropriate my soldier dwarves to other tasks. So I had a squad of animal handlers that just took care of my salt-water aquariums, etc.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Chessrook44]

Take a look at my Divine Quarter if you want, which also has a link to the DFMA of the entire fort... at that time.  Since then I added a sort of minifort in the highest cavern level.  Lost two of my best marksdwarves to a Giant Spider and almost lost my head doctor to a bat before I realized I should keep the gates in CLOSED.

[Corona688]

My favorite fort of all time is Hairytongs.  I got everything down to a T, and then suddenly -- pathing died.  Sieges couldn't find my wide-open doors.  Migrants got lost outside forever.  FPS plummeted.

[Korva]

@Chessrook44: Yep, I've already linked to that!

@Lectorog: Your sphere counts -- I'm not just looking for megaprojects-within-megaprojects (like Flarechannel, which awesome but way too daunting for me to use as inspiration) but also for such "smaller" ideas.

[Chessrook44]

@Chessrook44: Yep, I've already linked to that!

....I should probably read the post further, but thank you!  Just trying to get more views of it and such... then again the comments people gave already blew up my ego like a puffer fish with its mouth on a whale's blowhole... wow that metaphor got away from me a bit I think...

[darkflagrance]

This fort may not match up to the others already posted, but I'll add Whitegold anyway.