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[jamesadelong]

So, with my fortress under constant siege by Eldjotun, I've been forced to expand my underground works. My basilica has been completed and my multi-Z level grand hall has been finished. With that I have to say that most of my fortress looks likje a very ornate parliamentary building. Much akin to the Reichstag or the Volksbühne with a very Roman slant, lots of forums and meeting areas and lots of heated baths. Personal quarters are sparse and generally limited to those who have earned the right. The current dwarf in command, my militia commander, seized power after Eldjotun managed to break through the early defenses and rip all four limbs off of him. Since then, I've been designing everything with a far more defensive slant to reflect this change of thought, loopholes to fire from, stints to charge from. Even spider holes and small tunnels for my infantry to scramble through. The palace (in which the commander hordes most, if not all, the best things is currently clad in platinum (the commanders favorite material). Further on, when my commander falls or is elected out of office, I will be changing things to reflect the new regime whilst still fitting in with the Germanic-Roman standards.

So what about you? How would you describe your architecture? Do you have vast chambers filled with pillars and clad in gold, or do you prefer tunnel fighting inside magma filled halls?

[Flaming Toadstool]

I like short, squat, 1 z level hallways and rooms. I like to imagine this pisses elves and humans off

[IT 000]

In vanilla, I built an underground Pyramid hovering over the magma sea for the Fort's best soldier. Had booze, food, tomb, everything. The plan was that when he died, I was going to put his body in his tomb and pull the lever.

Corrosion is a bit trickier, there's no time or room for vast architecture, everything very defense orientated. Overall, I usually have the ability to cut off large areas of the fort with levers. Then I will have several side passages available to bypass that section, they're walled off, so that zombies can't get through. Most of my humans sleep in a small dorm (sometimes in the barracks if wood is short) until the third or forth year. One fort had ten floodgates per section, and could flood them extremely fast. Most of the forts end up being very cramped to conserve walking distance and space. Sometimes a tower sticking out of the ground for the riflemen. Other then that intricate traps to deal with masses of zombies and Desert Devils. I had a 10z drop trap on one that killed sixteen miners just digging the hole. Had a simple drowning trap on another. Simple, yet effective.

[Itnetlolor]

I'm a rather lateral builder (in both construction style and direction, I am more a flat-fort builder). I like to maximize my area for a consistent mining/harvest of materials, and use the mining areas as my new rooms.

As for an overall design aesthetic, I'm the type that builds around the landscape as it lies. I hollow out the interior wall of a hill or mountain, and if necessary, expand some floors and walls to accompany the area where it will be either functionally or tactically efficient.

Bloodfist aside, I gotta build aboveground sites more often and have a design direction I need to head that can also work with my adaptive architecture style I commonly work with. A more recent style I've implemented is Vault-Tec style fortresses. 3-wide halls, 5-wide mega-halls, and 1-2-wide branches and adequate housing/storage with single or double-doors and sectioned-off/partitioning on a grid if need be.

In a sense, my newer building/mining style is looking similar to Toady's new town setup system, except mostly underground vault-ish. Main initial inspiration was watching a Fallout/Wasteland mod LP. Tried implementing it to New Wavehandle (40d), and it did very well, until I hit a roadblock with focusing on my defenses and making it a self-powered deathtrap.

[FoiledFencer]

I have developed a tendency to carve out multistory great-halls with massive, engraved pillars inspired by Moria. And complex floor mosaics in adamantine/whatever rocks have pretty colours were I am.

Also, narrow walkways above magma or deep pits are always a good source of !!FUN!! and quite efficient if supplied with a dodge-friendly weapon-trap.

[thatkid]

I generally just build whatever as long as it looks nice, or is practical. I always carve into the side of a mountain though, near the top, and then dig down. I remove the ramps on the area around my entrance to create a sheer cliff face, then build a wall and make my own moat with a raised bridge. Never lasted long enough to construct the actual battlements, because I generally consider ranged combat to be an end-game thing; I can get by well enough with melee. I only ever fall to boredom or laziness these days.

In Kobold camp I make a literal camp, with a temple in the middle, outdoor workshops around the edges, walls and fortifications with crude 1-level deep channels around that, and a small overhand off of the temple walls to put beds under.

I'm genning a new world now, and inspired by this thread I think I'm going to try to mimic some real architecture in my design. It's just that I'm never sure how to fit workshops in. Also, how would one go about constructing pillars? Constructed walls, or supports?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Constructed walls, for thick ones; supports for thin ones you want destroyed/destroyable.

[Jake]

I tend towards a grid pattern, but when I mine out a vein I'll leave it as-is. When there's a large amount of black-space in between the tunnels left by a worked-out vein I'll hollow it out and turn it into a sculpture garden, and in fact my worked-out seams usually become art galleries in this manner. The exception is the stub-end of a vein that's in the middle of a big block of housing; depending on what I need right that minute, that will become a noble's quarters, a jail or a storeroom.

[cameron1124]

I usually build my forts in clusters of sorts. for instance the dining hall will be where the dwarves live aswell as the offices and a hospital. and the stockpiles will be very close to their respective workshops. and my workshops have their own area with diffrent jobs. defence is focused mainly on the aboveground level with walls, fortifacations, traps, and drawbridges protecting them.

However I am a noobie at dwarf fortress. and I havent even gotten metal yet (my military is marksdwarves with leather armor and bone bolts.)

[DeadlyMarmot]

I love tall towers, but I feel that it would be cruel to force a dwarf to live in anything other than natural stone. My style is therefore always tall cast obsidian towers. The upper floors house the nobles, control dwarf, magma and water reservoir, and water-logic AI. The middle floors are sandwiched between two legendary dinning rooms with the floors in between being large open rooms with lots of up/down stairs for maximum adaptability and space inefficiency. Housing is 1/4th windmill-style on the four corners of the middle floors. The ground floors typically hold the trade depot, security, the hospital, and automated bathing areas at the entrances and exits. Every other level for the entire fortress is for plumbing and a massive fortress-sized mist generator. Every floor with dwarves typically on it gets a well, small booze stockpile, and small dormitory. Every surface is eventually smoothed and engraved. Underground levels are the reason I keep redesigning my fortress: elaborate automated trap and execution rooms. Which ones are used depend on the water-logic AI's "mood" and what type of creature I tell the AI is trapped within. As a rule there is always a path a building destroyer could take to get from any above or below ground map edge to my dwarves although that doesn't mean he wouldn't be encased in obsidian if he tried.

Before I am able to cast the tower my dwarves live in a small 25x45 walled above ground fort with a small 5x10 three story living/dining building. Despite the small size they seem to like it and it can easily hold 80+ dwarves. I would build them a temporary below ground fortress, but I hate mining out more than I have to. I don't even like to use embarks with any ore because then I would be tempted to mine it for no reason at all.

[jamesadelong]

I love tall towers, but I feel that it would be cruel to force a dwarf to live in anything other than natural stone. My style is therefore always tall cast obsidian towers. The upper floors house the nobles, control dwarf, magma and water reservoir, and water-logic AI. The middle floors are sandwiched between two legendary dinning rooms with the floors in between being large open rooms with lots of up/down stairs for maximum adaptability and space inefficiency. Housing is 1/4th windmill-style on the four corners of the middle floors. The ground floors typically hold the trade depot, security, the hospital, and automated bathing areas at the entrances and exits. Every other level for the entire fortress is for plumbing and a massive fortress-sized mist generator. Every floor with dwarves typically on it gets a well, small booze stockpile, and small dormitory. Every surface is eventually smoothed and engraved. Underground levels are the reason I keep redesigning my fortress: elaborate automated trap and execution rooms. Which ones are used depend on the water-logic AI's "mood" and what type of creature I tell the AI is trapped within. As a rule there is always a path a building destroyer could take to get from any above or below ground map edge to my dwarves although that doesn't mean he wouldn't be encased in obsidian if he tried.

Before I am able to cast the tower my dwarves live in a small 25x45 walled above ground fort with a small 5x10 three story living/dining building. Despite the small size they seem to like it and it can easily hold 80+ dwarves. I would build them a temporary below ground fortress, but I hate mining out more than I have to. I don't even like to use embarks with any ore because then I would be tempted to mine it for no reason at all.

Sooooo...... you run a race of dopey goblins? With an obsidian tower? Being led by a cruel task-master? I don't know whether I should consider it cruel or awesome.

[clockwork]

I enjoy constructing simple, fractal designs for living quarters, towers, halls, etc.

[gtmattz]

squares

lots of squares

i mean lots and lots

[DeadlyMarmot]

...

Sooooo...... you run a race of dopey goblins? With an obsidian tower? Being led by a cruel task-master? I don't know whether I should consider it cruel or awesome.

Goblins live in obsidian towers? Damnit. I thought I was being dwarfy.

[jamesadelong]

...

Sooooo...... you run a race of dopey goblins? With an obsidian tower? Being led by a cruel task-master? I don't know whether I should consider it cruel or awesome.

Goblins live in obsidian towers? Damnit. I thought I was being dwarfy.

And with that we get into the cicular logic of mega-projects. Mimicking another race is very dwarfy, especially with magma involved. But doing so successfully makes it undworfy because you are no longer dwarfs. But having done so, with magma even, is very dwarfy. But so successfully is undorfy because you are no longer dwarfs... Ad infinitum. I suspect that if there was a failure involved, it'd be another matter entriely.
Sadly sir, you are doomed to a life of being un-dwarfly competent.