Wow, thanks guys. DF community is probably the nicest community ive ever been apart of.
The DF community is the best online community I have ever seen.
My fortresses are always very planned out. I don't plan them beforehand though; I have a loose general formula that I adapt as I find interesting things on the map.
As soon as I embark, I look for a pretty entrance, and start designating. I designate ~20 workshops, ~20 stockpiles one level below the workshops, ~20 bedrooms one level below the workshops, a central staircase, a dining room, a room that serves as a trade depot / miscellaneous stockpile, a hospital, a future dwarven spa, a place for a barracks, and so on and on. Then I have to go through and undesignate little bits so I get the bedrooms and essential workshops dug out first.
After the first two or so years, the hauling jobs are starting to die down, at which point I activate masonry and the real fun begins. I'm talking large towers to house magma guns or orbital magma cannons, elaborate cruel arenas to dispose of elves in, sewage systems, mechanisms for flushing the fortress section at a time (with magma or water), etc. I've yet to get to the point where I run out of FUN ideas; in my current fortress, I'm starting to build an orbital magma cannon (I hope I understand the FPS-neutral magma pump stack right, because I have no intention of dropping under 50 fps, and this will be one tall pump stack), I have a biochemical warfare laboratory up (complete with dwarves lying around dead in failed hazmat suit prototypes) and soon I'll be able to flush forgotten beast syndrome anywhere around the fortress I want through the modified sewage system (though no useful syndromes like blindness or sensory nerve eaters so far; just the usual temporary numbness and chronic deathsies).
Hmmm. Does hand numbness cause creatures to drop their weapons/shields? I have this small population of tame tigers... I could douse some fully-armed goblins in numbness juice in the arena cells, send them up against the tigers, and just as they're sure they'll win, bam, their arms go numb and the tigers are free to tear them up
. And of course, I'd engrave this on the arena walls for the next batch of goblins to see.
Edit: Can water be heated to some point between 10000 and 10180 reliably? Do hot rocks heat water around them?