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[DwarfOfDefeat]

Am i alone here when i say this. whenever i start a game i start building my fortress and then screw up. because my mind wanders into trying to build something epic but you neglect your dwarves and they die?
well that happens to me everytime! so now i am wondering... how do i get off in the right foot?
do note: i taught myself to play this game... it has twisted my mind in more ways then one.

[Matoro]

Every time I start new fort, about first season I dig space for stockpiles, meeting zone, workshops and quarters. Other dwarves haul things to underground from wagon that time.
When you are underground and have bridge and traps, just lock yourself in if there's problem outside you cannot solve yet.

[DwarfOfDefeat]

its not that... i just need a solid foundation on which to build off of. all my fortress plans die off and then im left trying to design a organised fortress and then it fails.

[MrWiggles]

When I start playing. I look for what I want my actual fort's entrance to be. Then I look for a secondary entrance.

I start to mine out the secondary entrance. I make an haphazard fortress, getting food, booze, and skills up, before I start working on the fortress proper. A workers town, before beginning the real job.

It allows me to build as needed, without planning, until I have the luxury to design as needed, but I wont have to divert for what I need *right* now.

[Jimmy]

I always plan my fort design and layout before I mine a single tile. Usually I run a circular spiral shaft design with branching burrows around centralized stockpiles. My starting strategy is to butcher and cook my cats ASAP, brew my plants and get two miners digging for stone. Set up a small farm in the soil once I have a decent underground meeting area created, pump out some tables, chairs and stone pots, possibly look at cutting wood for charcoal and beds. At the start of autumn I make sure I have enough trade goods to buy the essentials from the caravan, then get to work digging deeper!

[Nidokoenig]

For basic survivability, I dig out a farm, get planting, and do whatever I need to do to get booze produced. Early furniture can just be tossed anywhere, it'll be replaced later, and I prefer to do my early digging in the soil layers so my miners can skill up and sort the stone out at a decent pace.

[Jimmy]

As regards fortress plans, I always make sure to have an idea of what I want to accomplish with my fortress, what my challenge will be. Self imposed restrictions and power goals make the game more fun. Create a woodless fort? Use no constructions? Pave the surface in cast obsidian? Know what your goal will be, and you'll know where to focus your efforts.

[i874236951]

I dig out a little sadface room in the soil where I'm probably not going to be putting any real fortress features, lay down a few farm plots, assemble some necessary workshops, add a few beds, chairs, and tables, set up a meeting area and dump zone, protect it with a drawbridge at the entrance, and then live in there as I dig out the fortress incrementally.  You can fit everything you need for a moderately functional fortress in a very small area... the real issue is mentally overcoming the self-imposed requirement of organization and just throwing together a mini-fort to support you in the short run.  Once you've got all the real stuff finished, bring everything inside and let your early dwarves tell tales of the bummy workcamp they were forced to live in as the glorious fortress was constructed.

[Buttery_Mess]

My fort is organised in a strict 11x11 pattern, like this

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...x...x...
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...x...x...
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Certain room configurations allow me to deviate from this pattern, for example blocks of 3x3 rooms and/or four side-by-side 5x5 rooms. This allows me to build tightly packed fortresses with minimum waste of space, with large stockpiles containing exactly 121 spaces, workshop spaces with space for nine workshops, and so on. It's easy on the eyes and easy to understand what's going on, and keep track of everything. It's easy to keep track of vertical expansion or to deviate from creatively.

I usually embark with plenty of picks and miners, and enough food to last until the caravan arrives. This allows you to focus on creating the space for workshops, farms, and stockpiles; the later waves of migrants can start sorting those out. If you get your second migrant wave working on some cheap crafts or whatever to buy food, wood, and mood gear (cloth, leather, raw glass etc.) with, you can probably find one dwarf to set aside to start growing crops. A plump helmet centred agriculture will provide all the basics you need for food and drink, and there's always enough cattle to slaughter to fend of starvation, so you can focus on drink at first (later, food and drink overproduction is always a problem).

[somebody64]

start out by digging stockpiles, meeting areas, farms, barracks, bedrooms and graves (especially graves) , then, have a mason/ architect ready to immediately build walls and a drawbridge around your fortress. Once that is done, and your workshops are in place, you may then begin whatever shenanigans you please. Egg farms and farm plots are low maintenance ways to feed your people and require little attention.

Note that all forts fail if left to there own systems. You still need to improve on paying attention to details regardless.

[Darkweave]

Mining out a temporary shelter in a soil layer is my favourite way of making sure I don't get the urge to restart constantly. The temp fort can easily be defended and once I have it up and running I usually try and get some bronze/iron armour and weapons sorted as soon as possible and the military up and running. I favour incredibly large, sprawling and extravagant fortresses with lots of multi-z rooms smoothed on every level so once the temporary fort is stable I immediately get to work creating some great halls for my dwarves to move in to.

Other little things include having my herbalists and fisherdwarves train a bunch of war dogs for protection as I don't do any underground farming, getting a bookkeeper and manager sorted by the start of the second year and trying to get the beginnings of each industry started so that I can quickly produce any items necessary for dwarves in strange moods. I try and get a waterfall set up that flows in front of one of the halls inside of the main fort so that any dwarves entering get cleaned off. I also only ever use one type of stone for crafts, furniture and whatever else I need. Usually something like marble, basalt or obsidian. If I have access to a volcano and river I'll usually try and get a basic surface obsidian farm running fairly quickly so I can start making pots for brewing alcohol

[acetech09]

My fortress entrances always end up being a tunnel in the first soil layer, with a drawbridge in the center with a pit under it. After the drawbridge, there is a small area for a trade depot and caravans, so I have my miners hollow that out first. I then move my dwarves in there along with my food stockpiles, and then get my miners to excavating the main part of the fortress. The excavation doesn't take long, but it takes about half a year to completely haul all the stone out of it. While the stone is being hauled out by the majority of the population, my engravers are smoothing all the fortresses stone, while the miners are digging out farmland and pastures in the soil layers.

Due to this, there is such a flurry of activity during the first few years that I often don't get a mayor for several seasons after the triggers are supposed to fire... I guess this is just a lack of elections due to lack of socialization.

[DwarfOfDefeat]

Wow, thanks guys. DF community is probably the nicest community ive ever been apart of. I like the idea of the workers camp, i think ill definetly use that one from now on.

[Fredd]

 I start out using a blueprint created in a imaging program, to help visualize the basic layout of the fort. Since I like aboveground forts, the keep will be the centerpiece.
In this area, will excavate a space, that will be for temporary use, storage, shops, depot sleeping quarters, offices, small farmplots, workshops will get placed here. A locked hatch and two chained guard dogs, maybe cage traps are basic defences.
 Once supplies are moved indoors, and plots planted, basic food/booze production, as well as creating stuff for trading can start. Meanwhile the miners and masons can start on a cistern, or another safe water source area, and dig a moat around the perimeter of the future keep.
 When this part has been completed, creation of living quarters, workshop levels, stockpiles starts. The original excavated areas purpose will then become food /booze production,and farms. After the first two mighrant waves, creation of the fort proper starts.

 For fun, you can use Dfliquild to magically create obsidian walls to protect your dwarves, and a combination of Quickfort and Chromafort to quickly designate digging areas from blueprints you created

[Eddren]

Yeesh, you're all doing all this fancy crud..
..All I do is plan out the entrance. A long, 3-wide hallway, ending in a large room, where I will place the Depot.
Then I dig out the next level below it, only this level is four separate hallways.
One is dedicated to mining out new levels below that, the next for food and ways to make food, the third is the living area, and the final is my Crafts workshops.
All workshops are put alongside the main hallway. They are grouped together by what materials they use(With Crafts-dwarves workshops being in several of these groups,) and have their stockpiles parallel to the main hallway.
Living areas have several variations in design, depending on how fancy I feel. Most of the time, I use simple 3x3 apartments, with varying ways to get to them.
The food area usually has some egg-laying areas, somewhere for Catsplosions to be contained(And a way for me to easily designate the kittens for butchering,) as well as the still, cook's place, and everything else having to do with food.
The mining area does exactly what it sounds like it does.
It's made for mining downward, and looking for metals, valuables, those sorts of things.
It's also usually ringed with cage-traps, in case I have to breach a Cavern.