Heh, I see a couple of mine above...
quote:
I always plan it out completely with hallways and all rooms designated for mining before I unpause the game...
Yup. I can spend an entire evening planning out a fortress, then saving and quitting when it's time to go to bed, without a single frame ever passing.
quote:
I buy turtles by the metric ton, because I'm paranoid about shells. Like, I never set out without at least 50-100.
Yup. I request it from caravans all the time as well. Of course, I never cook booze, so having other food items available is a necessity. Not that I couldn't do it with plump helmets and assorted berries, but the bone and shell are too good to pass up.
quote:
Everything that can be made out of blocks or raw stone, I make out of blocks
Yup. It bugs me to think of dwarves working in shops that are basically just a few rough stones stacked up. Give them nice smooth surfaces! Same goes for roads, walls, bridges, floors, etc.
quote:
if I'm building a double door I'll try to have both doors of the same kind of wood/stone and preferably the same quality
This too. If I have to, I'll wait until a second door of the same material and quality is made, even adjusting the stockpile settings and workshop profile if I have to in order to nudge things in that direction.
quote:
I always build roads out of blocks of the same material where possible
Same with walls, floors, bridges, etc. While a road made of, say, marble and obsidian might look neat, there's no real in game representation of that (at least, not that I'm aware of), so I just use one material.
quote:
Can't stand loose stone. CANNOT. STAND. LOOSE. STONE. I'll spend YEARS clearing it and manually dumping it all. I don't care.
Need I say more?
Lyrax's "necropolis" sounds like it might be similar to my mass tomb design, aside from the central square. It always goes like this:
code:
╔═╦═╦═╦═╦═╗
╔╝8O8O8O8O8╚╗
║8 8║
╠O O╣
║8 8║
╠O O╣
║8 O 8║
╠O O╣
║8 8║
╠O O╣
║8 8║
╚╗8O8O8O8O8╔╝
╚═╩═╩═╩═╩═╝
I've used 8's for the coffins so they stick out a bit better. There are also coffins arranged in the central area, but that depends on how the mood strikes me; I have no set preference for them. It's easy to designate: it's just a shift-diagonal, then remove every other tile around the edge and the center tile for a pillar. The hard part is remembering to space them far enough apart that their walls have at least 1 blank one between them, as I absolutely hate the
code:
O╬╬O
8╠╣8
O╬╬O
8╠╣8
O╬╬O
8╠╣8
O╬╬O
look that results if they touch (and that goes for any area with smoothed walls: if they don't share a wall, there has to be a blank one between them). Connections are made using the central passages along the edges.
quote:
When placing furniture in a room, I go for contrast with the native stone.
Ooh, this too! I leave the walls and floors their natural color, so I can end up with some interesting rooms that are, say, koalinite floors and walls with limestone furniture on one half, and limestone floors and walls with koalinite furniture on the other!
[ April 07, 2008: Message edited by: Nesoo ]