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Dirt fort - Everything in the soil layers

11 (10.9%)

Above-ground structure - Megaprojects that dorfs live in, etc

20 (19.8%)

Mechanical hell - Shitloads of levers and pressure plates to the point where you don't know what each does

14 (13.9%)

Militant - Made for the sole purpose of death and destruction

16 (15.8%)

Other

40 (39.6%)

Total Members Voted: 101

[Lexx]

I make a highly industry focused fort focusing on glass and metalworking. near always underground and most of the time in or just above/below caverns. With balconies, walkways and windows looking out across the caves.  usually at least a 3rd of the fort are in the military at any time.

[Organum]

I dig down and try to hit rock before I do anything. After that my forts tend to stagnate as the citizens hide from the sieges above.
Occasionally I'll do something interesting, but typically they end up being boring.

[threes4luck]

Workshops and stockpiles, not including food, are above ground along with the slums. A room is a privilege, not a right. First few dirt lairs are to be used as temporary dwelling, to be later converted into a tree farm, fields, and grazing area so this is taken into account, while the fortress is mined out. This can take quite a while so I immediately begin construction on the above ground portion of the fortress while my miners do their work.
Starting on the first stone layer; each odd z-lv will be a sewer. On the second stone layer I have one control room along with the nobles rooms/offices. Closest to the surface=closest to the magma which is restricted to the surface (Unless of course I decide to include THE lever in this incarnation of the fort).
My favourite part of my fortress in the labyrinth. Here prisoners or beast dubbed too dangerous for the arena are sent. They are left in front of a wall of stone and when H.A.L pulls the lever they're free to do as they wish.
The hardest part is planning ahead. I like to be able to quarantine specific areas of my fort (read:flooded) so the spare stairs and drainage systems all have to line up.
I'm also a big fan of symmetry, and military service is mandatory.
At the moment I'm trying a set standard for circles and diagonal turns
 

[Berserkenstein]

Pillow forts!

[Komra]

I tend to do a build that tries to reduce walking time and also categorizes each area, due to a vertical style. I usually have two levels of ultra-compact bedroom complexes, another for nobles' rooms and offices/dining areas, a 'living area' floorwith the meeting hall/staue garden, dining room, hospital, and prison, as well as maybe a workshop or two. Another level is the production floor, then the stockpile floor that basically is a strip mine, and a barracks floor. after that, I start going down to find lava, unless of course I embark at a volcano (my preference). Traps tend to be basic at the moment, mostly a maze of weapon and cage traps, with a bridge wall that can be lowered for looting. In my current fortress, I have a break in the maze that opens into a arena where I can easily place my military, so that I can hold off invaders at least long as i need to complete the lockdown (involving MOAR BRIDGES, mainly).

Basically, very vertical and pseudo-organized (a fortress is a mess no matter what you do, really)

[Psieye]

Industrial complexes with artisan workspaces. With ethics modding, even sieges are part of the industry. With weapons modding, sieges are a valuable source of platinum.

[Madurjafro]

Normally just go for dirt/rock forts, dig underground like a true dorf.

Next game however, I will try an above ground fort, and will make each building out a material, so when I look on stonesense, it doesn't look like rainbow building fort.

[PwndJa]

I typically build a surface structure as my entrance after getting my dwarves nice and cozy in the rock layers. Dirt seems far too undorflike and as such I only use it for training miners or for reservoirs, not including my well reservoir which is always in the rock layer. My forts are also weblike(Most areas are attached to other areas via stair cases or ramps) with a 3x3 central staircase in the middle of it all. It cuts down on walking time but the smallest oversight can end up flooding sections of my fortress as plenty of areas become centralized in themselves but aren't connected to the central stair and, thus, can't just drain into the caverns.

[Erkki]

My current fort Oillures I'm trying to make into a 300+ Dwarf city (depending on the FPS, up to 500 or even higher). Each Dwarf retires at the age of 140, 130 for professional military. Only way to avoid 10-year conscription is being irreplaceable, incapacitated, professional military or already too old. Draftees will work as second line of defenses, mechanics, auxiliary farmers, plant gatherers ie. doing all the less needed but mass-designated work. Everyone gets a room of their own and I'm trying to make them all at least "Grand". My Fort wont have a Baron before I decide to take on the Humans...

This is a 3*3 embark with 1 cavern layer, temperature off. Currently at 204 Dwarves and 80+ animals in a 4-million $D Fort, FPS is still standing at the cap limit of 100. 

[Kilroy the Grand]

I normaly build my stockpiles in soil, along with most of my workshops. Then I make a dormitory and a dinning room. The rest of the map goes to industry, which ever one suits my fancy at the time. Right now I'm focusing on the "Mod in horrible toxins that eat the flesh off my dwarfs"

[Ross Vernal]

Poorly designed ones, if my current is any example.

I dug a hole in the ground, dug a barracks, dug a dining hall, dug a food storage, and built my workshops outside. Expanded the first level for more storage, better barracks, to make it so the dining hall wasn't connected, slapped up a wall around it and a trader-invader pathing switch.

Really, I just build my fort as needed and once it is reasonably secure from sieges, then I'll consider making megaprojects.

The first one will be a 20 Z-level tree built entirely of wood on the outside, built on a marble platform 3 Z-levels high, with gaps and floors on every level to deposit Elf corpses and skeletons on the outside and all of their worthless wooden armor on the inside.

[Erkki]

My current fort Oillures I'm trying to make into a 300+ Dwarf city (depending on the FPS, up to 500 or even higher). Each Dwarf retires at the age of 140, 130 for professional military. Only way to avoid 10-year conscription is being irreplaceable, incapacitated, professional military or already too old. Draftees will work as second line of defenses, mechanics, auxiliary farmers, plant gatherers ie. doing all the less needed but mass-designated work. Everyone gets a room of their own and I'm trying to make them all at least "Grand". My Fort wont have a Baron before I decide to take on the Humans...

This is a 3*3 embark with 1 cavern layer, temperature off. Currently at 204 Dwarves and 80+ animals in a 4-million $D Fort, FPS is still standing at the cap limit of 100. 

Project aborted. At 250 Dwarves the Pink Demon, leader of the nearby Goblin civilization and the subject of about half of my fort's art (him killing dwarves mostly), arrived with a Goblin siege. Every single piece of his clothing and all their decoration was made out of Dwarves: bone, skin, teeth etc... Anyway, managed to engage half of this siege in piecemeal and destroy them to the last Goblin, so he turned his tail and fled. When he escaped out of the embark area, DF crashed. I cant bother playing year 311 again and build all the stuff again so it was time to abandon...

[mnjiman]

Castle walls with towers. Magma moats with magma falling from the sky. Multiple magma cannons shooting out magma out of the walls spraying invaders with magma as they melt through draining grates.

Inside the fortress contains everything that a fortress could contain.

I make fortresses with pure purpose.

[Megaman3321]

I tend to make a Militant fortress; I'm working on making some Mech fortresses too.

Also:

Designed, organised.
With workshop levels, Living level, military level, all separed by rooms of different industries. (Exemple, I have a room for stocking raw food, a room for kitchen/raw food, a room for alcool/still with barrels, a room for prepared food)   
All rooms are designed before start digging.
Exemple : Here, the entrance to my workshop z-lvl (each stair = one industrie, stone and gem, wood, cloth, and metal.) And my hospital. And maybe noble rooms.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I alway abandon because boredom (or because it disorganized). I spend more time making designations than playing. And I alway forgot some workshop (soap maker, my eternal nemesis). I'm a maniac.

I apologize for bad english.

Would you mind if I adapted this into a combination housing/workshop area? I've been looking for ways to cut down on movement between workshops and houses, and this appears to be a very good way to do so.

[acetech09]

Just look.