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[PainRack]

Aren't horizontal fortresses more..... nice to look at? Dwarves moving across each other to get to the workshops, then to the dining rooms before descending/ascending into the bedrooms?

I been building vertically since I entered the game and I just realised that even after I brushed up the asethetics, the lack of.... well, dwarves movement other than in the staircases get kinda boring. Following a dwarf movement vertically literally gives one a headache.

[King DZA]

Despite taking a slightly more vertical route with Gorerape, I personally prefer my fortress to have a nice sprawling cave city look.

[ThatAussieGuy]

Despite taking a slightly more vertical route with Gorerape, I personally prefer my fortress to have a nice sprawling cave city look.

You... you actually got that from the random generator?  I shudder to think about what happened in the halls of that fortress.  Although considering what generally happens in Dwarf Fortress, I suspect the cleanest comparative description would be "a busy Winter".

[Loud Whispers]

Despite taking a slightly more vertical route with Gorerape, I personally prefer my fortress to have a nice sprawling cave city look.

I prefer choosing desert plains, and building my own hive mountain.

Looks brilliant, both easy and hard to defend, and !!FUN!!

[MiniMacker]

I usually build my fortresses with a low amount of stairs. Even though they have to walk further, the reason for this is because tracking hostile monsters and observing fights can be difficult if they're fighting between two levels.

[Loud Whispers]

I usually build my fortresses with a low amount of stairs. Even though they have to walk further, the reason for this is because tracking hostile monsters and observing fights can be difficult if they're fighting between two levels.

Or you can have bridge+door controlled hallways spanning hundreds of levels, each crossing room by room in order to create an almost OCD level of control over what path everything takes in your fortress.

[C0NNULL]

Mine are generally horizontal. I scroll out 3x w/ the mouse, and try to center my staircase there. (For ease of 'k'ing and 'q'ing.) I find that to be a comfortable viewing resolution, because any smaller and I am trying to date (kiss) my monitor.

My current bedroom level houses 240 dorfs in 3x2 rooms with 3 stairs. The central stairs (3x3) is up only, so going down from there you need to use either of the 'cases on the sides. [This apartment complex is twixt cavern 1 and 2, so going down will happen.] This nicely fills the screen completely with nothing I cannot see. Some levels usually get dug out beyond that screen area, ya know, for trees or finding ores and stuff, but those don't count/are still horizontal.

And I do things like this for the reasons others do - I like to see dorfs wander about, and jumping z-levels isn't fun. (They seem faster on stairs, so my timing is always wrong.) That, and there are only so many F-keys. If all the workshops are on F4, then Urist McIHaveAMood is on F4 or looking for something so she can get back to F4 and be a happy ! I can see. Normally I won't end up forgetting such a dwarf since I can see a ! that is hanging about a workshop, and can figure out what she wants for to make that scepter we've been asking for. (We had an election - We want a scepter. Well, okay, we got a scepter and had an election to decide if we wanted one - same difference. [Note: No one except the crafter wanted a scepter.])

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler: I'm addicted to above ground fortresses.... (click to show/hide)

Poor giraffes, I have a cage trap like this but larger, the weapon trap is there to rid me of unwanted wild life (I'm in two savage biomes. LOTS of different animals). Plus a goblin ambush skewered itself there once. My only regret is I had a wild giant jaguar die on it once. Shame, could've used a breeding pair in my zoo.

Also for some reason, my butchers refuse to butcher their corpses.

[gzoker]

I like efficency, but horizontal forts are nicer to look at, so i build on a few z levels as possible. I don't like stairs, they look more like ladders to me, and i use them as such (exploratory shafts, scaffolding). I use Ramps between Z levels, even when digging down a hundred Z ( huge spirals FTW). I have small dining rooms, and food stockpiles on every level, and bedrooms for dwarfs who works on that level. When i have enough haulers, I burrow my workers on their level. Most of the time i end up with huge sprawling forts, on five or so Z levels, and I can watch a dorf doing his thing without touching my keyboard. ( if i zoom out a bit )

[Starver]

I am currently in an extended phase where I have a strict floorplan of corridors and rooms[1] up and down my entire height of fortress.  To the extent that 100+ levels down from my Z-1 farms (some exposed to the air, some purely subterranean) I have my magma workshops to precisely the same layout.  The main and central staircase feeds up and down as it is able (except where caverns disallow and require a diversion to a separate stairwell spot) and in/in-between busy areas many more stairwells also exist.  (My defence being isolationist, with deliberate pinch-points at the surface and limited cavern entry, and relying upon military mobilty to whichever lever-controlled entry/exit I am currently employing[2].)

Per level, usually dedicated to a particular purpose (masonic level, bedroom level, magma-industry level (a magmaduct level immediately below that) I sprawl.  Much less efficient than a small-footprint highly vertical fortress, being still spread across a high amount of verticality (with much untapped spaces all along its height) but out to at least half-way to the edge (or further), on some levels, constrained only by whatever external works I am attempting.

I also tend to make my corridors 3-wide, allowing for a set of ascending/descending ramps (alternating, before and after each stairwell spot) to drill diagonally through my structure for improved speed of dwarf movement in game-time (although not improved speed of dwarven pathfinding, of course, in real-time).

Worst of both worlds, some might say.  I wouldn't argue to much against that POV.

[1] These being interchangeable, but usually either 11x11, or four 5x5s in a square, or three-by-two 5x3 areas, all set within the same area.  The main exception being archery ranges which extend across and through multiple squares of this type, necessarily preventing corridors across their route.

[2] Also useful for keeping from being harassed by enemy squads whilst caravans wander in and out, unaccosted.  If they should chose to arrive on the side of the map that is not the one the enemy has arrived at, of course.

[nanomage]

i'd say vertical all the way. In vertical fortress, you don't need corridors - this constant source of clutter. I used to have 13*13 fortresses with nine stairwells running through the entire height (4 in the corners, 4  in the middles of the sides and 1 in the center), but now I think 14*14 with middle side stairwells being 2x1 and the central one being 2*2 is even better. You don't really need more than 12-15 levels even for the largest fortresses.

[Girlinhat]

Spoiler: I'm addicted to above ground fortresses.... (click to show/hide)

Poor giraffes, I have a cage trap like this but larger, the weapon trap is there to rid me of unwanted wild life (I'm in two savage biomes. LOTS of different animals). Plus a goblin ambush skewered itself there once. My only regret is I had a wild giant jaguar die on it once. Shame, could've used a breeding pair in my zoo.

Also for some reason, my butchers refuse to butcher their corpses.

Do you have "gather refuse from outside" enabled, and have a refuse stockpile?  They seem to avoid butchering un-stockpiled corpses, many times.

[Loud Whispers]

aaah, that fixed it.

Well I mean they comepletely ignored the girraffes but at least they butchered a dog corpse.
(Vulture ripped it's legs off)

[DrKillPatient]

I've been meaning to do a horizontal fort for a while, but I fear for my FPS with so much extra pathfinding to get around to fort.

aaah, that fixed it.

Well I mean they comepletely ignored the girraffes but at least they butchered a dog corpse.
(Vulture ripped it's legs off)

Can that structure be built upward, repeating it on each level, to catch giant eagles?

[Loud Whispers]

I've been meaning to do a horizontal fort for a while, but I fear for my FPS with so much extra pathfinding to get around to fort.

aaah, that fixed it.

Well I mean they comepletely ignored the girraffes but at least they butchered a dog corpse.
(Vulture ripped it's legs off)

Can that structure be built upward, repeating it on each level, to catch giant eagles?

I suppose so, though I'd replace the weapon traps with cages xD