Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Urist_The_First]

Hi all,

So, I've been mining myself forts for a while now and noticed that they tend to end up in roughly the same configuration:

- Short entrance corridor into mountainside with barracks at the end
- Central staircase from barracks down into fort
- Halls, workshop complexes, housing branching off from the staircase
- OCD levels of symmetry

Which, while pretty practical, is getting a bit dull.  So, I wanted to ask you guys - how do you lay out your forts?  Different every time?  Some central concept to them?  Symmetry important or not?

I'd also be interested to hear about whether you use any temporary or starter fort while working on your main fort, or do you dive straight in?

UtF

[Girlinhat]

Depends on the fort.  Mostly I set up an identical underground stockade, some farms, stockpiles, basic workshops, etc.  My main goal is to work above-ground, quarrying and building up stone.  These buildings on the surface are usually unique to each fort, expanding as time goes on, repurposing, rearranging hallways and magma-ducts, etc.  This adds a lot of flavor to the fort, as I reposition the mist generator and end up with the old waterway now empty, converting it into a hallway and some of the runoff chambers into bed chambers.  It can get exceedingly interesting when you let it sprawl out like that over time.  Don't worry about the final result, just worry about what your dwarves need now and a convenient way to set it up.  You'll spend a lot more time building, planning, and re-planning, but that's good.  So many players complain about mid-late-game boredom when they've got dorms and farms and nothing to do.  I say to keep improving, bit by bit, stepping on your own toes.  Get each dwarf a private suite, preferably with their own study in a different room and a dedicated closet (with magma-washer for when the closets get overfull!).  More importantly, though, fit individual rooms and studies into your existing fort by repaving and repurposing.  While it may be possible, and simpler, to simple deconstruct whole blocks and rebuild them to need, it ends up much more lively when you do the bare minimum deconstruction to get something used for a new purpose.

[Prologue]

- I use a long hallway with barracks near the entrance.
- In that central hallway I put several stockpiles with workshops that require dwarves to go out. Carpenter, Still and sometimes a Craftsdwarf.
- Use a central staircase and one floor is dedicated to housing dwarves.

I used to plan my fort symmetrical, but that wasted so much time and wasn't as much FUN.

[Chilton]

An Entrance in a Hillside, with a Farm 1-zlevel down.
Then the Fort itself up to 20-zlevels below.
The rest is different every time, but tends to all be on one level, and resemble a big square.

[Jenniretta]

I make every fortress different, I've had some in .25 that resemble old 2D forts though.

Otherwise, I tend to find something interesting and build into/around it - my last fortress (canyonmartyrs) was 52 Z levels underground, hugging a magma pipe with a long winding entrance going all the way to the surface, every inch was smooth and engraved, the cavern area I claimed for my Depot and barracks and zoo etc. was even smoothed and engraved where I could, I even smoothed the ground before I muddied it for the farms, lol.

Other times I just build as-needed and put things wherever they fit.

I've had one or two that I dug in at the foot of a mountain and made the fortress in the newly-hollow mountain, entrance at the bottom, going up to it's peak.

Most of my fortresses are not, at all, symmetric, since I'm usually working rooms into preexisting features, or adding things at the last minute.

[doublestrafe]

Mine are a big sprawling mess.

Surface has a huge area walled off for animals and refuse, or a plateau with all the ramps removed. If it's big enough I don't even build a wall around it, because I can just make my civilian war burrow far back enough from the edges so shearers and such don't get shot. At any given time, seven or eight starving lambs and baby alpacas are wandering around.

Soil levels have big irregular areas full of stockpiles and random workshops, and the original 5-bed dorm and dining room with the bookkeeper's office as one of the chairs. The depot and kennels are there too, along with a cage full of about 30-50 untrained dogs that I never got around to dealing with.

Next few levels usually have at least one big area hollowed out for stone, a gigantic block of 1x5 rooms over a really huge dining room, and under that a great big hall with a magma channel under it, where someday I intend to build an organized set of workrooms, honest, but right now is mostly empty except for the forges and smelters.

My problem is, I've never actually managed to get to the point where I feel I can reorganize and build a proper fortress out of the temporary space I've carved out of necessity before reaching FPS doom. My latest fortress, Whiteletter, was doing really well with a popcap of 80--FPS at 100 even with four waterfalls running through the dining room--until I decided I needed a few more for haulers and military, changed the cap to 100, and DF decided I meant it was a free-for-all and brought me up to, so far, 127. Now I'm at 50 FPS and getting cranky about it. If it doesn't stop, it's going to grind to a halt, and Whiteletter will meet the same ignominious fate as every other fortress I've had so far.

[King DZA]

Sprawl. Massive, aesthetically pleasing sprawl.

And no, I do not build temporary forts. Regardless of how long it will take to get a decent fortress set up.

I believe Gorerape is the only fort I've had that has a central staircase, and my barracks is normally placed in locations that make my soldiers take an unnecessary amount of time to reach their destination/target. But at least it looks good!

[gunnarig]

I kinda begin by digging in and making a universal stockpile and a long hallway with a central staircase on the end some basic workshops. but when my wagon goods are inside the stockpile i start making a dining room on a cople of z lvls down and then kinda just expand from that location my forts are usualy never the same and are kinda chaotic i dont have alot of need for simmetry.

[jamesadelong]

Depends on my mood. Right now I'm working on a Venetian style underground fortress using a shaft and a an aquifer to fill the canals with water and provide free power whilst not exposing myself to the outside world. Generally speaking, much of it is on a single z level with streets crossing small bridges and basements and attics in most of the buildings for storing materials. I haven't gotten an underground farm set up yet, but given that I have pumps and and waterwheels, I don't think it will take too long.

The best part is the battles that extend across numerous little island places. My military can clear out a small factory on one small island, the goblins can sit in a park on the other and we can hold our ground as another force moves into position to retake the rear and cut them off. The house to house fighting gets pretty entertaining.

Alongside that is the scenic option of being able to have gorgeous palaces right next to the canal, a small statue sits atop a island depicting the owner of the restaurant.

Sadly though, this fort won't last. I'm itching to try a multi-Z level underground canal fortress, the added abilities a construction possibilities would make it so much cooler.

[Minnakht]

Single central staircase that goes both up into the air and down into the earth. Goes right through caverns unless interrupted by water, with application of constructed stairs and walls. Just a single huge planespine.

A small square tower surrounds the aboveground portion of the planespine - I'd estimate 11x11 or 13x13 or so. If I ever get to that part, I set barracks inside that one, and top the tower with a pyramid.

The tower also houses my only entrances into the fortress - one close to the ground, a long drawbridge that can be closed should a siege appear (or even an ambush, flinging enemies off - that long of a drawbridge) and another much higher up, in the form of a dodge-me trap. Needless to say, those hurt when set 10 z-levels above the ground. Even without spikes, although I might get to that, too.

Below ground, it's mostly huge rooms of stockpiles, with workshops placed in them (no separate walled rooms for them, because why?) and 3x3 bedrooms. And 5x5 or larger rooms for administrators. And a large dining room, with a well in it once I get around to making it.

Forges are built at magma sea level - I follow a path of least resistance, and it's much easier to bring dwarves down. Even if bringing magma up is funnier. I'll get to that one day, too.

[zilpin]

I favor designs which prove I think in three dimensions.
Unfortunately, the fourth tends to bite me in the end.

[Poindexterity]

i like to make forts that are hell for invaders to path through. lots of ups and downs and doubling back to get anywhere.
except the barracks. it's always a short walk from any barracks to any fort entrance as i dig the idea of dwarves popping up from unpredictable holes in the ground/ceiling/walls.

[Demonsul]

I have had a growing habit of building surface forts. The construction tends to follow the landscape as wooden huts for workshops at first, before an outer wall goes up around the settlement before the gobbos arrive. The settlement quickly becomes a castle, before evolving into a sprawling Dwarven version of the Kowloon Walled City.

EDIT: Actually, looking back on my saves, imposing towers tend to be more common. Those are far more planned, symmetrical and modular, as well as far less sprawling but instead reaching out to touch the sky.

All of this goes on above a constantly growing stack of underground empty layers, where I dug out all the stone for my creations.

[MisterLich]

I'm probably one of the least symmetrical fort builders.  Generally I could probably make a flow-chart though.

Is the area flat?  Dig down, immediately build a short hallway and make some room for beds while carpenter dwarf cuts trees if applicable.  Fill with beds.  Then slap a farm down somewhere, etc.
Is the area not flat?  Dig into the side of a mountain, then do the same thing as above.

After I have 100+  Dwarfs, and 90+ of them are on mining and architecture duty, I rebuild my fort completely.  I use the old slapped together survival hole as a military outpost.

[Laserhead]

I didn't really like how the "central staircase" felt, so I usually use only sloping corridors (hallways with ramps) except in particular cases such as between workshops and storerooms.

I typically start out by digging a gently sloping "road" downward from the surface, 10-15 Z levels down and at least an embark tile long.

What I consider the entrance corridor to my fort will be a branch off this road, and my actual fort will expand out in all directions from there.

I don't like to breach the caverns or mine from the bottom of my fort, so I'll continue the first "road" past the fort entrance and into the caverns.

Everything coming in or out of the fort thus has to go through the front entrance, and it ends up being a bit of a walk to get to the surface or the mines, but most dwarfs are burrow restricted to the inside of the fort anyway. Woodcutters, miners, haulers, and military are the only only ones normally permitted beyond the entrance once I've got everyone underground.