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Dwarf Fortress => DF Dwarf Mode Discussion => Topic started by: Haedrian on August 09, 2011, 09:00:01 am

Title: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Haedrian on August 09, 2011, 09:00:01 am
So, I've been playing this game for many years now. Generally when I build a fort, its very labour-centric. I use large rectangular rooms with a single 'type' of workshop and a stockpile of raw materials.

So my question is, what simple fort designs does everyone use generally? When I say simple I mean.. basic. So no SDTs or megaprojects or something. Just to see if a design inspires me. I had a friend who used to use circular rooms and they did look nice.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designes
Post by: Daetrin on August 09, 2011, 09:06:40 am
Megaprojects aside, hex-based is pretty cool (I use a 5x5 square with the corners cut off for each 'cell' in the honeycomb grid)
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designes
Post by: Mickey Blue on August 09, 2011, 09:10:43 am
Courtyard (surface) - Butcher industry, refuse piles, walled in part ways (I leave part of it open for challenge, but this allows me to control where the enemies enter and allows me to attack from above with archers).  If I have a fishing industry I have that located on this level as well.

Soil Level (generally one or two levels under the surface, above any aquifers) - My forward barracks (starts as my early meeting room to get my dwarves out of the elements and gives them someplace to sleep and eat), my main storage (huge room to store most of my stuff, pretty much everything except for wood, metal and weapons), my food industry (two large rectangular rooms, the former having my industry-related stuff like kitchens, etc, the latter actually storing my food), my metal industry (again two large rectangular rooms, the former having workshops and the latter having wood pile).  Off my food is my farms which is a square with four farms on it and a small area to store seeds, and off my metal industry is two square rooms holding raw stone and holding charcoal. 

I put these in the soil level because a lot of it is used for storage and this way I don't have to worry about rocks getting in the way.

Stone level (usually the second or third stone level unless I want to dig deeper for some reason) - This is my main living level once things get going.  It has a large main hall where they eat and meet, a main barracks for my primary military, a room off this main barracks is where I store all my weapons, ammo and armor, when my military grows I build smaller barracks around the fort.  I have a hospital which is usually next to my main barracks, houses my hospital and my chief medical dwarf's room.  Then I have a dorm (large rectangular room with beds in it) which serves as my main sleeping quarters until people can get their own rooms.  I have wells build throughout.

Sleeping Level (usually a level or two below the stone level) - This is where my dwarf bedrooms go, a design of 3x3 rooms for regular dwarves and larger noble rooms.  I also usually put a smaller meeting-type area for dwarves to eat.  As my fort grows sometimes I have a similar level below this one until I can house all my dwarves in their own rooms.

Mining level - Below these levels I mine out what I need.  I usually build a bunch of long passages in many directions (channeling zork there..) until I strike a metal, then I mine it out.  If I have need for extra stone this area suffices too.


Although my specifics in design change up sometimes, the basic organization is always the same unless I'm deliberately changing it for some challenge related reason.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designes
Post by: Haedrian on August 09, 2011, 09:16:30 am
Quote from: Daetrin on August 09, 2011, 09:06:40 am
Megaprojects aside, hex-based is pretty cool (I use a 5x5 square with the corners cut off for each 'cell' in the honeycomb grid)

Cool, hexes tessellate so it might be awesome. How does the pathfinding handle it though? When I tried a fort made of squares the pathfinding went crazy.
-
I'll try Mickey's suggestion I think. I generally spread a lot of stuff across many levels.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: kirrian on August 09, 2011, 10:29:44 am
I have been trying to get away from my usual straight-hall-square-rooms design and have small rooms or small groups of rooms off natural features like veins.  But it ain't working out that way.  It is really hard when it is so easy to designate squares.  And veins aren't really consistent of course, so one may go this way on this level and another may be off another direction on another level.  If they were a bit larger and spanned multiple levels, I might get closer to what I envision.

Right now I'm trying to build my own chasm from the surface down to the caves, with paths up and down on the chasm walls and rooms build into the cliffs, very little stairs between levels.  The only thing I haven't really been able to get away from is the entrance hall and various little sections for defense (primarily the isolated trading post and cage pit below the trapped cat walks).  The best thing I have done to try to keep this a more 'organic' thing is *not* to plan.  Not much design, at all.  Mostly just small installations that I have plopped down where ever they are needed like a water reactor here to drive a small pump stack to fill a small cistern.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: dwarfhoplite on August 09, 2011, 10:45:35 am
you will get more epic fortresses when you build everything to the closest place where you can. Still dont make insanely big rooms and halls but make lots of small ones instead
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: UristMcHuman on August 09, 2011, 11:11:27 am
What I do:

I build a kiln, dig a clay pit, put 'collect clay' on repeat, use the clay to make walls, and I dig holes in the ground for instant housing.

During cavern challenges:

I build fortifications and place open beds in the perimeters.

EDIT: The simplest fort design I can think of is this:
Dig holes in the ground for houses.
Dig a trench that encompasses ALL the pit-houses, and remove the ramps on the outside.
Build ONE drawbridge on ONE trench, raising INWARD.
Keep it up unless you have migrants or a caravan.
Open it IMMEDIATELY before the caravan or migrants get to it, and close it IMMEDIATELY after they get in.
To trick goblin sieges, keep the bridge DOWN during a thief infiltration or small ambush, and once a goblin siege hits (hopefully without flying mounts), slam the door in their faces (raise the bridge once you see that "A vile force of darkness has arrived!").
To deal with attacks, use only crossbowmen.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Mushroo on August 09, 2011, 11:21:08 am
Build vertical. It is quicker to go up/down a flight of stairs than a 20-tile hallway. Each workshop should have an up/down staircase with raw material stockpile directly above and finished goods directly below (or vice-versa).

Also I like to mine out entire soil layers once I have breached the caverns. Easy access to wood, grazing, plant gathering, etc.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Flaming Toadstool on August 09, 2011, 11:31:37 am
What I do is I dig into a cliffside 3x20. At the end, I have a 3x3 down staircase. Just before that, I have a one tile section in the middle where I put a drawbridge to act as a seal, just in case. Then before that, I have a 5x5 dug out for a trade depot. Then everything before that is lined with cage traps.

On the next level, I have all my workshops, assuming it is a level with soil. If it isn't, I find a level with all soil. The reason for this is because I don't want to have to haul stone off my future stockpiles. I make all my stockpiles 11x11, with room for further expansion. I put my workshops inside the rooms as well, except for the butcher shop, which I make a room for all by itself, where I also pasture my dogs and cage my cats.

On the next level, I have my living quarters, which includes lodgings, hospital, and a barracks. My hospital and barracks are 11x11 in size, and depending on if it is a noble or not, I have both 3x3 rooms and 5x5 rooms. This is all done in the stone so I can smooth and engrave everything.

On the next level, I have my dining room. It is ~22x22 tiles large (I cant remember, but it is large). I have my tables set up in lines horizontally, with room in the middle for statues and levers.

On the next level, I have my burial chambers. I have mausoleums for people I like, and a common area for people who have not done anything exceptional in their time.

I then dig down until I find magma, usually in the first year. When I hit the sea or find a tube, I dig out a long hallway for two magma forges and two magma smelters. I have an ore and a bar stockpile right next to them. Then below I dig out the same hallway so that the forges can get their fuel. Then I dig a narrow corridor to the magma, smooth the stone next to the magma, put up and link a floodgate, open it, carve a fortification on the smoothed stone to allow the magma to flow forth, allow the chamber to flood with magma, then close the floodgate. All behind a securely locked door so that no stupid dwarfs decided to go in there and drown (I have temperature turned off for FPS gain).

Up on the surface, I have a pasture for animals and a refuse pile. This is all enclosed inside a wall, with entrances spanning from the downward stair case in my initial tunnel to my fort. I have drawbridges in front of these entrances just in case of flying creatures.

And that's pretty much it for my basic fort. Once that is all said and done, all my miners have to do is exploratory mining (with the help of dfvdig) and expansion for stockpiles and rooms.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Inkster on August 09, 2011, 11:33:51 am
I tend to make large circular (as round as they can get) rooms connected by hallways with smaller circles around the large ones.

In fortresses with a lot of things to mine, I'll dig out veins and then square off the area the vein took up. This method looks fairly organic with a lot of different sized rooms that are unaligned with each other.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: UristMcHuman on August 09, 2011, 11:45:50 am
Quote from: Flaming Toadstool on August 09, 2011, 11:31:37 am
What I do is I dig into a cliffside 3x20. At the end, I have a 3x3 down staircase. Just before that, I have a one tile section in the middle where I put a drawbridge to act as a seal, just in case. Then before that, I have a 5x5 dug out for a trade depot. Then everything before that is lined with cage traps.

On the next level, I have all my workshops, assuming it is a level with soil. If it isn't, I find a level with all soil. The reason for this is because I don't want to have to haul stone off my future stockpiles. I make all my stockpiles 11x11, with room for further expansion. I put my workshops inside the rooms as well, except for the butcher shop, which I make a room for all by itself, where I also pasture my dogs and cage my cats.

On the next level, I have my living quarters, which includes lodgings, hospital, and a barracks. My hospital and barracks are 11x11 in size, and depending on if it is a noble or not, I have both 3x3 rooms and 5x5 rooms. This is all done in the stone so I can smooth and engrave everything.

On the next level, I have my dining room. It is ~22x22 tiles large (I cant remember, but it is large). I have my tables set up in lines horizontally, with room in the middle for statues and levers.

On the next level, I have my burial chambers. I have mausoleums for people I like, and a common area for people who have not done anything exceptional in their time.

I then dig down until I find magma, usually in the first year. When I hit the sea or find a tube, I dig out a long hallway for two magma forges and two magma smelters. I have an ore and a bar stockpile right next to them. Then below I dig out the same hallway so that the forges can get their fuel. Then I dig a narrow corridor to the magma, smooth the stone next to the magma, put up and link a floodgate, open it, carve a fortification on the smoothed stone to allow the magma to flow forth, allow the chamber to flood with magma, then close the floodgate. All behind a securely locked door so that no stupid dwarfs decided to go in there and drown (I have temperature turned off for FPS gain).

Up on the surface, I have a pasture for animals and a refuse pile. This is all enclosed inside a wall, with entrances spanning from the downward stair case in my initial tunnel to my fort. I have drawbridges in front of these entrances just in case of flying creatures.

And that's pretty much it for my basic fort. Once that is all said and done, all my miners have to do is exploratory mining (with the help of dfvdig) and expansion for stockpiles and rooms.

I'm going to try what Flaming Toadstool did here sometime.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Mobotium on August 09, 2011, 12:40:19 pm
I like using the soil levels for farms (I build a aproximately 30x20 intial area), connected to a food stockpile wich has stairs down 1z into my kitchen/still/butchery/fishery circular room wich connects to the main dinning hall (wich uses a allongated circle architecture, not exactly a rectangle or a circle) wich connects to the living area (I like using big rooms in a almost hexagonal form here. Peasants get 5x2+6 rooms, while nammed dwarves get 7x4+3x2+5 rooms, all completly furnished as soon as possible) and the main star way. I also have a administrative zone were I put my offices (I like having separate ofices for every inportant noble. The bigger the importance, the better. While the manager gets a 4x5 rectangular office, the mayor/expedition leader gets a 12x12 circular office), as well as separate mansions for each inportant noble (they even get bathrooms! If I like them they get misted. If I dont they get magma misted. Yay!).

Theres several stair that are fited in the natural chuncks of unmined rock that come from my living area's arquitecture that are used as an alternate means of trasport to the level below (other than the main stairway), wich contains most workshops, each workshop  has a stair fited in the same room leading to the level below, consisting of a stockpile for each difrent kind of workshop.

I also have a forge area in lower levels, preferably near the magma, constructed barracks inside my overground fortifications (they are usualy quite large, depends on the biome) and a small draining channel, taking river water to my cistern and my well (located in the center of the kitchen room), all controled by floodgates. The water is usualy used for other porposes later on.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Elisebambi on August 09, 2011, 03:34:17 pm
I end up with very ornate constructions, that vary depending on what I do.   Usually you can expect my forts to be much more vertical than planar, and apart from that, very inefficient, at least pathing wise.   My work(ers)[shops] are usually 5x5x5-10, top level workshop, all but 1  level below that storage, bottom level a bedroom for that SLAVE. B:   Occasionally I furnish my favorite ones with their own booze reserve.

Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: UristMcHuman on August 09, 2011, 03:38:28 pm
Quote from: Mushroo on August 09, 2011, 11:21:08 am
Build vertical. It is quicker to go up/down a flight of stairs than a 20-tile hallway.

What if your dwarf trips and falls, say, down 50 flights of stairs?
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Stoup on August 09, 2011, 04:46:30 pm
I tend to make a long entryway, with a central staircase in the middle to access various levels that are usually sorted by the activities carried out there. Workshops are on the first level, as well as the pastures, barracks and most of my stockpiles. The second floor contains a few alternative paths for the dwarves'  ease of movement around the fortress, as well as the entrance to the jail/execution tower.

Beneath that, I have a hospital set up with cloth and crutches and the like stockpiled behind it. And behind that is the shooting range for an execution chamber. It's not frequently used, but ever since I flooded the drainage system for the death-by-draining trap in the chamber I've needed an alternative way to finish anything off that survives the fall into the chamber itself.

After that I have 2 or 3 levels of unaltered space, followed by catacombs in two hollowed out veins of gold and copper.

Beneath that lies the exploratory mining level. It's full of obsidian and gabbro, and can supply me with as much resources as I need to build just about anything.

Finally, I have my 2-z level high dining hall set up. It's got a short bridge above the hall that leads to an enormous stockpile of food.
On the bottom level of the dining hall, I have my tables arranged in the pattern of a dwarf's face. It was inadvertent at first, but when I noticed it began to resemble a face I decided to theme the rest of the room with it, and it's since become the most grand monument to dwarfkind I've built.

The sleeping chambers are basically 2-wide halls leading far from the dining hall before doubling back, and working their way around the kitchen in the upper corner of the hall.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Anathema on August 09, 2011, 05:51:12 pm
Quote from: UristMcHuman on August 09, 2011, 03:38:28 pm
Quote from: Mushroo on August 09, 2011, 11:21:08 am
Build vertical. It is quicker to go up/down a flight of stairs than a 20-tile hallway.

What if your dwarf trips and falls, say, down 50 flights of stairs?

You know I've heard that's possible, but I've never seen it happen. And I always build my forts around up/down stairs going down 50+ z-levels, I've even had dwarves fighting off invaders on the stairwells, never seen a falling injury on them.

The only time I get falling injuries is when open space is involved, i.e. when I get taken by a mood and replace my stairwell with a fancy spiral ramp that circles an open shaft. Which, by the way, makes for hilariously Fun combat. Picture your civilians happily hauling things around your ramp, entirely unaware that a siege is being fought off 10 or 20 levels higher.. until a goblin goes splat at the bottom, miraculously survives, and attempts to chase your haulers one or two steps at a time, in between giving in to the pain of his 7 broken bones.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: mellonbread on August 09, 2011, 06:04:30 pm
I put all my workshops and stockpiles in the soil layers so I don't have to haul out stone to make room for anything.  I also enjoy walling off small areas of the cavern to serve as public parks, complete with tables, chairs, and exotic creatures pastured there.  In my current park the children enjoy frolicking barefoot on the cave moss, playing amongst the giant desert scorpions the elves so graciously "donated".
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: simonthedwarf on August 09, 2011, 06:46:56 pm
A good fortress design doesn't compromise. The general problem is getting what industry and workshops going without having made a a workable fort already.



I would say that the most awesome fort ever would fit the cliches about medieval forts.

[  ]                   [     ]
___________________
I                             I
I                             I
I                             I
I                             I
I__________________ I
[  ]                 [      ]

Where [] are towers, and the square on the inside will contain the enveloping courtyard to the main fortress.

You will of course have to have a full moat, a drawbridge, a red-carpeted approach and a hall with a big ass double thrones and pillars and dragon heads on the wall.

Its entirely possible to make a run-of-the-mill Camelot in DF.
In fact I think it would be awesome.

Just dont compromise.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Tharwen on August 09, 2011, 07:11:26 pm
A really simple one just involves building a vertical stack of square rooms with a staircase in the centre.

No corridors, just rooms connected in the middle. It's also practically the most efficient fortress possible for pathing.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Pan on August 09, 2011, 08:00:47 pm
I always felt that an epic fortress of dwarves shouldn't look like an apartment, and that's the exact way I feel about the main area of traffic being a flight of stairs. I prefer ramps and large hallways. You know, so it can actually feel like a dwarven fortress.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: franti on August 09, 2011, 09:22:37 pm
My above-ground deep-pit tripple bridge trap, which I consider my signature, is a whole nother page, but I use rows of "shift" rooms (hold down shift key and go left/right) connected to 3-wide hallways, with multiple levels.
The first level is storage. Every shift-room has a staircase leading down to a workroom for it's material type. The work rooms aren't conected to eachtother to prevent failed-moods from going too bad for other dwarves. Why? I had a massive fort killed by a failed mood that was almost comically stupid in hindsight:
A woodcrafter arrived and was given a pick to help excavate a giant cluster of Chalcopyrite (custom copper ore). Decades later, he's an Uber-Legendary Miner with a Steel Pick and Bronze Chain armour so the Trogs don't bug him while he's mining out the caverns. He claimed a craftsdwarf shop, and demanded wood. I embarked on a glacier, and had leveled all the caverns for charcoal for my steel industry. I spent months begging a tree to grow, somewhere. One did. I cut it down, and he wanted more. Not too long later, he snapped. I knew it was going to happen, so I moved a squad of Marksdwarves to the other side of the storage room above when he comes up. I would've locked the door if I had know what was about to happen, but I was feeling lazy.
You ever see V For Vendetta? Remember that scene in the subway where they all shoot him and it has no noticable impact, and he goes Matrix on their asses? That happend to my military of 10 Professional Soldiers, 30 Militia Dwarves and 20 War Naked Mole Dogs.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Oaktree on August 09, 2011, 10:18:50 pm
My current fortress (in year 3).  The embark is fairly flat and right next to a small river.

Surface - Walled off connected areas - pastures and butcher/tanner along with refuse pile.  These are roofed. 

Surface +1 - Barracks for guard, statue garden, fortifications

Soil (-2)  - Initial area dug into.  Underground farm plot(s), Animal handling, cage storage, Trade Depot, Goblin disposal.  The first soil layer is all sand and not built in much due to interference with ditches dug on the surface.

[The Trade Depot connects to east and west tunnels running fairly far out and then hitting the surface- these are still under construction].  These will be the main surface connections besides a narrow postern gate in the main keep.

Stone Layers from here on down.  And the basic fortress design is 11x11 square rooms with two doors in each wall.  Surrounded by a two-wide corridor and stairs (2 up, 2 down) in the center and each corner.  Roughly a 50x50 footprint.

x     x
 [] []
   x
 [] []
x     x

Level 1 - Storage (trade goods, raw materials from the surface like wood)

Level 2 - Workshops  (each 11x11 can hold 9 3x3 workshops with some extra space left over)

Level 3 - Kitchens and Food Storage (kitchen, still, fishery)

Level 4 - Meeting Hall (dining), Hospital, ??? (turns out this was a marble layer)

Level 5 - Residence Blocks (I use "windmill" design cell blocks - four on the level each centered on a corner stair)
             Space remaining off the central stair is used for housing nobles and officials (mayor's office for instance)

Level 6 - Residence Blocks (see Level 5) - not currently dug out beyond the stairs

Level 7 -  Facilities -  Connection to mining galleries, catacombs, water cistern, also a DWR installation to power a few things.

Below this is shafts downwards to the Magma Sea, a Cotton Candy spire, and weaving amidst the caverns.  This fortress hit magma at Level 103, so the actual fortress depth is fairly shallow compared to my last one.  Two large rooms at the bottom handle smelting and forging as well as ore and bar stockpiles.  Plus pottery and glass since the fortress has yellow sand and kaolinite in abundance.


Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Lectorog on August 09, 2011, 10:28:09 pm
My fortresses look terrible. I channel down, make a 3x3 hall and a 5x5 room for a depot, and then dig using stairs and 2-wide halls. I make a 5x10 or so temporary store. Then farms and farming workshops (especially the still) across from that. Workshops proper come next, down the hall - 4x4 space designated for each shop, usually in 1 or 2 rows. Wood storage is across from that - 5x10 base, but I leave plenty of room to dig out more. Next I dig out food storage somewhere; wherever it fits, really. Maybe I'll make a meeting hall after that, if I dig in stone. Rooms come after several months; dug out 3x1 niches along the same 2-wide hall.

Like I said, my fortress design is terrible. Looks bad and is inefficient. Very simple, though.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Mushroo on August 10, 2011, 09:36:31 am
Quote from: UristMcHuman on August 09, 2011, 03:38:28 pm

What if your dwarf trips and falls, say, down 50 flights of stairs?

Good question. I stagger the stairwells by a square every few z-levels.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Lexx on August 10, 2011, 10:06:41 am
Quote from: Haedrian on August 09, 2011, 09:00:01 am
So, I've been playing this game for many years now. Generally when I build a fort, its very labour-centric. I use large rectangular rooms with a single 'type' of workshop and a stockpile of raw materials.

So my question is, what simple fort designs does everyone use generally? When I say simple I mean.. basic. So no SDTs or megaprojects or something. Just to see if a design inspires me. I had a friend who used to use circular rooms and they did look nice.

My forts hallways are all 3x3 with 1 wide side corridors running parallel with them. This general principle lets mass traffic move and minimize distances between destinations in the fort. With a grand entrance hallway 5x wide lined with free standing pillars of natural stone leading up to what is usually the only entrance to the fort. If magma or water isn't hard to get  it usually becomes a magma/drowning chamber.

My dining halls tend to be large and high capacity. But with prepared food/booze stockpiles near them or on same level to save travelling distances. With entire z levels given over to housing and nobles estates. Usually the fort branches off the back of one or two staircases for ease of travel.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: franti on August 10, 2011, 10:09:25 am
All the pumps/grates for drowning rooms isn't worth it. I use a pit trap that cripples them, but not kills them, then I pit one or two of my War Naked Mole Dogs into the hole (from a lower hight) and let them duke it out.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Jurph on August 10, 2011, 11:45:13 am
Quote from: Tharwen on August 09, 2011, 07:11:26 pm
A really simple one just involves building a vertical stack of square rooms with a staircase in the centre.

No corridors, just rooms connected in the middle. It's also practically the most efficient fortress possible for pathing.

A vertical stack of circular rooms, taking advantage of traffic designations, is slightly better for pathing and can turn into a really streamlined logistics factory.  If you use a circle of diameter 15, then a stack of 15 circular layers has a maximum internal path distance of 30 tiles.  I place my workshops one tile back from the stairs, with common workshop inputs surrounding each workshop and each floor's most common output going to a temporary stockpile on that floor before being cascade-hauled to larger stockpiles.

If you group the workshops and stockpiles together sensibly you can end up with a very dense capsule fortress.  My first few floors look like this:


Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: chuckthegr8 on August 10, 2011, 02:38:53 pm
I use up to 4 central stairwells. Each stairwell is 3X3 with a 5X5 room around it. They are connected by 3 tile wide hallways. I usually give each stairwell a couple of statues, booze, food or tables for localized eating. I build 7X7 rooms off the corners of the stairwells with up/down staircases in the center. The staircases are for the stockpiles and each room gets 4 workshops. That gives me 4 rooms per 4 stairwells with 4 workshops per room, a total of 96 workshops on one level for my max planning stage.

Then I have a level with a giant central Dining room and with the 7X7 rooms as each a noble room. For normal workers I build a small flower pattern based on the stairwells.

For the planning itself, I start by grouping similiar stuff together and slowly segregate them as populationg rows. So a block might have Mason/s, Crafts'dorfX2 for Pots and Crafts, and Mechanics. Later I would get a full block of 4 Masons, a block of Craftsdorfs and a block of Mechanics.

So far I only need about 2 stairwells for about 80 dwarfs, but I am thinking of expanding to the 3rd one.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: bloodtoes on August 10, 2011, 06:07:10 pm
I have an automatic fort plan that I've been following for a while now and am trying to move away from to do things more creative.

Basically I dig a hole in the ground and on the first level is 2 temporary stockpiles: food/beer in 1, everything else in the other. Just to get all my junk out of the rain. I build a carpentry, mason and mechanics on the surface, and on the level below dig out a dormitory, farms and hospital. Once that's done the miners go find a nearby layer of stone and clear out a 21x21 around the hole for the mason's to work with.. eventually the workshops are moved inside, a trade depot is built, the hole in the ground is surrounded by walls and things grow (usually in quite an ugly and obviously-unplanned way) from there.

I like to have a central pillar to my staircases so instead of

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Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Lexx on August 10, 2011, 07:43:00 pm
Sorry wrong thread.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Haedrian on August 11, 2011, 07:20:42 am
I tried the hex idea and they look beautiful.

Will put a link to the entire fort later, but when you have 4 rooms next to each other they do look great.

(http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/4317/hexy.png)
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Daetrin on August 11, 2011, 08:27:43 am
I use that style of room for stockpiles.  For workshops and bedrooms I dig out a radius of one hex around the stairwell and turn each bordering hex into its own room for workshops or four rooms for bedrooms. For meeting areas I just dig out radius two. My macro puts down the cells for radius-four, but I usually don't dig that much out. I am however going to try and build a tower out of green glass with that setup with an outer wall of R-4 and an inner wall bounding the actual fort proper.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Jibekn on August 11, 2011, 12:03:26 pm
I used a modular system for my fortresses, vertical based for efficiency (its a huge improvement over horizontal forts, 150dwarves still chugging at 90-100fps on a 5x5 embark)

Stair Well, Central.
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Alternating as deep as I need to go.

One day ill get a fort to survive long enough to find out if a stairwell waterfall would work, I plan to replace the unmined center of the stairwell with floor grates/bars and drop a waterfall all the way down the stairwell, if it works, it would be a near fortress wide happy though generator.

My habitat levels are Greek crosses, 48 rooms per level, 4 squares per room, including the door. Also each level has 8 rooms that are expandable for nobles http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Bedroom_design#Greek_Cross_design

My workshop areas are based on Midnas pillar design, http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/User:Midna/Pillars setup offset around my central staircase, 5 Z levels deep, first z level past the initial is the plumbing level, but i dont hollow out a 3x3, i leave a solitary u/d staircase as i find you have much more room to snake magma and water through. Mostly magma to power forges though.

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Eatting halls, food storage are all based around the workshop design, farms are the only thing i 'wing' but usually end up with rows of 3x5 farms, i find 15 production squares per farm is more than enough, especially once the fertilizer comes into play, and with the smaller farm lots, i tend to have one farm per plant, and just let them lie fallow in off seasons.

I haven't yet come up with a standard for my military level, but this usually ends up being in a constructed tower overlooking my entrance.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: franti on August 11, 2011, 12:40:24 pm
It's always better to have many small farms than a few large ones, because that way you can reduce the amount of food you want in small incriments, and also prevent tantruming dwarves from destroying your food supply.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Daetrin on August 11, 2011, 03:39:45 pm
So here's what my bedrooms
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And workshops look like
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
With the cell template around them.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Berserkenstein on August 11, 2011, 05:10:38 pm
You need a queen...

...to go along with the rest of your honey-sucking hive!

That doesn't look like it was designed by drunkards at all!  ;D
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Nameless Archon on August 12, 2011, 10:08:30 am
My standard "easy/quick to designate" fortress is a 31x31 square stacked vertically and interconnected with staircases heavily. It can handle a truly massive number of dwarves engaged at parallel labors. A quickfort layout is provided below. The corner pieces are channeled to provide miasma-proof garbage (or stone) chutes as desired. A large vertical stack can also use these chutes as prisoner execution pits.

I'm on vacation next week and I'm going to experiment with circular designs like the one mentioned by Jurph on my "favorite testing embark" spot (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=64032.msg2407024#msg2407024), which I know to have enough vertical space to handle such a design.

Spoiler: Standard 31x31 Floor for use with Quickfort (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: UristMcHuman on August 12, 2011, 11:42:38 am
OK. THE most simplest fort design I can think of is to:

Dig holes in the ground. That's it.

I'll have to try my simplest fort designs I can think of.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: simonthedwarf on October 23, 2011, 03:24:37 am
I feel the "hole in ground" design kinda leaves out the design in design.

No, a guy can definitely not go wrong with the good old "dig down to stone layer, build a masons workshop, and then just put 7 coffins in a 3x3 room".

It has simplicity, but it also has design.

Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Dave1004 on October 26, 2011, 08:17:38 am
Simple? I know simple. One floor. Six rooms. Bedroom, dining room, workshops room, animal room, party room, resources room. One dwarf.

Simple. Also, don't forget the fluffy kittens, waterfalls and exotic booze.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: hjd_uk on October 26, 2011, 09:59:51 am
I've been going for a "Square or Death" column-fort design

Column Fort (http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-10732)
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: AWellTrainedFerret on October 26, 2011, 12:29:09 pm
This is my basic workshop level layout:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I much prefer to expand vertically than horizontally for hauling efficiency. This design also makes designating burrows very easy.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Triaxx2 on October 26, 2011, 07:27:49 pm
My simple fort? 3x3 stair entrance, down three levels, two long halls, circle, and back to a stair down. Use a pair of bridges to block off a short route.

The actual fortress, I use a 3 wide hall. Rooms are one step away, single tile access, 3x3 for bedrooms, 3x4 for most workshops. Work shops have stairs going up and down into stock piles.

Bedrooms have a wall of separation between them, and in that space off the hall, a statue goes in. That way they look at something cool, and see the engraved walls, and are happy.

Keeps down the misery of the rest of their lives. Very simple. Nobles have 5x5's and 3x3 side rooms, with statue niches carved into the walls. Keeps 'em happy, at least until the door locks and the room floods because I don't have any bloody electrum you retard.
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: Delta Foxtrot on October 28, 2011, 02:48:07 pm
Just some little everyday design choices. Nowadays I like to toy with simple triangular forms when it comes to my dining halls.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The one before this looked more like an arrow or a rocket, with a wider fin-like end, with a narrower hall connecting it to a oval shaped tip of the said arrow. I didn't plan it but I liked the way it turned out looking.

Here's an attempt at more oval design concerning my plebeian graveyard. Also featuring a vaguely heart shaped refuse pile.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Simple Fort Designs
Post by: proxn_punkd on October 28, 2011, 02:55:06 pm
No matter how much I try to organize mine and keep 'em tidy, they always seem to end up sprawling and sort of organic-looking when I hit some vein of metal that I want to mine, or a cave, and I'm too lazy to try and build matching walls to tidy it up again (or I might just use the extra space for food storage since I tend to overproduce liek whoa).