Bay 12 Games Forum

Go look at some older forts from the community games that are specifically catered towards building nice architecture. The only ones I can think of at the moment is Flarechannel *(pics are down, search on google)* and Constructivory. I think a picture is worth a thousand words here.

We talking about good looking 2D forts from top down or something that looks nice in a 3D viewer like stonestense or armok vision? If the former, use circles or ovals when digging out areas like dining halls, etc... Search for designating circles, its a reddit post i think. Smooth out everything and no dirt areas in your main fortress area. If the latter you got to to go aboveground and make a nice above ground fort, which does not have to be your main fort. Make sure to make use of multiple z-levels even if functionally you can only really make use of the lowest level due to assigning rooms and areas. Color code with blocks and materials. When making 3D structures, visualize from each z-layer, then start from the bottom z-level layer if working with blocks. If mining out a 3d structure, then start from the top z-level layer first.

Experiment and save designs you like so you can replicate them in other forts.

Another beardling joins the fold, do us proud sonny!

Alas poor Atir and Ingish! Armok giveth, Armok taketh. I blame the wretched rain, soggy cheese attracts fungal spores. And we don't want no mushrooms sprouting ere.

Coming from a region of the world where we get durians almost year round, it is quite a delicacy I assure you if you pick the right ones with firm golden yellow flesh. We gargle with salt water after eating to get rid of the smell from your breath.

Though I don't know why you'll pick that as disgusting over something like "he prefers to consume honey bee". The actual BEE, not the honey nor the mead. Dwarves don't even cultivate bees for consumption, where did my dwarf get this weird food fetish from? I'd imagine my dwarf is like some sort of dwarf Candyman.

If there are honeybee hives on the map, I demand to be made into a beekeeper. 

Apparently, a quick google search has bee larvae tasting like bacon and fried baby bees tasting like smoked fish or oysters. Huh. The more you know...

Standard setup for a standard vanilla embark (not heinously dangerous, no need to break through aquifer).

5 Diagnostician/ 5 Masonry (designated miner/mason/doctor, enable mining at start)
5 Herbalist/ 5 Grower (designated farmer)
5 Armor User/ 5 Teacher (designated woodcutter/carpenter/ military, enable woodcutting and carpenter at start)
5 Dodging/ 5 Teacher (designated military, enable some other moodable skill at start)
5 Armorsmith/ 5 Brewing (designated armorsmith/ hauler, enable furnace operator at start)
5 Weaponsmith/ 5 Animal Trainer (designated weaponsmith/ animal trainer/ hauler, enable furnace operator at start)
5 Mechanic/ 5 Building Designer (designated mechanic/ hauler)

For the farmer and 2 military personnel I try to choose dwarves with a preference for a certain weapon or armor or metal type so I can squeeze in another moodable skill artifact. Anyway good starting stats matter more for the 2 military personnel. They cross train with each other for a few years to level each other up early on.

Once I get immigrants, and once I get my military setup up and running, I switch the woodcutter to full time military training, disabling woodcutting permanently.

This gives me a spread of difficult to train skills and some nice strange mood artifacts right from the get go, although I get a slower start due to only 1 miner, less redundancy and shooting for the rock layers to construct in right away. But that is OK, I usually turtle with a lower population cap at the start and shoot for the mega projects as soon as I am able to anyway.

Armorsmith and weaponsmith are really important, but once you get a good armory of masterwork weapons and armor going, they aren't needed as much. The supplementary skills keep them busy at least.

If I'm gonna switch out some skills for some scholar or performance skills, then I would drop masonry. Stuff like masonry, mining and the like usually get a lot of burn in my fortresses due to megaconstructions.

I know its cliche, but the finale of Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture played in my mind, perfectly synchronized to every explosion every time I watched a gif of something going KABOOM.

Step 0: Mod game to enable dragons to be able to be sent on expeditions.

Step 1: Capture dragons.
Step 2: Breed dragons.
Step 3: Send dwarfs with pet dragons on expeditions to take back items stolen from dwarf civilization.
Step 4: Make dragon hoard with items accumulated from expeditions.
Step 5: Experiment with dragon fire defenses.
Step 6: Breach the circus, with dragons or without.
Step 7: Make dragon temple in circus.
Step 8: Place dragons and dragon hoard in dragon temple in the circus.
Step 9: Defend dragon hoard from all !!comers!!
Step 10: Decide if I want to make a community fort out of exploits.
Step 11: Give up because of lack of ideas and start a new embark.

What biome/s are you situated in?

It looks like you have all the basics covered, other than a source of infinite silk. If you would like to streamline your industry more, consider keeping only turkeys over geese, and only 1 type of grazing animal for their milk and other animal byproducts. Leather, milk, eggs and meat can always be bought in bulk from caravans, so you don't really need a meat industry to fulfill those needs.

However have you considered shelled creatures for their shells? In the inopportune event that your biome does not have shallow pools, streams or rivers, having some shelled creatures around would be a nice fail safe in case any strange moods require shells. Don't even need to have breeding stock, just a few to have your bases covered.

So what happened exactly.

The tower and its surrounding regions imploded upon itself due to overseer e-peen overload. Visitors came from far and wide to witness the rare spectacle. This is the primary reason you don't see dwarves build above ground.