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[ghjijhg]

I like digging into a mountainside better than a hole in the ground, because a mountainside just feels right. Also, it's a bit more secure.

[Loud Whispers]

I like digging into a mountainside better than a hole in the ground, because a mountainside just feels right. Also, it's a bit more secure.

And it makes a killing for marksdwarves... If you can actually follow the fights :d

[kaijyuu]

I tend to dig down since I'm almost always on perfectly flat plains (makes for good castle construction).

However, I do see the appeal of digging into a mountain. I genned a few worlds to do exactly that (dig into a sheer cliff face) though I never got far with any.

[Donuts]

Staircase in the snow, lets me use the river for an watertrap with infinite ammo.

Any chance of a snapshot save of this?

L.

Nope, but it's easy

I don't know about him, but I'm having a hard time conceptualizing what you're talking about.

A staircase in the snow, lets you use a river (where?) for what with ammo?

Do you mean ice? As in waiting until the river freezes in the winter and making your fort underneath it?

Yeah, was in a hurry, I dig a staircase near a river, dig a tunnel to the river, channel on the other side of the entrance, with a floodgate in the tunnel, I can flush the enemies out.

[Triaxx2]

Depends. If I'm building a castle, I will pick a flat plain with some hills. But I really enjoy cutting into a mountain, and smoothing it into a shining tower of awesome. Full of holes to shoot people with. And by people I mean elves.

[Vercingetorix]

If you put everything on 1 level which near the top is probably dirt, how do you mine for stone and ore. Do you just make mining tunnels?

I usually try to find sites with sheer cliffs/volcanoes as they're more likely to have substantial ground-level stone layers.  For all my other stone/ore, I use mining tunnels on the other levels.  Ideally, with a volcano the forging operations are also on the same level.

[Hans Lemurson]

I prefer flat plains because I like to be able to see the whole surface area in a single view.  Makes it easier to follow combat, and I like the idea of erecting a castle in the middle of nowhere.

I have experience penetrating aquifers, so I can pretty much embark wherever I want.  I like seeing 0's on the embark screen's slope display, but I'll settle for 1's or even 2's if there's a compelling biome.

[Viking]

I like mountain sides. In general I like to have a fort on or in a hill, maybe flanked by rivers, possibly where two rivers meet if possible. A volcano peak is also a favourite. Either way I tend to build walls and deep trenches eventually.

[stuntaneous]

I prefer some geography. I enjoy building epic mountainside fortresses spanning from the chipped-away cave to the outside promenade. A bridge spanning a gully. An outpost on the other side. I love height and grandeur. Building on a flat plain or digging down one zed just isn't as exciting.

[Itnetlolor]

It really depends on the geography of the embark location, honestly.

Same here. But my main preference is to dig into a mountainside. It just... feels right. You know?

[Ki11aGhost]

I do a mix of both. My current fortress is in the mountainside, and it's pretty secure. Drawbridge-across-deathpit-entrance, with fortifications on the sides of the entrance for marksdwarves, and a moat with drawbridges shaped to maximize marksdwarf lethality. (lethalism? I dunno.... Derp.)

My last two fortresses before that have been 5x5 pit entrances, with a drawbridge gate kept down, inside is another drawbridge kept upwards, that comes down for wagon caravans, and the hallway went quite a ways to each side, with checkerboard stonefall and cage traps, past yet another drawbridge kept down, and after that I had a few necessary rooms on the first z-level, with a stairwell leading down for the other floors. (Run on sentence FTW!) Everything got its own floor, kinda like my current fortress.

[Mr Space Cat]

I like digging into a hillside and building up from that. I don't like extreme cliffs like with volcanoes, unfortunately; I can't stick with a fort location so geographically chaotic, I just get bored and ditch it. I prefer a freestanding lump of hill in the middle of plains and digging in and under that hill. Some flowing water nearby is a nice bonus. As the lower levels grow, I build a tower and surrounding walls and buildings from that, as necessary.

I guess I like a little of column A, a little of column B.

[fourpotatoes]

This:

I like carving into a mountainside; the more of the fort I can fit on one z-level (like the old 2D days) the better.

I love the aesthetic of large sprawling levels dug into a mountainside with workshops, meeting halls and stockpiles all attached to a loose grid of halls. Now that we have minecarts, I've started building tracks on a service level to fix the haulage problems that make this impractical.

That said, I usually end up on a flat site with a few low hills and an aquifer. Here I dig temporary accommodations near the surface before burrowing down into the caverns and building my grand sprawling halls there. I usually just throw up a small structure or a tower over the entrance, if I don't seal it off entirely and build a better one elsewhere. One gate will be installed in this surface structure and another buried deep below, adjacent to a security checkpoint where I can mount a defense if the outer gate or mines are breached.

An ideal site for me is probably a deep river gorge, possibly at a confluence, where I can have my cliff face and my plains too. One of my favorite fortresses had a glass-roofed greenhouse and a modest gate tower in the flatlands near the top of a 20+ z-level cliff. I built down the cliff face and hollowed out both sides of the gorge, digging layers and layers of dormitories on one side, putting production and storage on the other, and going past a waterfall to build waste management and surface farm access in another area. Dining halls and offices had windows looking out the cliff, and enclosed stairwells, a windmill and part of the hospital hung out over the open space. A drawbridge for use as a fishing pier was installed at the very bottom. Dwarves crossed between the three zones on bridges which could be retracted to isolate them. I meant to build a tower projecting upwards out of the dormitory sector's cliff (and left space for it when laying out the halls), but FPS death and ideas for other sites claimed the fortress while I was still staging for the tower's construction.

[Rallan]

I generally dig straight down, even though its not as aesthetically pleasing or dwarfy as carving a fortress into the side of a mountain. Building everything around a central stairwell is a more efficient use of space that cuts down on travel times. Or at least that's the theory. Once I decide I want some magma forges I end up with bedrooms and workshops and dining rooms spread out more or less randomly along the length of a stairwell that spans 80 z-levels.

I think next time around I'm gonna change things a bit and build up instead, because a sprawling granite arcology is way awesomer than efficiency.

[geail]

I make Umbrella corp structures.  On the top is a small, walled off structure (generally a house for my trade depot and broker).  Below that is a massive storage facility with air-locking train (mine cart) and staircase straight to the bottom.  Each floor is independent of all others based upon use.  Dwarves are selected to floor based upon skill with only soldiers allowed between floors.  Part-time soldiers perform all inter-floor hauling.  Full-time soldiers patrol the walls on the outside and the caverns.

edited for grammar