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[N0ught]

The Goal: Build a fortress to optimize production and minimalize malking distance for eight dwarves.

I play DF with my population cap set to 8, the minimum (yeah yeah... it's not cheating I just have a really long, crappy road). I find this makes it much easier to prevent starvation and improve skills for my original seven dwarves, and the metalsmith who arrives later. I usually wind up also attracting a broker, due to my high productivity.

I like to be able to limit the materials available for making things in my fortress. I like wolf leather for clothing, so I don't keep animals to butcher (if I need a butcher's shop to take care of the first few animals I start with I usually build it outside). I also don't build tanners or looms, since all I need is a leatherworks.

My dwarves live on plump helmet roasts, dwarven wine, and other alcohols I trade for. I farm all year long with two of my eight dwarves, and wind up with plenty of food and drink, so I never need a well. And if we ever get really desperate we can cook the booze.

I also try to avoid combat with my dwarves. I make weapons for them anyway, just in case, but I prefer to rely on deathtraps for my fortress defense. So I have included one in this design.

I proudly present my design for a minimalist fortress, "Cryptrein" (EDIT: I have revised the food/dining/sleeping area. Now it is far more dynamic, and cooks don't have to run through the hallway):

 

* Also, I have posted this before (in various forms), but here is my current equipment, skill and task setup I use for my eight dwarves. Have fun with it. If I need any of the dwarves to perform their main skills more, and haul, etc. less, I just disable their bottom ten "Basic Tasks" until they get the job done:

Items:
Iron Pick (2)
Iron Battle Axe
Plump Helmet Spawn (40)
Turtle (30)
Dwarven Wine (50)

Basic Tasks (All):
Health Care
Stone Hauling
Wood Hauling
Item Hauling
Burial
Food Hauling
Refuse Hauling
Furniture Hauling
Animal Hauling
Cleaning
Architecture

Dwarf 1 Proficient Miner:
Mining, Stone Detailing, Jeweling, Craftsworking, Leatherworking

Dwarf 2 Skilled Miner:
Mining, Stone Detailing, Jeweling, Craftsworking, Leatherworking

Dwarf 3 Skilled Mason:
Masonry
Wood Cutting, Carpentry

Dwarf 4 Skilled Carpenter:
Wood Cutting, Carpentry
Mechanics

Dwarf 5 Skilled Mechanic:
Mechanics
Furnace Operating, Wood Burning, Metalsmithing

Dwarf 6 Proficient Grower:
Butchery, Farming (Fields), Brewing, Plant Gathering, Cooking

Dwarf 7 Skilled Grower:
Butchery, Farming (Fields), Brewing, Plant Gathering, Cooking

Dwarf 8 Metalsmith:
Furnace Operating, Wood Burning, Metalsmithing
Masonry

[ August 08, 2007: Message edited by: N0ught ]

[Pitchblack]

For happier dwarfs in your fortress build a couple high quality statues,then assign the mason the jewling job and encrust several statues with the jems, then stick them in high traffic areas (food). Also you could create a bend in the flood device and exchange the barracks for housing (2x2 rooms fit in nicely with little adjustment. that way you get happier dwarfs.  If for any reason you want military skilled dwarfs you could create a small offshoot at the bottom right stone pile, that would house a barracks for training with few beds for military and some targets.

[Sappho]

What program do you use to make those graph paper type maps?  Is it just photoshop or something or do you have a program specifically for making maps?  They look fabulous, I could make great use of them!

It certainly seems that it would be easier to run a fortress with a minimum number of dwarves.  Wouldn't it eventually get stale though?  I have a hard time keeping interest in a game without a goal of some sort.  How long do you usually play these fortresses before getting bored and moving on?

[kein]

I love it, very very nice looking, I demand you post pics once its built.

One suggestion though, swap the food chamber with the dining hall, it should result in less traffic jams.

[Eagle of Fire]

Two questions: why storate for stone? It doesn't slow down your dwarves to have rocks on the ground, and the most efficient way to remove them is to build a mason workshop near the place you want to clear and use a legendary and agile mason to make things usefull for your fort. Craftdwarf workshop works fine too.

Two: should the block/bar stockpile not be located way after the river? Or you simply don't intend to reach the magma?

[N0ught]

quote:For happier dwarfs in your fortress build a couple high quality statues,then assign the mason the jewling job and encrust several statues with the jems, then stick them in high traffic areas (food).

Yeah I usually decorate with statues galore - I tend to assign each dwarf to a statue of the kind of stone they like, and line the road outside with them, to cut back on the stone pileup.

quote:Also you could create a bend in the flood device and exchange the barracks for housing (2x2 rooms fit in nicely with little adjustment.

The area I am using for this fortress requires I put the kitchen, refuse, food, farm, dining, and sleeping quarters post-river anyway, with the farm flood device going the other way. This allows for later expansion of both bedrooms and dining areas, if I decide to let more dwarves move in.

quote:What program do you use to make those graph paper type maps? Is it just photoshop or something or do you have a program specifically for making maps? They look fabulous, I could make great use of them!

Just a graph .bmp, windows paint, and adobe photoshop. I make the map with paint, shrink it by 50%, and all I use adobe for is to save it as a .jpg, to keep the image integrity. Glad you like them - check my sig for other graphical stuff I've done for games.  

quote:It certainly seems that it would be easier to run a fortress with a minimum number of dwarves. Wouldn't it eventually get stale though? I have a hard time keeping interest in a game without a goal of some sort. How long do you usually play these fortresses before getting bored and moving on?

It is definitely easier to keep the pop cap at 8 in the beginning. I start over a lot actually, because I am trying to learn more about this game, in the quest for the "perfect" fortress.

I was working on this design last night, for instance, when my mechanic got washed away by the river... I made some revisions, and I am going at it again.

As for the goal, for me it involves getting my 8 main dwarves as rich and skilled as possible - legendary miners are fun. I love open-ended games where I can set the pace, and this is surely a great one.

quote:I love it, very very nice looking, I demand you post pics once its built.

One suggestion though, swap the food chamber with the dining hall, it should result in less traffic jams.

Pics coming up soon! And as far as the food/kitchen/dining/sleeping/farm setup, I have already made some changes - take another look at the image.

quote: Two questions: why storate for stone? It doesn't slow down your dwarves to have rocks on the ground, and the most efficient way to remove them is to build a mason workshop near the place you want to clear and use a legendary and agile mason to make things usefull for your fort. Craftdwarf workshop works fine too.

Two: should the block/bar stockpile not be located way after the river? Or you simply don't intend to reach the magma?

I like organization, above all. Also, in the beginning I have two dwarves mining, one cutting trees, and two gathering plants - this leaves three dwarves to haul stuff, and a busy dwarf is a happy dwarf!

I will have LOTS of other stockpiles all the way to the magma, since I intend to make the rest of the fortress a continuous replica of of my main hall - four columns wide, as far as the eye can see.  :cool:

Pics soon!

[Symmetry]

I'll add a suggestion you may have thought of, in the food pile make the line of stockpiles closest to the farm seeds only.  Then make a drink only line above that.  This is so your seeds are as close as they can be to the farm for planting, and so your thirsty dwarves don't have to walk all the way into the stockpile to get a drink if they're passing in the corridor.  It also helps make sure the drinking dwarves enter through the main corridor door rather than pathfinding their way through the kitchen and causing traffic jams.

When I design fortresses I try and have a cycle of farm -> raw pile -> kitchen -> processed pile -> dinning room -> seed store ->farm.  Drinks can hang off half way into the busiest part of the fortress, but the kitchen needs to be near the seed pile too.  The best way to do this is some kind of circle or loop, which is difficult for you with your stated minmimalist design, but I think the changes I've suggested make it close.  Probably not much effect in practice but it'll help a little  

[Pitchblack]

unless you want your crafter walking through half the fortress to get bone and shell i would recomend that part of the stone pile be replaced with the craftdwarfs workshop, so that making training bolts takes less time, that and when you have excess bone and shell and skulls they make nice crafts and decorations.

[schm0]

While this design definately has it's pro's, I'd like to point out a few con's as well:

1) Reducing the distance that haulers (and all others) have to travel will mean less time hauling and more time having to build up agility and strength.
2) Miners have less to mine, and thus, need more experience to become legendary.
3) Distance can have it's advantages in battle, and lack thereof can leave little to no room for retreat should you make a mistake. Say, perhaps, you fail to pull a switch in time, accidentally hit the wrong one, go to the bathoom and forget to hit pause, or any other number of possible human errors. Redundant systems, backup plans, or multiple techniques combined do have their advantages. (Being a minimalist setup, I can understand that these would be implemented later in gameplay.)

There are plenty advantages to this strategy, and I think that there are a combination of strategies that can work for different styles of gameplay and situations. Effeciency (dwarves making things faster) is definately a good thing, but not necessarily the only thing.

[ August 09, 2007: Message edited by: schm0 ]

[N0ught]

quote: I'll add a suggestion you may have thought of, in the food pile make the line of stockpiles closest to the farm seeds only. Then make a drink only line above that. This is so your seeds are as close as they can be to the farm for planting, and so your thirsty dwarves don't have to walk all the way into the stockpile to get a drink if they're passing in the corridor. It also helps make sure the drinking dwarves enter through the main corridor door rather than pathfinding their way through the kitchen and causing traffic jams.
When I design fortresses I try and have a cycle of farm -> raw pile -> kitchen -> processed pile -> dinning room -> seed store ->farm. Drinks can hang off half way into the busiest part of the fortress, but the kitchen needs to be near the seed pile too. The best way to do this is some kind of circle or loop, which is difficult for you with your stated minmimalist design, but I think the changes I've suggested make it close. Probably not much effect in practice but it'll help a little

I just mix up the food and drink. In a fortress this small, a few steps don't really matter. As long as the food is close to the kitchen, dining room and farms, it's all gravy (mushroom gravy).

   

quote: unless you want your crafter walking through half the fortress to get bone and shell i would recomend that part of the stone pile be replaced with the craftdwarfs workshop, so that making training bolts takes less time, that and when you have excess bone and shell and skulls they make nice crafts and decorations.

You'll notice I have placed all the workshops as close to their product stockpiles as possible - that is why the refuse area is near the kitchen and dining room, and the craftsdwarf and leatherworks shops are next to the storage pile.

If a craftsdwarf is going to run out of steam and go get some food or water, take a break, or go to sleep in the middle of something, I would rather it be on the way to get materials, than on the way to stack the finished products. Then when he is done eating and drinking he is conveniently located next to the refuse pile anyway.        

     

quote: 1) Reducing the distance that haulers (and all others) have to travel will mean less time hauling and more time having to build up agility and strength.

It will also mean less chance the dwarf will get tired, bored, hungry or thirsty while on a job. This fortress is built for longterm survival for eight dwarves - they will have pleny of time to build stats and skills.

     

quote: 2) Miners have less to mine, and thus, need more experience to become legendary.

See my main hall? Past the fortress I am going to duplicate that design. Nineteen spaces wide and four support columns, as far as the eye can see. There will be plenty of mining happening.

     

quote: 3) Distance can have it's advantages in battle, and lack thereof can leave little to no room for retreat should you make a mistake. Say, perhaps, you fail to pull a switch in time, accidentally hit the wrong one, go to the bathoom and forget to hit pause, or any other number of possible human errors. Redundant systems, backup plans, or multiple techniques combined do have their advantages. (Being a minimalist setup, I can understand that these would be implemented later in gameplay.)

Well, human error aside, I back up my savefile occasionally - probably a few times per day. If I lose a battle I'll only have lost several hours of play. No big deal.

     

quote: There are plenty advantages to this strategy, and I think that there are a combination of strategies that can work for different styles of gameplay and situations. Effeciency (dwarves making things faster) is definately a good thing, but not necessarily the only thing.

What one lacks in efficiency one can make up for in deathtraps.    :cool:

[ August 09, 2007: Message edited by: N0ught ]