Print

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

[vooood]

I wonder do any of you think about the looks of your fortresses? Do you just dig corridors and rooms in the most utilitarian way and leave them like that? Or did you think about building tall entry halls (several z levels) with balconies along the edges, supports, some statues around? How about throne halls with some special features as a high throne? Or tall winding towers and menacing walls around your fort?

I know that none of this have any helpful impact on the game (are we sure about that? how about a suggestion discussion for things like this?) but I still consider having things like these for pure realism and own satisfaction. And it's always more fun to come back later and do some exploration as an adventurer in such places.

[SombreChapaeu]

I generally seperate my magma and water source with a lot of distance and put in a labrinythine tomb complex if I have the time

[John Johnston]

I wonder do any of you think about the looks of your fortresses? Do you just dig corridors and rooms in the most utilitarian way and leave them like that? Or did you think about building tall entry halls (several z levels) with balconies along the edges, supports, some statues around? How about throne halls with some special features as a high throne? Or tall winding towers and menacing walls around your fort?

I know that none of this have any helpful impact on the game (are we sure about that? how about a suggestion discussion for things like this?)

Oh, I don't know about that, there's purely functional arguments to be made for different architectural styles.  Statues and thrones might impress passing dwarfs, and you might prefer them to take one route instead of another.  High halls also allow more line of sight, which could help your military dwarfs in responding to enemies.  I doubt there's a single architectural style that doesn't have at least one sneaky advantage to its name!

But, er, yeah, I like Gothic style, certainly.

[BurnedToast]

I usually dig strictly utilitarian fortresses. Straight main hallways with 10x10 square rooms one after another.

I keep saying I'm going to make something creative next fort, but unfortunately I'm not a very creative person and the boring design gets things done quickly and easily.

[Core Xii]

I used to be utilitarian, but the game's lack of goals and challenges drove me to aesthetics. I reinforce my towers with steel girders, build double-walls between rooms so both can be engraved, balconies with meeting areas, use exclusively ramps for floor access, build stockpiles like shelves, etc.

[SombreChapaeu]

I used to be utilitarian, but the game's lack of goals and challenges drove me to aesthetics. I reinforce my towers with steel girders, build double-walls between rooms so both can be engraved, balconies with meeting areas, use exclusively ramps for floor access, build stockpiles like shelves, etc.

oh yes double walls are a MUST, a MUST I SAY

[koruth]

I like to think of my fort as a massive factory, turning out produce, crafts, and the occasional megaproject.  I usually build it as such, with (massive) stockpiles for basic materials on the bottom, (wood stockpile underneath/next to tower cap farm, and stone next to the obsidian farm if I have the right biomes for it.) workshops above the stockpiles, and storehouses for finished goods above the workshops.  I usually build the trade depot close-ish to the center of my fort, so that all the finished goods can get to it easily.

I usually build nice and big living quarters, lavishly decorated (and I kill any barons that try and get even close.)

It's a bit spartan, but it really helps me get out megaprojects faster, especially if I have to trade for something like bauxite.

[AlienChickenPie]

I once tried to plan a rock-cut city (like a constructed above-ground city, yet easier to build and more awesome) with impressive, detailed structures, but a lack of ideas beyond ripping off Petra and ancient Greek architecture drove me off.
The main issue with detailed architecture is the low resolution of DF structure.
The entire structure must be made of voxels roughly as large as a generous shower stall, with the exception of circular pillars as wide as a man, statues, engravings imagined as statues and fortifications which could be imagined as windows, balustrades or any sort of stone barrier you can see through.
The variety afforded by a little imagination makes detailed structures possible, but the fact that all details still occupy a whole tile means that detailed structures have to be pretty vast, both in footprint and ind room height, to begin conveying fine architectural detail and any sort of roundness or angles other than 90 degrees.