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[AncientEnemy]

Maybe I'm just neurotic about aesthetics/efficiency, but I've been having alot of trouble coming up with a decent layout for a fortress. In the past I've generally just used a + shaped arrangement of 11x11 rooms, connected by 3x3 halls/stairwells. i repeat the design on a number of levels. some of the 11's get used as stockpiles, some get 4 workshops stuck in the corners, some get divided up into bedrooms. overall like this:

Code: [Select]

█████████████
█████   █████
█████   █████
█████   █████
██████ ██████
█   █   █   █
█           █
█   █   █   █
██████ ██████
█████   █████
█████   █████
█████   █████
█████████████

edit: here's an older fort, but similar to what i'm talking about. in this instance I used the corners of the + for bedrooms, so it's just a giant square, and it's based around 9x9s instead of 11's, but you get the general idea.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(below that:)

this works efficiently, but I've been getting very bored of it. I also don't like how wide open it is. workshops don't really 'seem' like workshops when they're just sitting in a big open room. seems more like a gigantic hangar bay with whatever just layed out.

I'm trying to come up with something 'better' that's still aesthetically appealing, but i'm kind of lost for ideas. I want to do things like have an actual entrance hall, give workshops their own rooms, somehow set up 'logical' stockpiles (rather than just having a massive cleared out floorspace with whatever dumped on it).  also little things like having the space to put small stockpiles of valuable materials close to workshops, so moody dwarves will actually use them (this layout virtually always ends up with iron trumpets encircled with bands of chert menacing with spikes of raw green glass etc, unless i manually forbid / use other tricks/exploits/whatever)

All in all I want my fortress to 'feel more real', without becoming a sprawling mess.

so how do you set up your fortress's layout? do you tend to stick to 1 z level or multiple? do you get a certain design and repeat it over several levels, or vary what's on each level? ASCII diagrams / mspaint doodles welcome

[Rastaan]

I'm rather fond of above ground fortresses, myself.
But otherwise, just experiment...I'm currently working on a mixed above/below ground megastructure fortress, and I have no idea what it's gonna be like when I'm 'done'.

[TigerPlushie]

I have gotten used to use a standard scheme for any fortress I start.

The following things are standard for my "generic fortress design":

- The fortress is built around a central shaft. It's standard height is five Zs. All five stories of this staft are 13x13 wide and has slightly rounded corners (1x1 cut). The center is a hollow 5x5 pillar with the main staircase. There is a one-tile wide channel around the staircase, that goes all the way down to the bottomI try to get used to NOT let the staircase end, but til now it ends at the 7th level for a series of options. Those include: A map border drain for water running through there, a magma reservoir, additional assymetric rooms, security corridors to the "nether regions", etc...

- The entrance is three tiles wide. Main corridors are three tiles wide. Corridors branching from the main corridor are one or two tiles wide. All three-tile corridors branching from the central shaft have a 1x1 piece of wall left in the middle, so two doors can be attached, preserving the "round nature" of the shaft.

- Between the entrance and the central shaft is a corridor with a channeled drawbridge. Beside that is an alternate corridor with a death walk and a bottleneck, which has an assigned burrow for my military as "Bottleneck". I used to use just a long death walk over a deep drop or flowing water in connection with marksdwarves/fort's at the side of the death walk... but in the newest version markies are giving me trouble...

-The barracks are located at the topmost layer right behind the death walk and usually are the only route for invading parties. I dig out room for four full separate squads with ten beds. Above that I place their storage areas with four armor stands, four weapon stands and three cabinets. The training area is a huge room with pillars. Behind that is the armoury, which also is connected to my quartermaster's office.

- The Trade depot is quite close to the entrance to the central shaft. it's entrance is right beside the first double door that leads into the central shaft (technically blocking the further advancement for wagons, if there were any... where are they, btw?). The storage for trade goods is either on the other side of the depot or right below it.

- On the other side of the main entrance to the central shaft is the main hall. It's as broad as the shaft, but quite longer, often reaching a size of 450 tiles. I often leave wall segments there, which will be ornated with statues later on.

- Right below that is the dining hall. It's equal in size, but has a separate room for storing prepared meals (and sometimes booze). I use two double rows of long tables with chairs (compare to dining hall in hogwarts, except it's two instead of four rows). Sometimes I channel the central area of the meeting hall, so that you can look into the dining hall from there.

- Right below that is the hospital. Again, equal in size. It has three rooms. The biggest one is the resting room. Lots of beds on the wall. I personally like to build a cross in the middle with red (kaolinite, bauxite) and white (chalk, etc...) stone. The center of this cross often is the well. The two other rooms at the far end of the resting room are the operating room (with tables and traction benches) and the storage area (with lots and lots of coffers)

- Right below this often is nothing. (Except for the well water access)

- The Industrial area is to the right of the main entrance. The shops are separated from each other. Sometimes I build raw material storages right below or above the shops. On the other side are the storage areas. I try to separate not only the four Bs from all other furniture, but also edible food, drinks, processable/cookable food and processable/cookable other stuff.

- The quarters are to the left side of the main entrance. Top most are the houses for the nobles and administrators, all featuring an office, a dining room and a bedroom. On the lower levels the sleeping rooms for the workers are located, each featuring a 2x3 room with a bed. In later stages they usually get a window and furniture, but I haven't managed to get that far in 0.31.

- On the lowest level of the central shaft below the hospital I build the treasury, generally only used for storing artifacts and masterwork items FAR AWAY from thieves.

- On the lowest level of the central shaft below the industrial area is the prison. Cells are usually 2x3 or 3x3 and feature a food stockpile of 1x1 (well, since "take from stockpile" doesnt work... they don't), either a booze stockpile or water access and a metal chain. I try to keep the cells nice.

- On the lowest level of the central shaft below the living quarters is the cemetry. Single tombs for those who want it and small chambers with 4x2x2 coffins.

- The farming area usually is located on the top most level but can vary in location depending on where I get my water from. I do not use pumps for irrigation... Only doors hooked to mechanisms and a map border drain. Farms have two levels. The upper one is channelled to the surface and used for aboveground crops. The entrance to the farm is secured by a 1-tile wide double door. Right beside the farm is the seed storage with the levers.

* Sometimes, on the lowest level below the entrance, there is the bunker. It's a non-designated meeting hall with a dormitory, well and food storage attached to it. It's designated as a burrow called "Safe Zone" and all non-military dwarves are stationed there during a crisis. At times of peace it's separated from the main fortress.

* When I feel like it I let water flow from the brook/river right over the central shaft where it forms a waterfall through the channels right to the bottom story of the shaft, where it flows off with a map border drain. IF I use pumps for magma, this drain is where I build my power plants too.



Well, I think I have quite a solid standard fortress... I usually dig out as much as possible as soon as possible... That's why I embark with at least three miners. But as soon as I get used to the new version and the bugs become less and less, I'll experiment with different designs again. I really enjoy the idea of cavernous designs and multi-story buildings.

[Dorten]

In terms of efficiency, I couldn't do anything better, than The Steel-Castle of Fires (my sig).
That's the top of my logistics ability

[Bishop36]

        I usually have a produce section in the top soil layer, this includes farming, brewing, cooking, butchering, and tanning. For my current fort, each room is 4x7 with two of the same workshops each, with a large multi-purpose storage area nearby. The farm is large enough for 4 5x2 fields, with a free space between each field and the walls. Seed storage is a 10x10 room dug beneath the farming area, with stairs leading to it between each feild near the wall. This floor is directly linked to my food stockpile and my drink stockpile.

       The next layer is where all my workshops go, I use various layouts for this floor, depending on what idea I want to try. My current fort just has a row of 7x4 rooms with two workshops each, taking full advantage of quantum dumps for raw material storage between the workshops. The wood-crafting room is right across the hall from the carpentry for easy resource sharing, same with mason/stonecrafter and all the fuel using shops. The hall leads directly to A. the  storage for my trade goods, that is in a semi-circle around my depot B. my bedroom floor and C. My dining floor.

       The room floor consists of four wings of 3x3 rooms, 5 in each row 10 per wing. This is linked directly to my work floor and my dining floor.

       My dining floor is the lowest floor. It has a middle room that can have 4 rows of tables, placed in the following pattern from front wall to back wall: Wall, space, space, chair, table, table, chair, space, space, chair, table, table, chair, space space. Where each "chair" "table" or "space" representing a row of 10 tiles of each, horizontal to the direction we were counting them off. The entrance of the dining hall is lined by a food stockpile on the left (roasts only, no exceptions) and a booze stockpile to the right.

      The entrance is a large 20x10 entrance room that leads to hallways A. leading to the produce sector, this is on the same floor. B. leading to the depot C. leading to the work floor D. leading to the room floor. There is no hall leading to the dining floor, as this is where all non-military dwarves take shelter. All hallways are 10 tiles long and lined with traps, floodgates are at the entrance of each hallway.


      Directly above the entrance room is a castle. This is where the barracks is, and where my nobles reside. It is 3 z-levels tall and is shaped like a castle, with circle towers containing the barracks of the normal military and town guard in the front two, and the royal guard in the back two. Sparring is done on the lowest level of the towers, sleeping on the third and shooting on the second placed at the corners of a rectangle. The nobles rooms are on the second and third floor, while the kings room takes up the entire first floor (of the central rectangle, not the towers). All nobles rooms can not be reached through the castle directly, there are paths that lead from the room floor into the castle interior.

      There is a moat and a drawbridge before the castle, and the very front of the castle has a 5 tile long entrance of ramps into the entrance hall. The main entrance into the military section of the castle is two sets of double doors located on each of the front towers.

      Note that every hallway is lined with traps, every exterior wall is two tiles thick, every hall is three tiles wide, every natural stone wall will be smoothed and engraved by my single legendary engraver, and every constructed wall in made of blocks of the best stone I have available, in my current fort I was lucky and had lots of obsidian.

       Every dwarf gets a 3x3 burial chamber that is at least 5 z-levels under ground, these are arranged in wings similar to my room floor. At the entrance, on the surface, there is a 7x10 room, lined with pillars and statues, leading to the catacombs.

       This is pretty much standard, but the way I lay out the rooms and floors can vary quite a bit once I hit on better ideas.

        It has evolved from a single hallway, in the first z-level, lined with 5x5 rooms that were used for everything.


Edit: I would just like to point out that I always have 70 dwarves, and I forgot to mention there is a small hallway where I keep my cows, with two farmers workshops for milking and cheese-making. Each cow gets its own pen, I select the twelve best male and female breeders and each get a single tile room lining the hallway. Also, if I feel like it, a complete textile industry (with its own farm for textile-related plants) will be set up on the first floor.

     I have also come into the habit of making exploration camps away from my main fort. These consist of a small barracks for the exploration-party troops, dorms for the miners, a small farm, a small brewery, and a single pair of cows. Also includes a planter, butcher, and milker/cheesemaker along with associated workshops. It's primary function is to explore the depths and deal with whatever threat lurks below. It also provides an armed escort for the caravan, since I always make sure to place it near the road the caravan takes. It comes complete with a big-red-level of self destruct in case something horrible is provoked. I consider the game to be played from here, the rest of the fort is just nice to have.

[Proteus]

Usually a central stairway that is a 5*5 tiles room,
with the 4 stairs usually being in the central  3*3 tiles.

Design for most of the public rooms usually 11*11.
For workshops  it usually is:
*****-*-*****
*www--*--www*
*www-----www*
*www-----www*
*-----------*
*----*-*----*
**----X----**
*----*-*----*
*-----------*
*www-----www*
*www-----www*
*www--*--www*
*************

That is, 4 workshops per room, with a central stairway leading up  to the finished goods storags and down to the resource storage  rooms (both as well 11*11 with central stairway).
Usually most  workshops are at the same z-levels...
exception ebing stonecraftingwhich is located around 1-2 z-tiles below the trade depot
and food/booze production,  whose location is dependant on the locationof my  main underground farms.

Main mensa is usual 4 * 11*11 with central stairs in each 11*11 block leading up to the main meals and the booze storage areas (both 4 * 11 * 11 as well) .
Rooms for working nobles (like leader or record keeper) are 1*11 as well,
but divided into 3 parts, so that the noble has a 5*11 tiles big office,
a 5*5 tiles dining room and a 5*5 tiles big sleeping room. 
Exception being barons and other higher ranking nobles, for which all of the 3 are 11*11

(oh and if you wonder why 11*11 and not, for example, 10*10... 11 is the distance you get if  you press [shift]+arrow )

[Psieye]

Back in 40d, I'd put my bedrooms 10z levels below the surface to avoid bad thoughts when fighting noise reaches down. I can't do this in DF2010 anymore due to underground layers (I play on relatively flat regions where there are only 50 z-levels of underground total) so I've settled for my living quarters being at North and my industrial sector being at South. Aesthetics was less a priority for me compared to Clarity and some degree of Efficiency. I knew where my farm would go and that'd be the start of the industrial sector as I like the cloth industry so all relevant workshops are closeby the farms. Plus kitchens and stills need to be close to farms too, so that dictates where my dining room goes (above my industrial sector). Since my cloth industry workshops have been placed, so my finished goods stockpiles get decided as being 1 floor above all those workshops with stairways every 5 tiles. A jeweler's workshop then gets placed near that and that requires a gem pile and... yeah, you get the idea. Stone industry was based around a quantum stockpile of stone brought over from freshly mined out locations.

[sneakey pete]

I'm a bit different, but much the same aswell. Instead of a vertical shaft, i usually have horizontal shafts (hallways, basically). A lot of my forts tend to end up as entrance, entrance hall, hallway, meeting hall, another hallway, dining hall, another hallway. Order varies sometimes.

These aren't any hallways of course, usually 2-3 z levels high, with a lower floor and then walkways on the sides each z level up for acess to rooms on every level. one hallway is usually bedrooms, the next is usually industry. will sometimes have smaller wings of bedrooms, other times will have a network of smaller hallways, however that's how my forts are generally built.
A more intertwined example of my forts would be relicrags (minor spoilers), and a more extreme one would be laternattacks (unfinished though).

I've always felt that, from reading about moria in Lotr, dwarven halls should be much more grand than mere single z level passages. That being said, all of my forts are very bland and usual in that respect, and they never go anywhere. i have at times attempted to create more organic forts, with tunnels that don't jsut serve as the most effecient way of holding dwarves, but also serve the needs of going places. Might try it again with the new version however, with the new military features having remove entrances and a more spreadout fort seems quite possible (will pick a region tile with a moutain that has forest on both sides of it, and a long embark), and try to recreate a nice moria or something like it. turning viens into passageways seems like a nice way to make it slightly more natural.

[Particleman]

I usually dig a short hallway into a hillside (or some downward ramps in the middle of the map if there's aren't any real hills, and I can extend the hall with walls and a roof if I want to add more traps.) In a room on one side of this is the trade depot and (at least one of) the stockpile for trade goods, and at the end is a central stairway leading into the fortress proper. These are at least 1x3, but preferably larger.

On the first or second soil layer I have my farms an primary storage (no stone to clear out before I can actually start storing stuff.) I pretty much just dig out the whole layer. No individual rooms, no doors, just dig the whole damn thing out and designate some more stockpiles whenever the ones I have start to fill up. Walls are unneccesary and make my dwarves take longer to get around.

Once I have a trade depot and some storage space set up, I dig down and clear out some space for bedrooms. Again, I don't bother with walls here (anymore,) I just dig out a big empty space in stone and place beds seven tiles apart so I dont' have to bother with resizing the bedrooms and there's no overlap. Once again, walls are unneccesary and just slow my dwarves down. I set up some workshops near here as well (oddly enough workshops don't produce noise, so they can go anywhere.)

Farms pretty much just go near my food stockpiles, and I make a custom stockpile just for seeds near the farms. In the current version this means that my food stockpiles and farms pretty much go next to the river.

After that I just expand the main room (with the beds and workshops) to include a dining room, and continue expanding from there when I need more space. When I'mnot doing that I dig around the rest of the area for ores and gems. It's pretty minimalistic.

[Proteus]

....
I pretty much just dig out the whole layer. No individual rooms, no doors, just dig the whole damn thing out and designate some more stockpiles whenever the ones I have start to fill up. Walls are unneccesary and make my dwarves take longer to get around.

....

This is something that is forbidden  to me, due to my self imposed rules.
I don´t allow myself to have bigger rooms  than ~10*10 without having some kind of support (pillar, wall etc.) in them.
I think of it in terms of largest unsupported room size before the ceiling becomes unstable.

[Laiska]

i dont layout, i clear a big room and slap everything into there. then i clear more and do stockpiles. only time i "layout" is when i dig for a Fuelsource™.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I try to go in for "realistic" fort rather then Uber Efficient forts.  I tend to design mine more like cities then cubes.

[Jake]

I usually build my forts around a central hub consisting of a trade depot, two large storerooms and a dining hall and dormitory; one storeroom is for food and booze, with a food prep area off to one side. The other is for finished goods, cloth and leather, and sometimes cut gems. Terrain permitting, the well can also be found in this hub in a room of its own.
After that I stick as closely as possible to a grid of 3x3 rooms and 2x2 corridors, with staircases at each junction when necessary, but I'll dig rooms or alcoves for statues out of odd-shaped spaces and use veins as streets when it's more convenient; mined-out large clusters of magnetite usually end up becoming art galleries unless I need them for something else.
I prefer to keep the flammable stuff stacked outside where I can dump water on it without covering half the fortress in mud, so wood and metalworking operations usually end up on the top floor of my fortress. Likewise, refuse is dumped outside, so my butcher's shop and tannery are normally on the surface.

[zagibu]

In terms of efficiency, I couldn't do anything better, than The Steel-Castle of Fires (my sig).
That's the top of my logistics ability

That thing is insane! What do you need such a large tower cap farm for?

[Squirrelloid]

I tend to converge on a fortress built around a single 3x3 verticle stairwell that plunges straight to magma, with rooms tight to the stairwell.  Ultimately I want a megaproject on top of this, but i'll often dig a long tunnel to where I'm going to drop my shaft so i can set up storage for food and the like quickly while I build the real fortress.  (Ie, my early fortress tends to be along a long horizontal hallway with storage rooms and workshops branching off from it and beds in the hall until I can move to a more permanent location).

Farming on the top, bedrooms in the middle, metal industry on the bottom, other workshops either on the bottom or top depending on what they use and are doing.  I tend to have enough z-levels to leave storage rooms or dining hall/meeting rooms between residential and workshops on either end.

Sometimes i use 2 vertical shafts for the top few z-levels, especially if I'm producing a lot of trade goods, as it lets me put the trade goods directly under the depot.


Examples:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Single Shaft
*************
*___*****___*
*___*****___*
*___________*
*****_*_*****
*___*XXX*___*
*____XXX____*
*___*XXX*___*
*****_*_*****
*___________*
*___*****___*
*___*****___*
*************

Double Shaft
*************
*___*****___*
*___________*
*___*_*_*___*
*****XXX*****
_____XXX_____
*****XXX*****
*___*_*_*___*
*___________*
*___*___*___*
*****___*****
*___*___*___*
*___________*
*___*_*_*___*
*****XXX*****
_____XXX_____
*****XXX*****
*___*_*_*___*
*___________*
*___*___*___*
*************

Note the double shaft allows mining access to the level without compromising the number of rooms that can be placed proximal to a stairwell.

Walls can be removed for larger room areas.