Rather than my usual haphazard fort design of little planning - mostly digging rooms and placing stuff wherever needed and whatever strikes my fancy - I've decided to try planning out some forts prior to striking the earth. And I'd like to design for a certain level of efficiency. You know, stuff like placing the bedrooms away from noise (such as wood cutting, wall engraving, and digging), keeping the butcher's shop near the surface or near the animal pens/pastures, the food stockpiles next to the farms, the kitchen near the food stockpiles, the main storage level near the workshops, etc, etc. Mostly, I'd like to keep the walking distance down.
To that end, I'm finding it useful to plan the general functions of certain levels and attempt to place them in an efficient layout. Also, I've been reading forum threads on fort design, such as Dwarven Designs, the Bad Fort Design thread, and the [Quickfort] thread (among others), as well as studying various fort screenshots, reading up on the wiki (especially Design Strategies, Bedroom Design, & Workshop Design), etc. (Reading The DF2010 Little Questions Thread has been helpful, too.)
Here I want to share some general tips in fortress design that I've been collecting from various sources. And I invite others to do the same. What I'm mostly looking for are general tips based on usage that should apply to most forts, rather than discussing finer details or complex layouts for experts.
Yes, some of these tips are obvious. What I'm looking for is a thread of suggestions that can be glanced over to get a lot of design ideas and to make sure something obvious was not forgotten or overlooked. I've begun to organize these tips to keep similar themes together (such as surface, near surface, & deep underground), but I'm far from finished.
=== SURFACE ===
* Mine the surface: Soil is mined much more quickly than stone (x3-x4 faster). Take advantage of this to get initial rooms finished rapidly and to train the mining skill quickly.
* River fishing (optional): Consider building an enclosed area above a river with a grate above. This should allow fishing (and fresh water) while keeping your dwarves safe.
* Automatic fish catcher (optional): See this post and this post for some details.
* Carpenter's Workshop either on the surface or near the surface for easy access to wood. Optionally, isolate a part of the forest for trees. (Only important for first years of fort, before an underground forest can be used for wood.)
* Optional: Surface agriculture for above-ground crops. (Or, on a subterranian level close to the surface (soil or muddied rock) and opened up for light. It may be covered over later and still be considered light and above ground. See Above Ground Farming for details.) If above ground, add walls to protect from invaders. Also, consider adding a "roof" to protect from attack by fliers.
* Pasture and grazing animal pens: Build on the top level. (Grass might also grow in a subterranian level close to the surface (soil or muddied rock) and opened up for light.) If above ground, add walls to protect from invaders. Also, consider adding a "roof" to protect from attack by fliers.
=== UNDERGROUND ===
* Stockpile Level: Has many of the primary stockpiles, with secondary stockpiles located elsewhere.
- NOTE: Do not have the Stockpiles for raw materials directly below the workshop area. Or, if one must, carefully choose which materials end up directly underneath which workshop. It can be frustrating when dwarves go below to grab materials to craft something, esp. since they can end up building stuff out of undesirable materials.
* Mist Generator(s) (optional): Used to give dwarves happy thoughts, which might help prevent tantrum spirals. Could be installed at Meeting Zones, in the Central Stairway, in the Dining Room, etc.
- Yet another mist generator! (now with 4x the mist!)
- wall-less pump towers and mist generators
* Consider having an isolated, central "control room" in which all levers of significance are located. Lock up a dwarf inside with bed, table, chair, plenty of booze and food and prevent dwarf from ever leaving or socializing with other dwarves. His/her only purpose in life will be to pull levers when needed. This means levers will get pulled instantly. And the isolation will prevent tantrum insanity to ensure you will have a lever puller for many years. However, some means of dealing with the lever-puller dwarf coming down with a mood must be considered. Since the highest moodable skill will be selected, make sure said dworf(s) have one moodable skill higher than the rest and build a workshop for that skill and stock materials for it.
- Extra bonus: The lever-puller dwarf could be married. The spouse could handle a small farm plot to grow food and brew alcohol, making the couple self-sufficient. But it might be wise to have a stocked workshop for his/her moods as well (or have him/her train to make his/her highest moodable skill the same as the lever-puller).
* Graveyard [Preferably, out of the way. Should have less path priority than other things.]
* Hospital, with lots of beds, water, soap, (food?) [Also, build a well here.]
* Well(s) with a large stone block cistern/reservoir. Said reservoir is filled with a pump that is triggered by water level (pressure plates) or refilled manually by levers. Source is protected by creature filters. Size should be large enough to supply through winter in freezing biomes. (Wiki says 20x25x1 is enough to last for many years even without booze.)
- NOTE: Fortifications & grates can be used to filter contaminants from water. (See this post for mention.)
- NOTE: Even in a biome without salt water, build a cistern to prevent "murky" water. (See this post for details.)
- NOTE: Build a "river filter" to block creatures. (See this post for the details.)
- NOTE: Build the well in a tiny (perhaps 1x2 ?) cubbyhole and install a "Dwarven Atomsmasher" to destroy the contaminants which will appear when dwarves wash. Lock the door before smashing so a dwarf won't get squished.
* Dwarven Bathtub (See Dwarven Bathtub, Cleaning Your Dwarfs, and soap.) Have one of these across each fortress entrance, each cavern entrance, the hospital entrance, the butcher's shop, and the refuse pile for corpses. Also, I found this post interesting. In particular:
Quote
...designate the inside of the pool (the bottom level) as an inactive meeting area, and dwarves should flock to clean it after it gets messy.
Alternatively, one could build a "Dwarven Atomsmasher" to destroy the contaminants on the bottom of the pool. Just be sure there are no dwarves in the bath when triggered...
- Re: Dwarven bathtub is very dwarfy!: This post mentions an interesting design, which uses one of two bridges used in a "Dwarven Atomsmasher" system to release fresh water and refill it automatically.
* Obsidian Factory
- Quietust's Obsidian Factory - Dwarf Fortress Wiki
- More obsidian factory designs? (I'm having trouble understanding Quietust's.)
* GCS Silk Farm
- DF2010 Giant cave spider skil farm?
- Giant cave spider silk farm
- Wasprag (silk farm) by Quietust [movie]
- Giant cave spider
- Gathering the sweet, sweet nectar from GCS
- caged giant cave spider
- More GCS farming questions
- Silkless spiders?
* Treasure Room (optional): Make a "treasure room", an everything stockpile, deep in the fortress, restricted to artifacts & legendary quality items. Have pets and traps to guard it. Extra bonus: Entrance to Treasure Room could normally be flooded with magma or water. It could be filled by gravity or pump, but should have a drain hatch attached to a lever for manual drainage.
* Magma forges: Build on or near the bottom level, so they are as close to a source of magma as possible.
=== DEFENSES ===
* Defend outer walls with Fortifications and a narrow path for marksdwarves to path around and shoot. If there is an inner courtyard, design fortifications so marksdwarves can target enemies both outside the walls and within. Also, if the fortifications are at ground level, then dig channels around fortress walls to make it difficult for goblins to return fire through said fortifications.
* Optional: Instead of channels above, make it a river or moat of water or magma. Many creatures will avoid water and/or magma and will try to path around it.
* Have barracks above ground, either located in the center or along one of the walls. Barracks will contain bunks and bedrooms, furniture, dining tables, chairs, booze, food, swimming pool, training room with archery targets and danger room traps (wood), quality weapons and armor, and most anything a dwarf could want.
* Craftsdwarfs located on level below barracks in order to supply them immediately with bolts. This is not only practical, but it is a workaround for the bolt-equipping bugs.
Make sure said craftsdwarfs have access to plenty of bone, wood, metal, etc.
But do have a means to block the path to the barracks in an emergency.
- NOTE: Do not have the Stockpiles for raw materials directly below the workshop area. Or, if one must, carefully choose which materials end up directly underneath which workshop. It can be frustrating when dwarves go below to grab materials to craft something, esp. since they can end up building stuff out of undesirable materials.
* Use lots of serrated disk traps. If more than one type of trap is used, place them as the first trap layer, before others (with the exception of cage traps). Disks are deadly and tend to sever limbs, which means more bones, more skin for leather, etc.
* DODGING CHASM: Have narrow walkways and a 5 z-level chasm with vertical spears and/or water at the bottom. Then station dogs near the entrance and/or use spear traps to get enemies to dodge.
* Lockable Doors: Install lots of these to isolate moody dwarves or sections of the fortress in an emergency. Keep in mind that building destroyers (types 1 & 2) will break them and some creatures can open locked doors.
* Floodgates (optional, may use doors instead): Install these to isolate sections of the fortress in an emergency. Keep in mind that building destroyers (type 2) can destroy them.
* Pumps to flood with water/magma (optional): Combined with floodgates above, build water and/or magma pumps to flood certain areas of the fortress in an emergency. Keep in mind that some nasty creatures are immune to drowning and/or death by magma.
* Bridges & Channels (optional): Install drawbridges and channels/gaps to isolate sections of the fortress in an emergency. Keep in mind that building destroyers (type 2) might destroy them if they are lowered. (Rare. Much more likely to just walk across.) And they will not destroy them if raised.
* Install traps at strategic locations to slow or halt intruders. Design these traps so they can be activated or disabled by pulling levers.
* Locked Hatch or lowered Bridge over Ramp entrance: (See this post for details.) Build either configuration in certain places to safely isolate sections from building destroyers. Alternatively, instead of locking the hatch, use a lever to activate.
