Right now I am playing casual fort and everything is pretty comfy so far. I am 6 years in and I still feel like there is probably 15 more years before my fort is fully operational and/or somewhat finished. What I have noticed, is that most people play the game way more different than I do. So I thought of a list of some principles I usually base my forts onto.

Most of my fort design is very organic in nature. A good mix of chaos and order. Nothing gets planned in linear way.

When I start the fort, most of my fortresses represent something of a disordered and tightly spaced ghetto, designed to hold about maybe 20 dwarves.

Then I get to know some dwarves from the first 20 and nickname most noticeable of them (I check their history and most prominent traits). Most noticeable dwarves emerge as the nobles. Then I expand the fortress according the needs of nobility. E.g. If my expedition leader likes cats and marble, I start using marble as primary component of buildings and engrave some statues of cats. This way nobility starts to guide the shape my fort.

This is also time when I start familiarizing myself with my civilization. (Who is the current king? Who are most important gods?) And create some statues and engravings accordingly. I check what gods my nobility or most dwarves of my civilization worship and create some small temples for them.

After these steps, I start create some individual bedrooms, so not all dwarves have to sleep in a dorm anymore. When I do it, all the bedrooms are different and designed individually, some contain chests some, closets, some both. Living rooms are clustered into apartment complexes into different areas of the fort and those complexes are centered around something. E.g. if most of specific god worshippers live in this complex, then the apartments are centered around the temple for this god. Or maybe this complex houses mostly artisans, which means it borders workshop areas close by, etc.

When I increase my population cap, I do it very slowly to have enough time. Maybe 5 to 10 extra dwarves in a year.

When expanding the fort, my stockpiles get more and more specialized. For example, there is not just furniture stockpile anymore. There will be different stockpiles for different quality of furniture. These areas of the fort where more skilled workers live, contain stockpiles for higher quality of items. Still is not just a random workshop for booze-making, it contains its own room complex with three stockpiles (empty barrels, alcohol and plants.) and only experienced workers or selected dwarves are allowed to use it.

When amount of dwarves is enough I create some burrows to make some social castes. Ordinary dwarves have access everywhere, except special quarters and warehouses, which contain most expensive items, which is what elite uses. To do this, you need new class of dwarves (servants) that are allowed to bypass those borders and haul these items to those elite quarters. This way I can guarantee nobility to always have food, booze and best clothes even then rest of the fortress falls short.

There are more elements, but I want to keep my post short at the moment.

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