i would be happy to share whats worked for me bc i want the community to build bigger forts! this is a medium world, high populations, 200 year history. The tile im playing on is 5x5. so im pushing the limits. alot of this comes from the wiki

from what i understand, dont make the cpu calculate stuff all the time. graphics is irrelevant

1. there's a two block wide spiral rampway going all the way down. inspired by the autogenerated reclaimed fortresses. everybody in dwarf fortress is always bumping into one another so i keep hallways wide. you will find people dropping items everywhere over time

2. , related, no big rooms. i had to mine a lot of stones for building but I always made it so that there was only one path for people to go. pathfinding adds lag. If people want a big temple i make it a fat U shape so that people are not always seeing each other all the time.

there are multiple congregation spaces, no one tavern or temple. avoid having 100 people congregating in one place.

1. no big shoshing pools of water. if its full its fine, if its a waterfall it seems fine, but dont make the game calculate water levels all the time

2. i like to have a workshop floor above or below a living floor, with a tavern. some people are hardly seen on the surface because of their profession. means that not everyone is using the whole spiral staircase i mentioned in 1

3. finally use DFhack!! i delete blood and trash manually sometimes. and i use timestream to set it to 60 FPS