This is an early fortress (just into the first winter after embark) design that I tend to use in flat areas. It tends to be nothing more then a walled area with a "dodge-this" section of wall jutting out which keeps the riff-raff out. There's also a 3-tile wide bridge that can be raised to seal off the outside, but which allows caravans to enter and access the trade depot. It's only a so-so design as it does nothing to defend against flying enemies.



The northeast corner is the 3-tile wide drawbridge which can be raised by a lever inside the wall. At the south side of the fort you can see the narrow walkway atop the section of wall, covered with weapon traps (b-T-w) which usually makes enemies dodge off the side.



Surface level of the embark area. Note the pair of 2x2 stairs leading down into the surface fort. The trade depot is in the northeast corner and there is a lever nearby which controls the bridge. There's a stone block stockpile near the south entrance filled with (7) wooden bins. That makes it faster for me to build out walls in the future because the blocks will already be on the surface.

I have a few small farm patches along the southwest and northwest corners to grow surface plants. Anything which was found at the embark and which gave up seeds when eaten/brewed gets a small 4-6 tile farm. The southeast corner is dedicated to pasturing the large draft animals which were used to bring the wagon to the embark site.

Just southwest of the fort is a rather large pond which I drained off into a stairwell to form an underground cistern. One of the new features since DF2010 is that seasonal rain is often enough to now fill back up ponds which have been drained. That pond was as low as 1-2 units of depth back at the end of summer when I drained it. After the fall rains it has filled back up to a depth of 4-5 units.



This is the first underground level. This layer in the embark area is made out of sand, so it was fast to dig through and I could immediately setup farm plots to grow underground plants. The three large rooms were excavated in order to provide underground pastures for future livestock. Since I breached the caverns, spores have drifted upwards and underground moss is growing on most of the floor along with a few towercaps (trees). This moss can be used by grazing animals to feed.

The green upward triangles around the perimeter are channels (d-h) that I dug on the surface to give me an idea of where the next set of walls will appear. They'll eventually be filled in with actual stone walls.



This is the initial workshop / sleeping / food / drink / whatever level. It tries to stay within the footprint. It is not very efficient, but good enough to start. The workshop areas are either 5-tiles wide or 6-tiles wide with at least 1 empty tile between workshops.

The reason for the gap between workshops is so that you can quickly build walls around a workshop if it gets claimed by a strange mood dwarf who can't find the stuff that they need. Once they get stuck inside the workshop while waiting on new ingredients you can quickly wall them in. Then, when they go berserk/depressed, nobody sees it and nobody gets hurt.



This level will eventually be more surface workshops / storage. The main feature of interest is the completed well room in the southwest corner. The walls and floors are in the process of being smoothed to make it nicer and to remove the mud that happened because the cistern overflowed slightly.

Technically, that big long hallway leading back to the stairs should be outfitted with a dwarven bath, but I forgot and placed burial chambers right below it. I may adjust that and rethink the next level down.



The area in the west is the proposed burial chambers. These are long and narrow chambers where coffins will line the sides once the floors and walls have been smoothed and engraved.



Nothing much on this level except the water in the cistern and the two mains staircases.



Nothing much on this level except the water in the cistern and the two mains staircases.



Nothing much on this level except the water in the cistern and the two mains staircases. Note that the bottom level of the cistern is only a 3x3. That way, if the cistern were to start running dry at the upper levels, it keeps the lower levels at full depth for longer. In Dwarf Fortress, any water of depth 2 or less runs the risk of evaporating completely.

This is also the last level before the top of the first underground cavern which I breached while digging the stair which drained off the surface pond into the cistern.