Posted: 30 Jul 2020 01:26 PM PDT

Getting started & at least feeling confident with my first season completed:

embark: 3x miners, a dedicated farmer / cook / brewer / milker / cheese maker, hauler, doctor/leader, mason/mechanic, carpenter
planning to use the 3x3 (empty centre for statues) stairwell in the 15x15 'circle' mined out setup
Topsoil: setup carpenters, craftdwarf, butchery, chopped trees
z-1 : metal forge, smelter, mason, mechanic, quantum stone/metal stockpile, furniture stock, trade depot
z-2 : farm workshop, still, kitchen, 5x5 plump helmet farm, 5x5 dining room/meeting space, 8 bedrooms, 2 offices, smoothed stone well fed by aquifer & a well being put ontop, food stockpile, barrel only stockpile beside the still

Presently things underway are

first wave of migrants arrived, +8 dwarves! (they are ~ all skill-less)
have only been harrased by one kobold that has stolen something
smoothing stone for 'fancy' bedrooms, not doing everything at once, but will eventually be a bank of ~72 2x3 rooms
will make another 15x15 circle a massive dining hall

Big project

started making a welcome room if I'm attacked; 11x30, a 3x28 snaking path towards what (will be) an embankment of 3 ballista
it being such a large room is taking some time to dig it down to any depth, and trying to haul stone out of it will be a pain unless there are some really good recommendations? (re-home my metal & stone shops / quantum stockpile to ~z-11, sharing the eventual bridge / maintenance hatch to the pitfall-archery killzone-weapon trap-ballista range with some sort of minecart system?)
Don't have any military, military industry, armor, siege engineers, etc.
Have 3 war dogs!

Thought

instead of trying to make this spread horizontally (like metal forges going to an adjacent room to store / retrieve materials), to think more like a dwarf and use another 15x15 circle on a different z-level to store stuff. Because walking 6 steps into an adjacent room is still 'further away' than walking 2 diagonal steps to the main 3x3 stairwell, then stepping off the stairwell 8 z-levels lower into a dedicated 'stockpile' room.

Some thoughts:

when making walkways, 'diagonal' is fine to walk, it is not good for 'will this result in a cave in?'
with a 3x3 snaking path, I understand some mobs will be able to 'jump' between the path
with a 3x3 snaking path, there is a lot of adjacent tiles a 'dodge' may end up on vs the weapon traps. Is 3x4 or 3x5 'better' for fewer tiles for the dodger to end on?
more weapon traps with 1 weapon (training spear) each, or fewer weapon traps with 10 weapons each for prompting most dodge attempts?
trying to 'empty bags of sand' on embark is almost impossible, I now build the kitchen and quickly reclaim meat barrels by making luxurious food (banning plump helmets from cooking)

Posted: 30 Jul 2020 02:30 PM PDT