Full-time Warrior Happiness

[GrimdarkOG]

Does anybody know what makes certain dwarves not mind being in the military 24/7, and others freak the ♥♥♥♥ out?

What makes up a warrior dwarf? I've tried going off personalities. Not sure if thats a big factor.

[SalfordSal]

Ah, my speciality lol. Their bravery determines how fast they gain stress, their stress capacity determines how long they can cope with that stress and their calmness/anxiousness determines how fast they dissipate the stress that they've built up. So look for dwarfs that are brave in the face of imminent danger, can handle stress and have a calm demeanour. They are the dwarfs that are less likely to freak out when they see blood and guts and corpses

[GrimdarkOG]

Interesting. Does training cause stress? Probably, huh.

Is it possible to tell how brave and ect they are? is that a trait they all have? If i remember correctly they can gain those traits from trauma. I guess maybe I'll have to go through many recruitment waves to find the good ones.

Kind of annoying because something like this, to get the perfect warriors, is like a ten year project. Lol. Of training, retiring, re-training new prospects, ect. But hell what else to do..

[GrimdarkOG]

Also, is it really the corpses making them upset? in premium, they get desensetized like immediately. But honestly im not sure if the 'didnt feel anything' about bodies DOESNT cause a negative mood effect...

My fortresses run perfectly, but some warriors just dont get happy even after rotations. I guess maybe theyre just lacking in emotional fitness in general.

[SalfordSal]

Yes, you can see how brave they are, what their stress capacity is and whether they are calm or anxious from their personality traits on their character sheets. If nothing is mentioned, then they are average, neither good nor bad. Training is different. 99.9% of dwarfs will get multiple happy thoughts from military training. They are having a good time messing about with their buddies and learning new skills, that's very different from being on the front line, attacked from all angles by undead flying squirrels or goblins wearing dwarf bone helmets

[SalfordSal]

Oh yes, trauma affects their personalities, so a brave dwarf may become fearful or a calm dwarf may become anxious, or vice versa, or they may strengthen their traits, or it may change an irrelevant trait. Starting your military with dwarfs with the useful traits helps though. All dwarfs since 0.47.05 will begin to become accustomed to seeing corpses, but not until its already had a bad affect on their emotions, which will cause a personality change

[GrimdarkOG]

Alright ill just have to get more micro with my military selection perhaps. Thanks for the information.

[𝕮𝖔𝖗𝖛𝖚𝖘]

Hey Grim, I did the micro thing for my orginal elite War Hammerer squad. But don't do that for all your squads to avoid headache. Chosing 10 dwarfs from 50 is not that bad.
But if your pop is 200+, you will hate it. Also remember that they can always change to worst or best with their traits, depends on what's happening in your fortress.

What I do now, and to give you a picture I have 10 squads, all legendary at this point so they can chill and do whatever they want. Except one squad, that is on a recruit rotation. It takes dwarfs who have no experience and trains them every year and then picks new ones especially young dwarfs.

So in the end your dwarfs will have positive thoughts from remembering training. Then when something bad happens (see corpse or some dwarf died) they will be shocked sure, but it will stabilize with time. So basically you want some kind of PTSD squad to be around.
To train your dwarfs and keep them positive, even the worst ones that you think are usless (frail-weak or sickly-depression prone-anxious-anger prone and so on).
And some of them even end as legendary warriors.

One more thing, make also a ptsd training room, with best stuff there statues made by master craftsmen and so on(actually all your training rooms should be glorious).
So dwarfs can admire while they are there too. Training options should be "sleep room at will" (and not sleep in training barracks at will). There will be only very few unhappy ones in the end (mostly those who are dead inside, who have seen too much or feel very little).

And also depends on situation in your fort, best food and drinks for all your dwarfs.
Don't even bother with anything that is not lavish meal at some point. Every room needs to be glorious, every single chair or table, stone or metal. If it's not mastercrafted it needs to be melted and made a new, or it belongs in a dump zone/sell it.

This is not some pesky elf swamp tree fort, These are The HALLS OF LEGENDS!

[GrimdarkOG]

Originally posted by 𝕮𝖔𝖗𝖛𝖚𝖘:

Hey Grim, I did the micro thing for my orginal elite War Hammerer squad. But don't do that for all your squads to avoid headache. Chosing 10 dwarfs from 50 is not that bad.
But if your pop is 200+, you will hate it. Also remember that they can always change to worst or best with their traits, depends on what's happening in your fortress.

What I do now, and to give you a picture I have 10 squads, all legendary at this point so they can chill and do whatever they want. Except one squad, that is on a recruit rotation. It takes dwarfs who have no experience and trains them every year and then picks new ones especially young dwarfs.

So in the end your dwarfs will have positive thoughts from remembering training. Then when something bad happens (see corpse or some dwarf died) they will be shocked sure, but it will stabilize with time. So basically you want some kind of PTSD squad to be around.
To train your dwarfs and keep them positive, even the worst ones that you think are usless (frail-weak or sickly-depression prone-anxious-anger prone and so on).
And some of them even end as legendary warriors.

One more thing, make also a ptsd training room, with best stuff there statues made by master craftsmen and so on(actually all your training rooms should be glorious).
So dwarfs can admire while they are there too. Training options should be "sleep room at will" (and not sleep in training barracks at will). There will be only very few unhappy ones in the end (mostly those who are dead inside, who have seen too much or feel very little).

And also depends on situation in your fort, best food and drinks for all your dwarfs.
Don't even bother with anything that is not lavish meal at some point. Every room needs to be glorious, every single chair or table, stone or metal. If it's not mastercrafted it needs to be melted and made a new, or it belongs in a dump zone/sell it.

This is not some pesky elf swamp tree fort, These are The HALLS OF LEGENDS! :dwarven:

Good advice, but listen to this and tell me why they're all unhappy.

My fort is made entirely out of steel, platinum and gold. There are over 40 artifacts, and 180 military dwarves. They are all equipped in fully masterwork clothing, weapons and armor. I have 235 dwarves, the remaining 50 enter a training rotation where half of them train bi-monthly until they get to novice. Everyone has a private legendary bedroom, and the best warriors wear adamantine masterwork armor with divine weaponry.

All of the meals and drinks are masterworks. All of the entrances have waterfalls. Every zone you can imagine is legendary. The fort has been running for 18 years. And some of them still fall prone to depression. Even the ones with 150+ kills.

I'm just not sure that after 15 or so years, you can really make them happy anymore. The positive thoughts fade, and even though the trauma doesn't affect them as much, they stop getting massive bonuses from all the other factors. SOME anyways. Again, hard to tell why. I'd say 1 out of 10 legendary dwarves per year fall into a depression spin.

But I will have to just pay more attention to the personalities perhaps, I didnt really dive into why that one was weak, compared to the others.

Basically, we had the same idea. I tried intense micro too but not enough with personalities, and maybe that's the difference. What I typically do is I fire anyone who freaks out, deeming them unfit for military privilege. And typically my 'rehab' room is the jail with masterwork tables, chairs, beds, and chains. Burrowing people in there turns them happy usually, but even that has a delayed effect if theyre in the red - im talking months.

thanks for the insight, as well.

[GrimdarkOG]

To be quite honest, I feel like some dwarves are just depressed ♥♥♥♥♥. like real life.

[𝕮𝖔𝖗𝖛𝖚𝖘]

Exactly, it is depression plus you can't make everyone happy no matter what. Same with those who have the need for family and friends, but they are just total mess at social.

My fort atm is 20+ years old running 220+ dwarfs (this also includes mist waterworks), but I still get few ones who are yellow or first step into red from time to time. You just have to live with them as they are. Thats why I mentioned before those who are dead inside (especially as they age 100+), or who saw too much when were young.

As for kicking them out of military also not the best idea because they get crave for fight/training, so you gotta let them train martial in ptsd squad, or they lose it and you get tantrum.

One interesting thing is when you mentioned that dwarf with 150+ kills who is depression-prone. This is exactly why. It's the same with animal butchers. It's the dead inside and feel nothing except negative war veteran effect. One will kill few and will lose it, another one will kill dozens and feel nothing. But this catches with time especially as they kill more and more and it breaks the psyche.

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

It helps if you give them the best possible accommodations, mist generators in their training area, sleeping areas made of platinum/gold, masterwork gem encrusted beds and well crafted lavish meals and sunshine booze.

[LastChime]

I generally just pull anyone who goes yellow/orange into civ training squads and draft up the next fishery worker.

[Helios]

Originally posted by GrimdarkOG:

Does anybody know what makes certain dwarves not mind being in the military 24/7, and others freak the ♥♥♥♥ out?

What makes up a warrior dwarf? I've tried going off personalities. Not sure if thats a big factor.

in first place i like to choose dwaves with "good" traits and i think some of these traits also influence them to like sparring and co. My dwaves are 24/7 in training i just sometimes interrupt that chedule if they have deep orange needs i made an extra workdetail for weaponsmith so i could order like 200 giant iron axe heads from them using multiple magma forges to fulfil it having max skill of weaponsmith on yours squads also makes sure they make a weapon in strange mood.