Room Value is not going up.

[Saucylot]

I need to make a guildhall (room with 2000 value), I've made a 4x7 room, it's got doors, walls, fully closed in. 5 jet tables, 5 willow chairs, 4 bauxite statues and the floors are engraved.

When I go to zones and click the magnifying glass it says "Meeting place, ?* (next at 2000*)" so the value is just nothing? I'm confused if I have a setting for no value or something.

[Tanaka Khan]

What is the quality of the Furniture and Statues? Higher quality items mean higher score.
Place a couple of display cases in there and place some artefacts, the room score will jump...but beware the artefacts aren't stolen.

[Tanaka Khan]

If you're curious about item quality, this is taken from the wiki (You're obviously looking at the symbols surrounding the items name) -

Item Name Normal
-Item Name- Well-crafted
+Item Name+ Finely-crafted
*Item Name* Superior quality
≡Item Name≡ Exceptional
☼Item Name☼ Masterful
Unique name Artefact
«Item Name» Decorated object

[Saucylot]

All the items are just the normal name. I seem to only see the weight of the items. It feels like value is turned off or something.

[Saucylot]

Okay, after going through posts on the side while playing normally, I found I needed a broker to learn the value of a room.

[TPark]

Do you have anyone assigned to the Broker position?

[Fel]

You do need a broker but furnitures from normal stone is not going to help anyway.
You also want to avoid having tables+chairs in places other than libraries and places meant for eating.

If you don't have skilled workers (to make masterwork stuff) and/or a metal industry (metal is much more valuable than basic stone or wood), you can make-do with stone.
Specifically, make stone blocks to build the floor and walls of your room instead of leaving it as natural stone, then engrave them.

You might want to select a single (or a couple) dwarf as an engraver and set it to "only selected do this" to have more chances of getting good engravings done (since the quality changes the value quite a bit).
If the room is not needed right now, letting the engraver level up its skill by engraving all of the bedrooms (everyone can help smoothing, it goes fairly quickly that way).
The dwarves will like the increase in room quality as well.

If you do have metals, building the floor out of metal bars significantly increases the room value (especially with good quality engravings), silver or gold can also be used to make a few high quality statues if you have a worker that is skilled.

[Saucylot]

Originally posted by TPark:

Do you have anyone assigned to the Broker position?

I have set someone up for that position after I figured that I needed one.

Originally posted by Fel:

You do need a broker but furnitures from normal stone is not going to help anyway.
You also want to avoid having tables+chairs in places other than libraries and places meant for eating.

If you don't have skilled workers (to make masterwork stuff) and/or a metal industry (metal is much more valuable than basic stone or wood), you can make-do with stone.
Specifically, make stone blocks to build the floor and walls of your room instead of leaving it as natural stone, then engrave them.

You might want to select a single (or a couple) dwarf as an engraver and set it to "only selected do this" to have more chances of getting good engravings done (since the quality changes the value quite a bit).
If the room is not needed right now, letting the engraver level up its skill by engraving all of the bedrooms (everyone can help smoothing, it goes fairly quickly that way).
The dwarves will like the increase in room quality as well.

If you do have metals, building the floor out of metal bars significantly increases the room value (especially with good quality engravings), silver or gold can also be used to make a few high quality statues if you have a worker that is skilled.

Oh! Thanks for these tips, I've only started playing the past week so still learning

[AlP]

You have one year to finish the guildhall after you accept the petition. If you are running out of time, you can simply build a few pedestals and put some cooked roasts on them, they are very expensive. They will eventually rot, so it's not a permanent solution.

[Fel]

Pedestals are definitely a good way for a "quick and dirty" increase in value, you can use one to display an artifact or two (something you usually start getting relatively early on and that has very little uses in most cases anyway).

[TPark]

Also, you can make the room bigger. Every tile counts, so the bigger the room the more value. Plus more space to put additional modestly valuable items (if you don't have a metal industry set up yet).

[kathorsees]

Huge thanks for the tips!
One more question about the pedestals: how do I tell from the "assign display item" menu whether an item is already displayed elsewhere? E.g., if I build a new pedestal and assign a gold amulet to it, the dorfs just take it from a different pedestal, leaving it empty.

[FriendCalledFive]

I made one earlier today that is about 15x15, I got that up over 2000 with some furniture.

[kathorsees]

Originally posted by kathorsees:

Huge thanks for the tips!
One more question about the pedestals: how do I tell from the "assign display item" menu whether an item is already displayed elsewhere? E.g., if I build a new pedestal and assign a gold amulet to it, the dorfs just take it from a different pedestal, leaving it empty.

If anyone else is struggling with this, I've found a workaround: once you assign a display item, you can wait for your dorfs to bring it to the pedestal and then forbid them from using/taking away the item by clicking on the lock icon. Still not terribly efficient, but it works!

[Raz]

Originally posted by FriendCalledFive:

I made one earlier today that is about 15x15, I got that up over 2000 with some furniture.

Yee, sometimes just making a room a bit larger will pump up the value as well. They do love their elbow room.

Statue spam is another great way. They have a really high base value just by themselves, even made from the crappiest rock, so if you don't mind a gaudy looking room, it's a cheap way to do it.