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[Urist McRas]

I need to choose a dwarf to promote and it looks like a difficult thing to do. I had nobles, including monarch, in my previous forts, but I chose them absent-mindedly. Now it's time to select one carefully and I'd like to have your help.

So, two questions:
1) What is the best noble? Shall I try to find one without preferences? Maybe I need some traits and attributes? Anything else?
2) How do I find a best fit? Searching through a hundred dwarfs looks like a hell. Maybe there is an external program like Therapist to help me?

[itg]

Choosing a dwarf with no item preferences certainly makes your life a bit easier, but I think it's more fun just to pick a dwarf who deserves it. After all, if you're dead set against getting mandates, you could just as easily refuse to become a barony.

[Lielac]

I need to choose a dwarf to promote and it looks like a difficult thing to do. I had nobles, including monarch, in my previous forts, but I chose them absent-mindedly. Now it's time to select one carefully and I'd like to have your help.

So, two questions:
1) What is the best noble? Shall I try to find one without preferences? Maybe I need some traits and attributes? Anything else?
2) How do I find a best fit? Searching through a hundred dwarfs looks like a hell. Maybe there is an external program like Therapist to help me?

1. I always go for the dwarf without item preferences. No mandates, WOO!
2. The Therapist that comes with PeridexisErrant's LNP shows item and material preferences.

[Sutremaine]

2. You can hover over a dwarf's name in DT to see what their preferences are. I have a custom role which checks for preferences for every item, but usually I hover over the names in turn and pick the first dwarf who doesn't have preferences and isn't a miner or military or some other distracting profession.

[hiroshi42]

I tend to have a short list of who has good preferences, usually armor, weapons or ammo.  Since I make tons of those anyway in my quest to get every dwarf I can have a useful mood, mandates don't bother me.  It also helps to cross reference that list with the list of expendables (assuming that is not just the fort census) since sometimes unfortunate things happen to nobles.  If you are already at the choose your baron screen, then as Sutremain said dwarf therapist can help.

[Larix]

I generally go for a dwarf who i find deserves it, be it for making a remarkable artefact, for fighting off an early threat or generally catching my attention. Most of my nobles are members of the embark team or first-year migrants, and quite often they're heads of numerous families - nothing like the matriarch or patriarch of a dynasty as head of the fort. I make a generic sanity check to ensure the preferences aren't _too_ annoying, but of late tend to prefer a dwarf with interesting/useful/harmless preferences over one with none.

And sometimes i get blindsided by an early offer and just pick a dwarf at random. Having a noble who keeps banning the export of our ever-growing heap of XmittenXs takes some adjusting to, but is easy enough to handle once you get the hang of it.

[Wumpi]

My last semi-long fort (20 years) I had one of the initial dwarves be a military commander. After about 3-4 years and over 100 kills in battle, I let her retire in comfort as the Baroness. It felt kind of like slaying part of my own army, since she trained half of the army herself, and was legendary in all the relevant fighting skills. I found later that even during terrible mishaps (forgotten beast overflow) she was able to not only survive but deal some crazy damage for an unarmed noble. Short: I like to choose someone who is already distinguished and has earned their place as baron.

[NAV]

I usually chose one of the original 7 to make Baron. Or an army veteran who's too injured to fight. Or a dwarf who made a really awesome artifact. Barons can still do menial labour in this version, so just choose whoever deserves it the most.

[SixOfSpades]

I do not complete the embark until I get a dwarf that I would be proud to have as baron. (S)He must have a cool name, generally good stats, item preferences that are either useful or nonexistent, and a generally nice and sociable demeanor. During embark, I give them 1 rank in each of the 10 social skills, to ensure that they will be the expedition leader, and very likely mayor later on. After embark, I give them either a job that doesn't get used that often (like weaponsmithing), leaving them more time to socialize & hold on to their rank as mayor, or Mining, to ease their way into becoming a god of the battlefield.

I don't choose barons . . . I make them.

[Matoro]

I choose baron completely randomly to honor the 40d days. Usually I get annoying idiots as a barons, but isn't that the point of nobles?

[Ravendarksky]

I like to make barons in the true style of nobles.

Usually I pick a child who is going to be spoiled from birth (Usually the first child born in my fort). I give them solid golden rooms. the finest foods and clothes and make sure they spend most of their time having parties and hanging around the dining area/statue garden. It gives me a reason to actually hunt out gems for encrusting their furniture as well as a reason to trade to get the materials they like.

I want them to grow up spoiled, ignorant to the needs of the common dwarfs and entirely expecting their every demand to be met... They are a noble after all!

On the plus side they usually end up with really high social skills so no one tries to steal their position (I use them for most noble positions)

[Boltgun]

I close my eyes, press down, enter.

What.

[Drecon]

I usually try to think of a story reason to make someone a baron. I used to choose all nobles completely at random, but I figured DF is so much more fun if you have a story to it. It just makes everything that happens more interesting.

[doublestrafe]

First I go through and find a dwarf that has no item preferences, and make them baron. Then I cheat like hell and give them massive useless social skills so they're guaranteed to get elected mayor, too. Because seriously, screw mandates.

[smjjames]

I just don't choose a baron because of the bug where the baron doesn't get replaced if your baron dies or you can't replace the baron if that happens. Also I think the liaison stops coming?