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[kelid190]

… and I really want this particular pair to have children.

I've read other marriage and pregnancy threads here, and stuff on the forum, and I still have questions.  But I might have missed some things.

This is in DF 43.05.

The details:

It’s been almost 40 years in the fortress with just the original 7 settlers. The pair got together fairly early on through normal socialization. They were among the dwarves I gave few duties to, in hopes I’d get some matches.

They’re both “among the first of their kind” (I started the fortress in yr 5). In the vanilla legends XML dump, her birth year is -81, and his is -79, so they should be close enough in age. It’s now year 40, so she’s 121 and he’s 119. Their hair is almost entirely gray now but they both have a tiny bit of color left. But this isn’t supposed to matter for reproduction, and certainly not marriage, right? Maybe?

• her orientation was only “romance-only” for males. I changed her orientation using DFhack to have the only true orientation value be “will marry males”.
• his personality included “rarely feels lust”. I changed this value using DFhack to a higher 30, and then a normal 50.
• I might have missed some personality stuff here, but there’s nothing about hating marriage or relationships in their descriptions.
• She seems to have trouble forming friendships, while he does so very easily. She’s had plenty of time to socialize and, while he’s “friends” with all the other 6 dwarves who live here, plus some visitors, her only friend is a visitor who just passed by once. She never got past “friendly terms” with the other suitor I thought would be appropriate for her. I don’t think it’s due to a difference in socialization opportunity.

It’s been a few years since I made these changes, hanging out in honeymoon type suites, and still just lovers.

I checked their relationship values using the vanilla XML dump on a copy of the world.

• Their “rep_buddy” is 100 (both his reputation with her and her reputation with him.)
• Their “rep_friendly” is 254 (both his rep with her and her rep with him)

I have a theory that the trigger for marriage is a positive change one of these values.  I let the game run for a few more seasons and checked again.  The rep_friendly value went up to 268.  I checked some other relationships, and rep_buddy seems to be 100 if it's set, and pairs with rep_buddy at 100 are usually friends.  The highest rep_friendly value I saw was over 600, and it was for a pair of friends.  Is there any to this? Does anyone know what triggers marriage?  Is there a way to change these relationship values to be lower again? With DFhack maybe? Or even naturally? (Make them have a tiny fight? Not let them see each other at all for a year or two?)

My other theory is that there isn’t hope for this relation because, when it was started, her orientation was “romance-only”, and at that time the relationship was defined for all time not to progress past romance.  Does anyone know if the "romance-only" status of relationships is set when the relationships start, and is unable to be changed?

Finally, what will happen if I just reassign them as spouses using DFhack? (either using gui/gm-editor, or gui/family-affairs)
Any help and info appreciated!

Here's some info about their personalities: http://imgur.com/a/tYa6j.

So to summarize my questions:

• Just tell me how I can get the to get married and have kids? (edit: for me, change their historical orientation values in addition to just changing their local fortress orientation values)
• What triggers the change from 'lover' to 'married'? (edit: still would like to know this)
• Is rep_friendly at all related to marriage? (edit: it doesn't have to be super high, past 600, for marriage to occur, at least.  I would still like to know more.)
• Is it possible for a long-term romance-only relationship to change to marriage after messing with orientation, etc on dfhack? (edit: yes, it happened to me.)
• What will happen if I just reassign them as spouses using DFhack? (either using gui/gm-editor, or gui/family-affairs) (edit: I would still like to know more about this.)

Thanks in advance for any help, I know this topic has come up a lot lately but I guess I still had questions.

(also my first time posting in the forum, sorry if I get anything wrong)

EDIT

Well, I thought I'd get more in-depth advice here now that my forum account has finally been approved, but by following advice from the reddit forum(https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/6vlmlx/theyve_been_lovers_for_a_long_time_but_arent/dm3ojrt/), I just got this to work!  I wouldn't mind more info about marriage if someone wants to reply, but this issue is solved as is.

Historical orientation values are apparently stored separately from local fortress-mode orientation values. For historical unit version, I changed them with "gui/gm-editor df.historical_figure.find(unit.hist_figure_id)" - where "unit.hist_figure_id" is the number shown when looking at a unit with the gui/gm-editor command.

They married moments after I changed the hist fig orientation. Their rep_buddy after marrying is still 100, and their rep_friendly after marrying is still 268.

I tried again, from the same save, letting the game run for a few months without changing hist fig orientation. They didn’t marry. After a few months I changed their hist fig orientation again and they married in 1 day.
So, I think I just needed to change the hist fig orientation too!

[PatrikLundell]

I haven't actually changed orientations, so I don't know if you need to change both the unit and the hist fig value. Your experience indicates both are needed.

I don't know the threshold or even which field DF uses to determine when to marry, but I'd expect lover/marriage would use a field different from the normal relations one, and that it might be two different field (but probably one). My experience is that it will happen with a properly set up pre nuptial suite if the candidates fulfill the requirements, have suitable sexual orientation, at least one of them has a (non grudge) social relation to the other one, and they don't have personality traits that blocks progress.

Friendship probably decays over time if not refreshed. I've seen a character dropping the friendship level a notch in relation to a dead character, and it could be that the current random socialization isn't enough to overcome the decay, in which case it would partially explain why dorfs beyond the first 7 are so bad at making relations (but still doesn't explain that the one relation the DO have is with a random visitor).

[kelid190]

I had another pair I wanted to have children, but it turns out their personalities are a problem.  They don't want to become more then "on friendly terms".  The 3rd pair married very quickly (they were already friends before I sent them away for alone time.)

One interesting/useful thing that happened with all that time spent in the courtship suite not marrying was that they gained a lot of social skills.

She now has "a shockingly profound feel for social relationships" and "an absolutely remarkable sens of others' emotions" and he has "an absolutely remarkable sense of others' emotions" and "a great feel for social relationships" and they didn't start out that way.  Also both are now Legendary speakers and Legendary in skill at reciting that one poem which I think is the only thing either of them know.  (The courtship suite was a tavern, not just a meeting area.)

[Fleeting Frames]

Hm, so you can raise attributes that way, good to know. Care to post the screenshots of those two who don't want to become more than friends?

[PatrikLundell]

I agree the social skill bonus is interesting info. Thanks for that!