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[Libash_Thunderhead]

As far as I know, smoothing floors still works. Just let the miners prepare a large enough area for them to vent their stress.
But I need to keep them from the rain, it is very important.

[upsetpanini1337]

First time posting on this forum, so please don't get mad at me if I screw up formatting!

Anyway, I've found that skilled performers (i.e. petitioners with nothing to do but screw around in your tavern) are exceptionally good at keeping your dwarves in good spirits-don't forget downtime, as the good thoughts your dwarves get when performing are quite potent (for instance, the "joy" feeling is actually a stronger happy thought than when the dwarf is inebriated ("euphoric", for reference) and the mere sight of a performance can still give your dwarves a chipper mood.

I've found most of my stress-related issues happen to crop up because I put dwarves to work too much-this, I feel, is a symptom of there being no "on break" status, so dwarves can literally be worked to death-but I wouldn't discount the value of reserve squads, since learning about combat is enough to put any dwarf in a better place (though, if they happen to be tantruming, it'll probably hurt a LOT more).

[NordicNooob]

I find the most effective way to get happy dwarves is one thing: use stockpiles only where necessary.

This may seem like a weird idea, but the extra down time is extremely important for your citizens' happiness. I typically avoid basically any kind of stockpile other than like, food, wood, and sometimes ore. Small feeder stockpiles seem to be okay as well, though I don't normally use them. Most dwarves will retain a fair amount of efficiency while still hauling their own workshop materials, and I barely notice clutter. For more important things, you'll use them before a workshop gets cluttered, and for less important things, the extra clutter is completely fine, since you don't really need to overproduce anyway. I only suffer from clutter with smelters, and that's because I overproduce metal by most standards. For those, just make more smelters and rotate through them, or just deconstruct/reconstruct the smelters every once in a while to clear the items out.

My proof lies in the fact that basically only my smelter operators ever get stressed (minus the ones who get awful personality change, but that's another topic). Everybody knows a good old masterwork spam is good for stress, so skilled laborers don't get stressed working non-stop, but labors with no quality need their down time. My smelters, however, don't get this off time, since I'm almost always smelting ore. I like metal, and often use it in place of stone, but generally don't have the dwarfpower to have a large smelting industry that has more smelter dwarves than it does actual smelters. This results in a decent accumulation of stress, and while it doesn't really drive a normal-personality dwarf insane, quite a few of my smelters have positive stress in any given fort.

Another good treatment for stress is military training. Sitting in the tavern can be quite effective, but some dwarves do get bored from performances. Stress-prone dwarves that get bored are best tossed into the military. As soon as sparring kicks up, they'll get a rapid slew of skill gain thoughts, and gain discipline to boot. I'm told discipline helps with stress somehow, though I haven't really observed much that I'm able to compare discipline/no discipline myself. Bonus points if your entire military trains in a small area: with dozens of sparring sessions going on nearby, dwarves will level their observer skill hilariously fast.

[Gigaz]

These are things which I found helpful:

Have as many different kinds of food and drinks as possible. That should mostly be aboveground plants on very small farms. You need dedicated stockpiles for each plant and a lot of work orders to prevent your food stockpiles from overflowing and your stills from making only plump helmet wine.

Make dwarves fall in love. That involves some dwarf therapist, but you can easily convince two suitable dwarves to get married. Falling in love, getting married and getting children and siblings are all singificant happiness boosts.

Avoid direct combat and cleaning up dead sieges at all costs. Magma is your friend.

A dwarf that injures another in a tantrum should walk directly into the execution chamber. This fortress is a happy place.

[hanni79]

I find the most effective way to get happy dwarves is one thing: use stockpiles only where necessary.

This may seem like a weird idea, but the extra down time is extremely important for your citizens' happiness.

Considering this, it would seem exceptionally helpfull to have a holiday schedule for everyone, kinda like the military schedule. If we were able to define downtimes for everyone, it should be much easier to make sure everyone actually has the time to fulfill their needs.

[Quarque]

If a little modding isn't against your ethics, I found that increasing the PERSONALITY:LOVE_PROPENSITY and PERSONALITY:LUST_PROPENSITY traits is a fun and highly effective way to make your dwarves happier. It also helps a lot when you want to have legacy fort where new dwarves are all born natively, instead of having immigrants.

[Temujin]

So, having dwarves make friends (and lovers) is a very good way to avoid unhappiness.  If you just have a big group of dwarves, they tend to make a lot of aquantances,  rather than friends.   Guilds are really good for this.  I split my dwarves into guilds, set up living areas and squads based on guilds.   I start by allowing everyone to visit every guild when the fortress is small, but when it is large, I make each guild members only.   Sometimes I use burrows to divide my guilds.   You then see more friendships and romantic relationships occur, which lowers unhappiness a lot. I think that dwarves who share skills are more likely to become friends as a well, but I am not sure.

I also tend to build taverns and barracks just below a weak aquifer and bore holes in the ceiling (about 2 z levels up) to allow the occasional waterfall effect to splash my dwarves.   

[2tussock]

Been experimenting with modding a few body things, and so ended up with a bunch of safe open surface forts with 29x29 zones to save a bit of time on stuff.


And the thing is, most of my meeting halls have been really small for a while now to try and force interaction, and the thing is, it does force interaction. Dorfs socialising in small, crowded meeting areas, will spend their time stuck talking to whoever they're next to, which is pretty random, where dorfs in huge open meeting areas will regularly sort themselves into friend groups and choose mutually agreeable activities to take part in, often including happy-inducing dances if you have roughly an 11x11 dance floor (which easily maxes out with a dozen dorfs and often fails with a score or more because of over-crowding).


I noticed they very regularly sort themselves into like-minded groups for a common activity, if there's space for them to do so. Each group tries to walk to an open space in the meeting area big enough for them to be together in, and if there's not enough space, they just stall out and chat to the dorf next to them instead. Dances regularly kicked off if that open space was big enough to be a dance floor for all of them, so multiple large dance floors in the same hall triggered a lot of dancing.


Then I noticed they do the same when praying. Regularly switch to a new group for a prayer together. But, only if they were trying to pray to the same god. And it turned out, each dorf prays to his gods in the order he prefers them in. The least preferred god is always last, and after every interruption they start at the top of the list again, sleep, food, drink, hauling a mug one square to a bag, dropping a dead rat the cat bought them, all of it.


And it's the same in libraries with scholars, training in the barracks, and all sorts, if there's space, and time to get to it, the dorfs in the zone all regularly sort themselves into little clusters and share an activity that they all like, and if there's not space they often get stuck arguing at best and often not really satisfying their own needs. Like, some dorf wants to argue, let him find another one that wants to argue, make them both happy instead of one being sad after.


I'm wondering if this is why people have struggled to get large training groups in barracks and all sorts, the need for enough open space for that group to head toward in the right zone.


It's most obvious with Children, thinking back. They find some spot that's free of other dorfs near the toys, and all end up standing around in a little group playing with those toys, but that's how all of it works! It's just most other groups are being interrupted by a single hauling job, or trying to find a common space in a zone that is over-crowded already, so it often fails. Kids can go anywhere and have no other jobs, so they're almost always in that group doing what they like.

[knutor]

Build 4 kennels. Autotrap /R the fortress, with everyone on Safety Alert, to prevent autotrappers from dying, or wasting time in the caverns.

Do not tame captured vermin, just stuff um all in a terrarium with your bestest kitten. Many dwarfs have vermin hates. Clearing fortress of them will maybe help battle that stress. I do not recommend a loose cats.

[PatrikLundell]

Build 4 kennels. Autotrap /R the fortress, with everyone on Safety Alert, to prevent autotrappers from dying, or wasting time in the caverns.

Do not tame captured vermin, just stuff um all in a terrarium with your bestest kitten. Many dwarfs have vermin hates. Clearing fortress of them will maybe help battle that stress. I do not recommend a loose cats.

Probably completely pointless, as vermin are uncountable, so killing or trapping them does not affect the remaining number.

[muldrake]

So do preferences stack?  I.e. if I have a dwarf with preferences for nickel silver and rubicelle and tables, and give them a nickel silver table studded with rubicelles, are they super happy?

[knutor]

Build 4 kennels. Autotrap /R the fortress, with everyone on Safety Alert, to prevent autotrappers from dying, or wasting time in the caverns.

Do not tame captured vermin, just stuff um all in a terrarium with your bestest kitten. Many dwarfs have vermin hates. Clearing fortress of them will maybe help battle that stress. I do not recommend a loose cats.

Probably completely pointless, as vermin are uncountable, so killing or trapping them does not affect the remaining number.

Probably. But until the uncountable majority find their naughtg little way back into the fort's bedrooms, ths dorfs with vermin hatreds, wong get those bad thoughts. Jumping spiders and hamsters seem to always be high on the combined hatred list.

Just got my 1st ever leopard gecko, doinv this.