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[jeffreyac]

Have a question about dying dwarfs....  (or dwarves...  anyway....)

Had two issues in my fortress where a dwarf has just dropped dead - one I got a message that he was suffocating, then died, while sitting in the dining hall. No fighting, no other notices or reports, nhothing to indicate what happened.

The second happened in the middle of a group - the only message was :Dwarfy McDwarf Metalsmith Has Been Struck Down". He's a hauler in a line of haulers moving rock out of a mined out area - no fighting, no beasts, nothing but pets and dwarfs around him, and no other messages.

What gives? Can dwarfs die of old age? (I kinda doubt this, as it's only around 5 years game time played in my fortress, if I'm counting correctly...)  In both cases:

1) No hostile creatures even showed on the map (under the 'unit' list) and certainly none near their locations, deep in the safe confines of the heart of my fortress. No fighting reports were issued for the dwarves in question.
2) I have not been visited by any FB's, so no chance for syndromes to spread.

On the not so random one...  missed a mandate from my mayor, on creating lay pewter items ( I had no lay pewter, and no chance to get any before the mandate expired...)  Evidently the mayor decided one of my dwarves was at fault for this, and had one of my recruits rough him up. The recruit in question had a steel spear....     dead dwarf. How do I prevent this? I've heard folks talking about the sheriff position - I've never assigned one before, so have no experience, but I gather you can give the sheriff training weapons to prevent this sort of thing? Also, I'm not sure I can assign one - my baroness comitted suicide (failed mandate again, thanks pewter!) and now I have no baroness and no opion on the nobles screen to appoint a sheriff. Is there another way?

[Telgin]

First one: pretty sure dwarves don't randomly choke, so that is pretty mysterious.  Same with the second one.  Did you check the combat logs?  Strange stuff can happen fast.

The closest thing I've had happen to the first one is I had a goat randomly suffocate once, but that was because it got in a fight with another goat from being penned up too tightly.  This is actually plausible, I'm all but positive I've seen a dwarf get injured by an animal randomly inside my fort, although they weren't penned up.  Kind of strange.

As for the sheriff, if you can't appoint a sheriff, I think there is another position that takes his place in smaller forts.  Captain of the Guard I think?

I've never actually done this, but I think you just draw up a new uniform for him with an adamantine blunt weapon or a training weapon.

A better solution I think is to have enough chains or cages such that your dwarves don't get beatings for breaking production mandates.  As far as I know as many will get chained up as possible before any beatings get dished out.  My experience with justice in DF is a bit limited though.

[Sphalerite]

For the random deaths, make sure that your animals aren't overcrowded.  If you have a lot of animals in a small pasture, or a lot of animals and no pastures defined at all, animal overcrowding can cause fighting and deaths.  In my fortresses I don't let any animals wander loose - they're all in an indoor or outdoor pasture, or chained or on cages.

For preventing deaths from justice, make a jail.  Use chains, not cages, and surround each one of them with food and booze stockpiles so the prisoners are less likely to die of thirst or starve.

You can never get another baron after yours died.  Next time, don't appoint a dwarf with impossible to meet preferences as your baron.

[Morgraine, Dwarf Overlord]

i can agree on the overcrowding death issues with sphal, ive had rooms designated specifically for large ammounts of turkeys, and after like 5 or 6 clutches of turkey eggs hatch, alot of the poults die soon after because theres ALOT of turkeys up there, wether it be from fighting, or just consuming so much air that they just choke.

[jeffreyac]

  Yeah, I'm slowly learning that about the nobles and preferences....   Trouble is, I always forget to look carefully and have an idea who has preferences I can live with - and then when it comes time to recommend someone, I never know who to pick, so I end up randomly picking...  (Good time to ask, I guess - Can you escape out of the baron selection screen to look at your dwarves? I've been afraid to do that for fear of losing the chance to appoint a baron....) 

Guess the bottom line is I need to have someone in mind in advance....

As far as the deaths - I suppose animals could be it, as I do have an animal overpopulation problem I'm trying to get a handle on at the moment. Still, I'd think there'd be a combat/fighting report...

[nitus]

There are no random deaths. Something or somebody was beating on somebody to cause those injuries, or somebody got injured in a cavein or something.

There will always be something under reports if it was caused by another creature or dwarf - remember that the report on the main reports screen might not mention the dead dwarf at all; you can expand it with enter and you'll see a list of detailed incidents.
 
If the problem is your Guard Captain beating people up over silly crimes like violating production mandates -- you may be able to notice evidence of this under the Justice tab in z status -- the simplest solution is to just not have a Guard at all. If you want one (I don't see much point in the current version) follow Sphalerite's advice and built a jail so that criminals get jailed instead of beaten.
 
If you have no real use for animals then just slaughter them as they breed. Once it gets out of hand it can cause slowdown and take some time to fix.

[Sphalerite]

(Good time to ask, I guess - Can you escape out of the baron selection screen to look at your dwarves? I've been afraid to do that for fear of losing the chance to appoint a baron....) 

When the liaison asks you if you'd like to become a Barony, tell him you'd rather keep your distance.  He'll leave soon after, skipping the screen where he asks what you'd like them to bring next year.  Next year he'll come back and make the same offer (and keep making it every year as long as you turn him down).  So it's quite safe to turn down the first offer if you haven't picked a good candidate for baron yet.

[Aspgren]

In arena mode I put 20 dwarves against a dragon.

The dragon breathed fire on them and most of them melted before they could fight him. How is this relevant? Because there was NO combat log for the 15 dwarves who melted before reaching the dragon. There wasn't even, at the time, an entry in the dragon combat log for the fire breathed.

 Wether it's a bug or something else ... not all combat actions and the pain related to them get recorded. The guy who suffocated could have been attacked by one of the tame animals (for some reason they always fight. i pasture the children away from their parents because there's been some moorders) and the fight wasnt recorded .. however he suffered a serious injury which lead to respiratory problems and ultimately killed him.

 The one who was "struck down" is trickier though but maybe someone threw a tantrum and chucked something at him? It's impossible to be certain .. and I don't suppose you have any ghosts around?

[Garath]

put newly hatched chicks of any race in a cage. They still mature, they dont cause lag and they dont fight (they fight in a 5x5 room, but not in a 1x1 cage)