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[Slythe]

Maybe this has been discussed before and I just missed it, probably so, but I've never seen it.

Let's say a dwarf has every job enabled, and has equal skill in every labor, and after they finish their current job they see that there's a 'request' for one of every other job possible, and no other dwarf has any labor enabled...what's the order in which that dwarf will fulfill these jobs?  Medical jobs first, workshop jobs second, hauling last?  Something else?  Or is it not ranked at all, maybe just a reverse stack, FIFO?

[NecroRebel]

Unknown. It is known that for construction jobs it's a FILO order, but sometimes dwarves will take construction jobs when there are workshop jobs available and sometimes the opposite is true. Hauling jobs are usually taken first, but sometimes dwarves will take non-hauling jobs when there's hauling for them to do, so that's not an absolute priority, either.

It is believed that for the most part jobs take dwarves, not the other way around, so that might have something to do with it. Jobs might be able to snatch up closer dwarves more easily or some other factor might determine which job gets which dwarf. It's also believed that personality traits affect how readily dwarves will take to each job; this is especially noticeable with medical care jobs, where compassionate and empathic dwarves take those jobs far more quickly than otherwise.

[Slythe]

Interesting, and what I suspected.  Thanks NecroRebel.

[Tharwen]

It's interesting how the game can be so mechanical and predictable in some respects, but many aspects of dorf behaviour are organic and unpredictable.

[talysman]

I'm new to the game and not a programmer, but I'm going to guess that some of the odd behaviors (like which job gets taken first) have to do with instance numbers. I say this based on how much DF reminds me of a violent, fantasy-flavored version of The Sims. In the Sims, there were a number of weird behaviors, like Sims who need to improve Comfort walking all the way across a huge lot to sit down when there's a perfectly good chair right beside them. The reason for the behavior was that the "look for place to sit down" routine was looking for the chair with the lowest instance number. Or maybe it was the highest instance number; either way, the routine wasn't paying attention to the chair's distance, but to something that only made sense internally.

DF is better than the Sims, in this respect, but I remember creating a second 1-tile garbage dump as I dug deeper when expanding a fortress, thinking the dwarves would use the closest dump; instead, they used the newest dump, no matter what the distance. Dig designations, on the other hand, seem to be partially LIFO, partially distance-based. Or maybe I'm just being fooled...

[Myiagros]

I always seem to have lever pulling jobs given to the dwarf that is mining at the lowest level in the complex.

[Sutremaine]

DF is better than the Sims, in this respect, but I remember creating a second 1-tile garbage dump as I dug deeper when expanding a fortress, thinking the dwarves would use the closest dump; instead, they used the newest dump, no matter what the distance.

No, dwarves do always use the closest dump. They decide which is the closest by pure distance, not which one is the quickest to get to.

[quarague]

No, dwarves do always use the closest dump. They decide which is the closest by pure distance, not which one is the quickest to get to.

yes but afaik two minor caveats
1) a dump is only considered if it was designated before the dump order was given. mostly relevant when you pause the game, you still need to first create a new dump and then designate the stuff that should be dumped if you want the dorfs to use the new dump
2) dorfs enjoy dumping that involves throwing things into holes and are willing to walk further for that, mostly occurs if you have a garbage chute dump for goblin cages, suddenly dorfs will dump every single stone in the fortress in the garbage chute, too

[Quietust]

Internally, the game keeps track of jobs using a doubly-linked list, though I haven't checked whether it adds jobs at the beginning of the list or at the end; logically, jobs at the beginning of the list would have the highest priority.

[khearn]

2) dorfs enjoy dumping that involves throwing things into holes and are willing to walk further for that, mostly occurs if you have a garbage chute dump for goblin cages, suddenly dorfs will dump every single stone in the fortress in the garbage chute, too

That's just because they like that "thump!" you get when a rock lands on a goblin head.