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[+!!scientist!!+]

It seems to me that the subject of an engraving is entirely dependent on the quality. Low and no quaility engravings ALWAYS (In my experience) produce a generic engraving of a shape, symbol or entity. High quality produce more complex situations (An engraving of a dwarf surrounded by dwarves. The dwarves are laughing.) or portray historical events.

Tested that idea. Embarked with one engraver and 6 miners (no engraving skill). Mined out 2 rooms, and then walled in the engraver with some food and booze into one of the rooms. Had one room smoothed and engraved by the single skilled guy, whereas the other room was smoothed and engraved by a team of 6 noobs. At the end, the engraver was "talented" whereas the miners were only "dabbling" engravers.

Single Talented Engraver:
12% Civilization symbol
10% Local symbol
44% History
27% Engraver's preferences or random shapes/items/creatures/plants/etc.
2% Local historical figure (the expedition leader) surrounded by things he likes or hates
5% Artifacts (necromancer books!)

Team of dabbling engravers:
17% Civilization symbol
18% Local symbol
65% Engraver's preferences or random shapes/items/creatures/plants/etc.

Hmm... Looks like truth. If you want a higher chance of history records, use the most skilled engraver. I don't have access to a legendary engraver to see what that produces.

Its interesting that you don't get "founding of the fort" engravings in the first season of the fort. Perhaps it has to become last year's news before it gets engravable?

(sorry for the long quote)

I think that actually skill of the engraver is less important than the quality of the engraving. In other words a normal engraving, even when created by a proficient engraver, is far more likely to be the symbol of a civilization than a *superior* quality engraveing made by an adequete engraver.

I'll test this by making lots of engravings with differant skill level dwarves and find percentages first according to engraver skill and then according to engraving quality, then I'll post the results.

[SixOfSpades]

More suggestion than science from me . . .

Request for future versions: Players should have the option to nudge the stoneworker in a particular direction. After a square of wall/floor is designated to be engraved, you can "q" over it and, in addition to the options to suspend/cancel, you also have the option to select a desired depiction.
The menu of what options may be designated expands in relation to the highest level of nobility currently leading the fort. e.g. an expedition leader can select "food," a count can say "cheese," and a king can name the specific dwarf depicted devouring the cheese.
The skill of the Engraver used will influence the odds of the engraving actually being what the boss asked for.

[+!!scientist!!+]

first results.

dwarves with  no skill in engraving apperantly can't make anything other than normal engravings so the types of engraving by both skill and quality will be the same.

out of 100 engravings:

24 civilization symbols

15 government symbols

4 dieties

57 random shapes and creatures (dwarves were most common)

Random side notes: I was amused by the civilization symbol being a superior image of a dwarf, this caused there to be many average renditions of a superior image of a dwarf. also the god of weather is a honey bee worker.

[usgreth]

I am not sure about there being equal chances among artifacts being engraved. In one world I had 2 major forts, the first with about 20 artifacts and the 2nd with about 30. The second forts engravings on artifacts seemed very heavily weighted towards, a raw adamantine trumpet, and an adamantine bed, both constructed in the first fortress (and very likely to have been that forts most expensive artifacts). I had several engravers, so am not sure if it was the same dorf carving the pictures obsessively or if they were all doing it

[Gizogin]

Good !!SCIENCE!! all around.

What about creation of masterwork items?  I know you can get engravings of those; it'd be interesting to see how they compare to, say, engravings of artifacts.

[mikelon]

Try and traumatize your dwarfsas much as possible, like putting them into a glass cubicleoutside, then starting the world on fire.

They should be engraving ghastly scenes in your fort, if not that "The dwarf is in a fetal position"

[NW_Kohaku]

Did you try searching for previous science on this subject?

I did some a while back.  It was in 40d, but there is no reason to believe anything changed.

The science was on personality, specifically, and there was found to be no correlation between personality and what is engraved.  The only difference is that a minimum skill level is required before history could be engraved.