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[JimboM12]

 My last fort has just failed miserably after a flying snake with deadly dust blew half of my military force off of the entry bridge into a moat where 2 squads of gobbos lay in ambush. Cue a mad rush of workers up 14z of stairs to claim the bods and possessions, only to get dusted in the face. After a frantic burrow order and a very lucky ballista barrage, I went from 120~ or so dwarves down to 50 angry tantrum throwing psychopaths locked in a 10x10 metal box (a shelter with food and alcohol i built intending it to be a lever control room). I imagine I'll have 20 or so left (if any) after the fighting stops, and I can rebuild.



While the first half was just DF being DF, its the aftermath that I'm worried about. I would like to harden immigrants (the survivors "dont care about anything anymore."), so that if this kinda stuff happens I can rebuild quicker and have a more stable population to draw recruits from. Right now I'm settling on the idea of butchering cattle in the meeting room from now on. Any ideas are welcome, the more cruel and unusual, the better!

[wierd]

There are a couple of methods one could use to accomplish this.

The mainstay is the puppy fountain.

Essentially, you create a shaft that rises up 9z or so directly above the meeting hall, which leads to a tiny room with an open pit which is the "top" of said shaft.  It has 1 tile of floor adjacent to the hole, and is completely walled in.  On that tile, you place a male and a female dog.

Overcrowding, and pupsplosions take care of the rest. As the puppies are born, they can't leave the 1x1 tile of floor, and overcrowding starts, leading to puppies and dogs attacking each other, and eventually, random dodges, which makes them fall down the pit.  With a fall of that great a distance, they explode into gore when they hit the floor.  Make sure dwarves can't stand on the big red X, but can still witness the relentless attrocity.

Another method bears the risks of making a dwarf insane, but is targeted.

Train lots and lots of hunting dogs, and assign them to the target dwarf. Carefully observe the happiness of this dwarf, and whenever he/she becomes exctatic, kill one of the dogs assigned to him. This is the same as suffering a tradgic loss, but without the network of friends to contend with. Leaving the pets to rot further enhances the insanity inducing effect.... so be careful to only massacre one doggy at a time, and only after Urist McHeartless returns to being exctatic.  When he reaches the "doesn't care about anything anymore" trait, he should become locked in at "fine", and be immune.

The first is passive, and treats the whole fortress, while the latter is active, and works on targeted dwarves.

[Tirion]

Does the first even work? I doubt they'd get the "He has witnessed death" thought from seeing a Stray Puppy (Tame) explode into gibs, that's for seeing dwarves die.

[Girlinhat]

Does the first even work? I doubt they'd get the "He has witnessed death" thought from seeing a Stray Puppy (Tame) explode into gibs, that's for seeing dwarves die.

It seems to work.

The real thing for hardening, is that they seem to harden more depending on their amount of unhappy thoughts, and their combat experience.  Baby fountains usually work best, as they create larger unhappy thoughts, and can be combined with a mist generator to offset it.  You'll also sometimes see danger room dwarves not caring anymore, and perfectly functional, unhurt dwarves who kill a whole ambush will become hardened as well.  Extremely rarely, you'll see peasants without a bed or booze achieve it, because their life is shit.

Probably the best way?  Make a dining hall, let them throw a party.  When everyone is gathered, toss a child down.  This can be accomplished creatively with bedrooms, burrows, and water (which makes mist!).  Alternatively, an adult can be more easily ordered to pull a suicide lever.

Although honestly?  My favorite method BY FAR is exhibition executions.  Collect goblins in cages, put them in a room.  Do a burrow designation to keep the civilians within eyesight of the room.  Station military inside.  Open cages.  Can be altered to put the civilians in direct danger and/or let the goblins keep their weapons, which can help cull some of the peasants and increase the Fun.

[Di]

Well, given the birthrates in DF, one could always try to replace puppies with children. Yes, that's most likely to work.

Also, to harden selected individuals you could have them injured seriously, the forthcoming treatment and the pleasures of being cared of will cancel out any unhappiness caused by injures. Though there's risk of crippling them beyond recovery so methods of damaging should be chosen with care. I could recommend giant zombie insects like moths and grasshoppers those don't have any attacks besides wrestling and prefer to break every joint before going for chokehold, so if dwarf with a hammer for example arrives a few moments after the fight begun there's only a small possibility of casualties. I've had my militia commander go from fresh and shiny to "doesn't care about anything" in a few ticks.

[CriticallyAshamed]

Baby fountains usually work best, as they create larger unhappy thoughts, and can be combined with a mist generator to offset it.  You'll also sometimes see danger room dwarves not caring anymore, and perfectly functional, unhurt dwarves who kill a whole ambush will become hardened as well.  Extremely rarely, you'll see peasants without a bed or booze achieve it, because their life is shit.

Probably the best way?  Make a dining hall, let them throw a party.  When everyone is gathered, toss a child down.  This can be accomplished creatively with bedrooms, burrows, and water (which makes mist!).  Alternatively, an adult can be more easily ordered to pull a suicide lever.

Although honestly?  My favorite method BY FAR is exhibition executions.  Collect goblins in cages, put them in a room.  Do a burrow designation to keep the civilians within eyesight of the room.  Station military inside.  Open cages.  Can be altered to put the civilians in direct danger and/or let the goblins keep their weapons, which can help cull some of the peasants and increase the Fun.

Your mind horrifies me. Mainly the image of a mist-generator coupled with a babyfall. The mist would become a nice pink tint I'd imagine. The fact that peasants can become apathetic to their shitty life is pretty cool though. Wonder if we'll ever get a model of "bogan" dwarves in the lower socioeconomic group. I can already imagine the "Dwarven Houso's".

On that note, if you're into slaughtering sentients (like most of the less stable people here, then you can make your dwarves get exposed to constant slaughter and that'll depress them till they are emotionless. Requires modding though.

[wierd]

........

Now I wonder about friendly sentients.  Some don't need to eat, only drink.

Make the hole be a well, and put shallow water in the meeting hall for the mist generator, such that the bucket for said well goes to that water. This will conveniently keep dwarves out of the deadfall zone, and overpopulating friendly sentients stuck in the room of reproductive horrors will still fall down the well when dodging, and still be able to get water to drink.

A long enough fall, and they will still gibb even though they land in water.

Now, which kind of friendly sentient to use? I am thinking something like tigermen, or other "carnivorous" sentient, since they currently don't need food.

[Di]

Sentients do need both food and drink. And they do not know how to use a well.
Without modding the only options are tigermen and gremlins which are rare and extremely rare respectively. I've only seen tigermen  once in decade in my fort due to copious amounts of all those sponsorship animals.
So sentient dropper could be a manifestation of prosperity in long-lived fort, but young ones will have to stick to children unless they're extremely lucky.

[Mr S]

Truly amazing how only a truly oppulent fortress can afford to drop tiger headed monsters, but dropping your own children is par for the course.