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[ibanix]

So my 130+ population fortress has (well, had) two squads of ten soldiers. It's been a challenge keeping them happy - they complain about long patrols, but if I take them off, then they complain about being relieved of duty! Seriously guys, make up your mind.

So I give them palatial quarters, which seems to help, and assign them war dogs, so pets.

The 50-goblins, 20-jabberer, 5 cave-dragon siege which just happened amazingly only killed three of my guys. Horray for full armor, weapons, and steel.

But now I've got unhappy military dwarves from 'witnessed death'.

How do I keep my guys happy? Thanks in advance.

(Note: 0.34.11).

[Astrid]

Pets is a two bladed sword. Once one of those get killed the problem will be larger than before in terms of the owner.

Regards the Soldiers happyness. Well, first as partially done, good livingplace for each of them.
Generally a good equipped meetinghall for them to admire masterful work.
Strangely i handt had much of an issue with their happyness.

You have good food and a good varity of booze added into the mix as well?

[ibanix]

I've got a nice statue garden for them (with light, to avoid cave adaption syndrome); and as wide a variety of food/drink as I can do. Am farming multiple overland crops to get variety.

Is there some way to rotate duty cycles such that they don't get upset about long duty? Two months on / one month off?

[Loci]

Is there some way to rotate duty cycles such that they don't get upset about long duty? Two months on / one month off?

The ever-escalating patrol duty thoughts are caused by an old bug. You can use dfhack's "tweak patrol-duty" as a workaround. 

[Larix]

I've got a nice statue garden for them (with light, to avoid cave adaption syndrome); and as wide a variety of food/drink as I can do. Am farming multiple overland crops to get variety.

Is there some way to rotate duty cycles such that they don't get upset about long duty? Two months on / one month off?

Not in .34.11. "Long patrol duty" unhappiness in that version is bugged - it's caused by any type of military duty and never cools down. If your soldiers have civilian skills, you can take them off duty every third month and order them to perform jobs non-stop. Work satisfaction improves their mood a lot. If they have no (or no useful) civilian skills, _don't_ take them off duty, it'll only make them unhappier. Just let them train all the time until they have "great" or better weapon skills. At that point, they'll become weaponmasters and will no longer suffer long duty unhappiness.

Or dfhack the unhappiness away.

Or upgrade to 0.40.x, where the bug has been fixed and military training is orders of magnitude faster.

As Astrid said, war animals don't help. Dwarfs don't seem to get any happiness from being assigned a war animal, but suffer unhappiness if an assigned animal dies (and they can't be buried properly, so dwarfs tend to get extra "suffered the decay of a pet" unhappiness). Palatial quarters and good food and drink are normally enough to keep .34.11 soldiers stable until they become masters. Meeting halls and dining rooms don't help, because they won't use them while on duty.