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[Skorpion]

My fort has another problem. The necromancer is walled in from before he started reanimating things, but now people are falling into depression. USEFUL people. Like the only dwarf with medical skills, and the smith.

How do I stop the depression? They have booze, food, a tavern, legendary dining room, variety of food and booze, mugs, multiple non-specific temples, and no ghosts. There's no vast amount of death in the fortress, either.
The temples got set up fairly late, as did the tavern. There's a parade of adventurer types coming through to murder cave wildlife, though, so that may be a problem. Especially with the corpses being hauled around for butchering.

What am I doing wrong? Do they not like being given tasks to do on repeat now, without taking breaks for meals or booze or sleep?

[LuuBluum]

Did you check their thoughts and current status? What are their current unmet needs and sources of negative thoughts?

[axemangeorge]

First, the basics:
- Every dwarf needs their own bedroom (dormitories don't cut it)
- Make some rock mugs or metal goblets (they get annoyed drinking out of the barrel)
- If you have a BUNCH of outside plant gathering, hauling or hunting, a lot of them hate getting rained on -- the sun's too bright, it makes them puke etc.

Got those bases covered? Then we move on to two extremely helpful things, one easy and one hard:

1. Temples - at the very least, a single "no deity specified" temple can go a long way in staving off depression.

2. Mist generator (or waterfall) - this is the closest thing I've ever seen to dwarven antidepressants. Those filthy little bastards LOVE them some mist! Here's a guide:
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Mist

In the olden days (v. 47.xx), I used to dig a channel from a brook or river into my fort, let it plummet beside (or right through the middle of) the main staircase, then a couple levels below that, dig a drainage tunnel to the edge of the map. For some reason, water + fortifications + edge of map = infinite drainage. I'm NOT sure that'll work in v. 50.xx -- I've seen people use entire cavern levels for drainage...

Couple other things:

3. Once you have that main non-denominational temple, you're VERY likely going to need temples for each specific deity your crew prays to.

4. Do you have a tavern? If YES, do you have performers in the tavern? A dancer, singer and musician + instrument = lots of good thoughts. I've never used bartenders in my taverns, though -- read too many horror stories of death by alcohol poisoning (apparently, possible even for dwarfs!)

5. MAYBE your dwarfs are overworked? I picked up this tip from Kruggsmash -- once a year, for like 4-5 weeks, turn off ALL labors and restrict everyone to the bedrooms/meeting areas/tavern/dining room levels. It forces them to take it easy, socialize, pray, just generally chillax.

[anewaname]

LuuBluum's post is the first step... assess a few of the dwarfs and see what they are mutually upset about.

Axemangeorge's post is the second step... taking actions to improve the fort overall and taking actions for individual dwarfs. The "shut down everything" thing is effective... lock the front gate, forbid the workshops, and let them relax for a month.

One common need is to "be extravagant"; make a pile of new cloaks (or one other type of clothing, so every dwarf can get a new one) and some crafts (you'll need to make a crafts stockpile so the dwarfs can claim the items they like while they are hauling).

Having some books in a library is important too for some dwarfs. Military training is important for others.

[Skorpion]

Okay, so basically the answer is 'learn basic game mechanics'?
And apparently that constant work makes them depressed rather than giving them enough happy thoughts from completing tasks that it drowns out everything else.

I guess mist generators are going to have to be a thing in future. Just having artifact furniture on display isn't enough.

[crazyabe]

I find the easiest way to starve off dwarven depression is to induct half the population into military training on a monthly basis, even basic wrestling quickly compounds and gives them vast amounts of positive thoughts for "improving a skill" "sparing" or "teaching a skill" all of which ALSO contribute to their "needs", "basic training" covers their needs for "practicing a martial art", Sparing covers "doing something exciting", "practicing a martial art", "fighting" and "causing trouble", and "teaching a skill" covers "helping somebody"- furthermore all of them have the potential to contribute to "learning something" and "practicing a skill"- which means in the following month the half the fortress not training will learn their regular skills and tasks better because they will be less distracted.

[Skorpion]

That makes sense. Hopefully that'll mean I can get them to wear cheap armour all the time, too. Maybe not weaponry, though.