Hi!
I like the suggestion for improving the dwarven family, and I agree that childhood for dwarves may be longer than 12 years, although 12 years is also fine with me. But under no circumstances would I like to see it shortened. This reminds me of some tall tales or something where the guy is born already having a club in hand and slaughters the invincible army at a tender 0 years of age. No, that's not something I would like to see.
I agree that sparring dummies should be inferior to real sparring. Because that is simply the way it is. The dummies don't dodge, they don't counter-attack, hell, they do not even attack! There are a lot of situations you can't practice with dummies and the practice with them is much more single-pattern than actually having a sparring partner.
I don't think that there need be a chance to get injured when using a dummy, though. Dwarves may not be the brightest things around, rivalling lemmings in many regards, but they can do some basic movement. Have dummies as half efficient as regular sparring and require wood in their making, and the balance should be fine in my opinion.
About Social housing, I have to agree that it would be nice if we could separate military barracks from civilian social housing. I tend to have some barracks right behind my main entrance so I can easily half a standby force there should anything try to get in. But it would be rather cruel to have a poor family that can't afford a proper room be forced to rest in such a dangerous location.
I also think that, when you have the economy, it would be nice if you could gain some control about the overall poverty. Maybe linked to nobles, being able to set the rent for individual flats or change the income of specific dwarves would be nice. For instance, if you have a family with a child, you could give them a higher wage in order to support them.
Permanent farm plots would be a nice feature. It would also work very well with the plague system I described above
Extended diplomatic options would of course also be cool, though they may be difficult to implement. With a certain noble (probably in the broker vein), you could get the option to create diplomatic caravans. You would need at least one mule and one dwarf (who is designated as diplomat) and you can send them to any civilisation you have been in contact thus far. You can send offerings with that caravan and make a general request (like having a better trade representative sent with the next caravan than you would usually get or get a peace treaty). Success or failure of the mission will, of course, be based on many factors within and without your control
Deathworks
Edit: P.S.: I just remembered the other thing I wanted to suggest: Have wooden and bone bolts (along with wooden and bone arrows) be made at the bowyer's workshop rather than the craftdwarf. This would greatly help justify the existance of the bowyer's workshop and wouldn't really hurt the craftdwarf. And it would make sense in my opinion to have these tasks linked.
[ August 04, 2007: Message edited by: Deathworks ]