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[Patchy]

Give the soldiers a profession to do in their time-off. I don't go out of the way to give them much more than the standard fare any citizen gets. At least not until they do something noteworthy. And I rarely have happiness problems with them. I'd recomend pump operating, and leave a few pumps always turned on in a pump gym.

[Buttery_Mess]

The trouble with furniture is making them see it. Is it a one-time only bonus or something? I can only reliably ensure they get the good thought bonus from their bedroom. However, masterwork hatches in the barracks sounds like a good idea. Happy thoughts from being satisfied at work are great. However, when I give them 'time off' and they run off and do other things, they usually don't seem to pick up the happy-at-work bonus. I suddenly realise how clueless I am regarding the thresholds and conditions for happy thoughts.

[Saladman]

I understand "satisfied at work" to only come from working with a material or item that's in their likes list.  So it requires some micro-management to maximize.  Furniture shouldn't be one time only but it is a matter of placing it somewhere they can see it - masterwork statues and expensive traps directly in their path to the barracks is one solution.

Legendary or near bedrooms alone have been sufficient for me so far, even when they're on continuous duty, though I suspect I'm slowing down their training slightly.  I also haven't tested it against a full blown tantrum spiral, so everything mentioned before is probably worth doing also to be sure.

It just occurred to me to wonder about integrating a butcher's shop right into or on the open edge of a designated barracks, so recruits would get to watch all your livestock being slaughtered, then the butcher's could feed back into the normal kitchen and tanning industry on the other side.  As a way to toughen them up prior to the real losses of battle.  I'd have to change my layout to do it, but that's just dwarfy enough I think it's worth the constructed walls to do it.  A stopgap would be move orders to the butcher's when you have animals queued for slaughter.

[lanceleoghauni]

I make sure they don't tantrum by making sure each has their own room...

Inside a coffin. Soldiers are of little use to me. Markswdwarves are about the only ones I care about, and they're low maintenance in the morale department.

[Corneria]

If you use cage-traps, move all your prisoners to a room a few z-levels above your barracks, and set up a water blood and guts fall. It gets them to the "Doesn't really care about anything anymore" pretty quickly if you have a decent amount of cage-traps and hostiles.

A++