I am
keenly interested in dwarf genealogy, and family/bloodline management is focal to my forts. I sort unmarried migrants for profession but also age and bloodline; as children grow to young adults, I note their maturity year, sex, and lineage at the same time I sort them for profession based on preferences. (In fact, I just paused in the middle of that sentence to add a young lady to the "now eligible" pool.) I assiduously arrange marriages and don't have eligible individuals with potential partners single for long. Organically developed romances are celebrated in the fort, of course, considering that it can be difficult for singles to meet and get acquainted in a bustling - often sprawling - settlement, although it can result in some suboptimal pairings. (e.g. In my last fort I had two couples who had no less than six of their children marry each other. It was great that the families were so close, but the next generation who were cousins on both sides had to be managed carefully into as many different other families as possible when the time came, to suit my "broad, strong, bloodlines" objectives.)
The way he described it working was based on "chats", where idle dwarves that are nearby will have those chats. He told me that there was a compatibility calculation that determined if dwarves would form grudges, whether or not they'd ever make friends with another dwarf or just acquiantances, or whether they'd become lovers. He told me that after a certain number of chats a dwarf would decide whether to become a friend or acquiantance, after a few more they'd decide whether to become lovers or not, and after 50 I believe they'd decide if they should get married or wait.
The compatibility calculation got a large bonus if they had a skill in common (Novice or better?), a large bonus if they shared a specific thing they liked (like cats, or whatever), and the base value was based on personality traits. Those bonuses could easily overcome the base compatibility, so even conflicting personalities wouldn't preclude dwarves becoming lovers.
Based on my understanding of it and my observations with DFHack (I believe the strength of the aquintances (sic) array is the chat counter he was talking about), I don't think the number of chats is a literal number of times that they talk with each other. I think it's influenced by social skills and possibly compatibility, and they might gain more than one "chat" per chat. If that theory is correct, that would explain why some dwarves jump from acquaintance to lover directly.
This, plus the quintessential ten-year eligible partner range, is consistent with my observations of organically developed romances or those formed among couples who mingle in group Socialization Chambers. Regarding the "skill in common" part, I observe it with "grouped profession in common": "grey" metalsmiths, "yellow" woodworkers, and so on pair off more often. The strength of acquaintances list you mention is handy to track and probably is related to the "chat counter," and the rapidity of progression from Passing Acquaintance-->Long Term Acquaintance-->Friend-->Lover appears to relate to sociability, probably to profession, and maybe to likes. Except for the fact that antisocial dwarves usually take longer, I can only say empirically that likes/personality may matter a bit especially when opposed, but profession preference shows a distinct trend. I am, however, amused to think that I've been feeling that trend to be pretty dispositive, but that Toady may have coded it to specific skills and I've been making judgments based on coincidence.
Subsequent genealogical management has reaffirmed (for me) all the observations I reported in
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=117274.0 (An experiment in dwarf romance). Here are some of my other observations since then:
- Happiness appears to matter. Dwarfs sealed in socialization chambers without stimulus for happy thoughts form relationships more slowly. (Couples assigned to rough-hewn or grass/moss/dirt chambers with no furniture and boring food/booze take a very long time to get acquainted, although they eventually do. The same goes for cave-adapted individuals assigned to sunlit rooms, people who have a family tragedy while courting, etc.) Once they become friends though, "made a new friend," "talked to a friend," "got caught up in a new romance," etc. make them pretty cheerful and the hit from poor environment or other factors is much less.
- Proximity matters strongly, especially when antisocial dwarves are paired off. I cannot confirm the common statement that only dwarves who share the same tile interact socially (it seems to me that orthogonally/diagonally adjacent individuals build relationships just as well, but I have a fort to run while folks get acquainted and don't watch them constantly). The more closely they're kept, the more often they interact, and the faster things resolve.
My direct matchmaking Socialization Chambers typically now consist of 3X3 rooms, smoothed with at least some engravings, outfitted with bed, statue, table and chair, a 1X2 drink stockpile that I try to keep mixed (sometimes I use temporary dumps to force a booze mix in advance of chamber occupation), and a 1 tile prepared food stockpile that ideally receives a pot containing mixed roasts. Once the future couple is inside (achieved via burrow or station order), I designate bedroom, statue garden, dining room that overlap over the whole chamber and lock the door. Group socialization chambers are no more than 6X3, set up the same way, but with more food and drink storage depending on how many potential pairs I think I'll assign; I don't usually send more than eight (4:4) in, otherwise repeat interactions between eligibles start to become too infrequent.
- Social skills matter at least to some degree, especially with opposed personality traits. Highly social kids who've grown up in the fort are easier to pair off, even if they don't start as friends with their chosen spouse, as do migrants/founders with higher social skills. When strong compatibilities exist, it doesn't make too much of a difference.
Examples: one planned couple included a dwarf who "is incredibly frank and candid in dealings with others" and one who "believes that some deception is necessary in relationships with others;" another paired one who "has a profound understanding of his own feelings" and one who "is mostly unaware of her own emotions and rarely expresses them." The wiki "Personality trait" article lists these as opposite extremes, or close to them, on the same personality trait. After two years in a Socialization Chamber, these couples didn't get past acquaintance. I let those dwarves free, and a few years later they had higher social skills, were the only age-eligible partners for each other, were re-burrowed for socialization, and became friends in 2-3 months, lovers in 5-6 months. - Cousins definitely marry, but the relationship label doesn't change from "cousin" until it goes to "husband/wife." That can (once, in my experience) interfere with planned marriages if a dwarf is already romancing a cousin.
- Except for the cousin case, I've never had a failed arranged marriage, and I've contrived scores over a few forts. The two cases of opposed personality matches that took forever are very much the exception rather than the rule in my experience.
- I no longer study arranged pairs as closely as I used to, but I formerly checked in on the relationship screens of pairs every in-game week to track trends. I personally haven't seen any couples bypass "friends" on the way to "lovers," but the transition has been quite swift among highly sociable dwarves in same-color professions. I'd be very interested in the combination of characteristics involved in any couples that bonded more swiftly yet!
- I don't have much to offer on Grudges. My forts certainly have them, but they've never developed in my Socialization Chambers.
Some related observations to genealogy management are in "Heredity Science"
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=111624.0, "Dwarven Eugenics"
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=125188.msg4181925#msg4181925, and "Fortress-born dwarves & animals are not growing to adult size!"
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=126558.0. I'd love to hear others' insights and experiences on this subject.
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Topic: Some science about dwarven relationships (Read 2303 times)