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[AWellTrainedFerret]

Has anyone ever done SCIENCE on whether of not certain personality traits affect the frequency of demands/mandates nobles make?

I ask because I seem to have come across a curious thing that has never happened before in all my years of playing: I have a marksdwarf who has been my mayor for the past 12 years and he has yet to make a single noble declaration.

[Lielac]

Does he have any item preferences? In the current version, nobles only make mandates about items they have a preference for. Thus, a mayor/baron/duke/count that doesn't have a specific liking for any items will happily go about their lives without a desire in the world.

[AWellTrainedFerret]

Plenty. I don't think I've ever seen a dorf without at least 5 item preferences

[Sutremaine]

I can normally find one non-mandating dwarf by the time baron appointment time rolls round*. What does the marksdwarf in question like?

Edit: *For me this is much earlier than the mayoral elections.

[AWellTrainedFerret]

Hrrm....I think I see what it is. I only glanced at his preferences, not really too closely.

"rock salt, pig iron, opal, kapok wood, cavy leather, toad tooth (wut? toads have teeth?), giant brown recluse spider silk, gems, alligator snapping turtles, giant brown recluse spider cheese (again...wut?), pig cheese, mead, and whip vine flour"

I guess it is possible for someone to actually not like are particular item.

[Lielac]

Hrrm....I think I see what it is. I only glanced at his preferences, not really too closely.

"rock salt, pig iron, opal, kapok wood, cavy leather, toad tooth (wut? toads have teeth?), giant brown recluse spider silk, gems, alligator snapping turtles, giant brown recluse spider cheese (again...wut?), pig cheese, mead, and whip vine flour"

I guess it is possible for someone to actually not like are particular item.

Eyup. I've seen it lots. It's not common, but it's not rare either.

[Larix]

A noble _with_ an item preference may be easier to keep happy, since having production mandates fulfilled is a very significant happiness bonus for nobles, who may get relatively little happiness from their holdings and can receive unhappiness from "demands" (asking for an item from a specific material in their rooms - it's not a mandate, no-one gets punished for it, but the noble will get unhappy when it's not fulfilled, which may be difficult in the case of, say, bronze beds).

As long as it's something that's easy to order and where it doesn't matter much if you have an excess of these items in stock, a preference doesn't really hurt. I like nobles with a preference for coins or common types of weapons - coins cost one metal bar per "item" and aren't good trade goods anyway. If you don't want to stock them somewhere, you can always melt them down, since fortress-minted coins never have quality. Metal weapons can also be melted to either recover most metal invested or even turn a slight profit. Masterworks can be used by the military or installed in weapon traps.

[jcochran]

Hrrm....I think I see what it is. I only glanced at his preferences, not really too closely.

"rock salt, pig iron, opal, kapok wood, cavy leather, toad tooth (wut? toads have teeth?), giant brown recluse spider silk, gems, alligator snapping turtles, giant brown recluse spider cheese (again...wut?), pig cheese, mead, and whip vine flour"

I guess it is possible for someone to actually not like are particular item.

An almost ideal dwarf..... Although I'd be a tad worried about him at some point mandating some "large gems" to be cut. But overall, an almost ideal baron candidate or mayor.....

[VerdantSF]

I've had a non-mandating dwarf before.  Unfortunately, the rest of the fort kept voting in someone else all the time until I just gave up and stuck with the dwarf with mandates.

[Sutremaine]

Gems and large gems are different things, for preferences.

[AWellTrainedFerret]

This brings up the question...at what point do nobles starts asking for items of a specific material. This particular marksdorf would be ideal...except I have never seen a Giant Brown Recluse. At what level of "nobility" will he start mandating items made form that?

[Larix]

It's not dependent on nobility but on game version. Production mandates for materials have been taken out of the more recent versions, so in .34.11, you'll _never_ see a material mandate. Materials can come up in demands, but for mandates, only item preferences matter.

[Splint]

This brings up the question...at what point do nobles starts asking for items of a specific material. This particular marksdorf would be ideal...except I have never seen a Giant Brown Recluse. At what level of "nobility" will he start mandating items made form that?

Seems to vary with more self-indulgent personalities making more frequent mandates and export bans, though that may just be a fluke on my end. Some dwarves will mandate things essentially the second they're the new mayor or what have you and keep pumping out mandates, others won't bother you about anything for ages, especially if they have friends, good food and booze they like, and pets to keep their spirits up while they have poor accommodations (most of the time mayoral elections happen without me noticing and I only become aware of the mayor's presence/change when they mandate something.)

And giant brown recluses are big spiders. You'll rarely ever see them even in savage areas, and even if he could make material mandates it'd be for the silk, not the spiders themselves (but I'm sure you knew that already )

[SixOfSpades]

I've had a non-mandating dwarf before.  Unfortunately, the rest of the fort kept voting in someone else all the time until I just gave up and stuck with the dwarf with mandates.

Mayoral status is a direct result of social skills. Take your non-mandater and burrow him/her in your main meeting area (with plenty of food/booze & a bed, of course) with no active labors, and let those social skills accumulate. Meanwhile, take everyone more likely to be voted mayor, and assign them to an eternity of Pump Operating, in remote, abandoned chambers where no one ever goes.

[VerdantSF]

Good plan, thanks!  I'm fine with the current rock quern-crazy mayor, but when she passes on, I'll implement this .