Because of all the performing, dwarves don't talk to each other as much any more. This means dwarves don't form relationships as easily, though I have noticed that lovers marry sooner. Are you going to do something to balance this out?
They are supposed to talk to each other during the "Socialize" breaks between performances, which last a while. I'm not sure if they are pulling it off.
They don't, at least not nearly as much as they used to. Rumrusher did an experiment where he locked two goblins in a small room for four years and they only got to long-term acquaintance.
I'm currently trying to get dwarves to become lovers->marry by locking them into a room with food, booze, overlapping bedrooms, a tavern zone, and a temple zone for about one year. The results vary widely:
1. Two fortress born dwarves where one knew the other, but the second one didn't have any relation to the first one: -> Lovers, no marriage.
2, 3, 4: Two fortress born dwarves who did not know each other: No relation established after one year of socializing.
5: Two of the original 17 (7+2 waves) after being friends for 55+ years: Lovers->marriage within a few months.
6: Two fortress born dwarves with a passing knowledge of each other: Still same level, but they've moved up the relation list a few steps after 2 months (
still ongoing). Edit: Married after 7 months.
I've selected the dwarves to stand a chance of making relations (will marry opposite sex, not opposed to the thought of friendship/marriage), and in the last attempt ensured they actually did recognize the beards of each other, which turned out to be surprisingly hard, since all males but the current one from the second family turned out to know only males from the first one (within marrying age difference range).
Please tell me off if you think I'm derailing the thread.