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[cochramd]

I've been told Recordkeeper has something to do with history. I guess I'll just wait and see how she turns out.

[Niddhoger]

My hunch is that poetry is not a scholar skill. Alot of dwarves seem to have some skill in poet but don't write poetry frequently. I do occasionally get poetry books but I never see dwarves discussing it.

I meant to say this more directly.  Poetry isn't for scholars.  its for performers.  Its related to arts and taverns, not knowledge and scholars.  Have you never had a poet visit your library, and noticed them using the "recite poetry" skill while everyone else gains "listen to poetry?" Normally, writing would be for both of these.  Since they are separate branches though (art and knowledge), they were broken into wordsmith/writing.  Wordsmith is for "writing" poetry.  Writing is for research books.  You don't pray in the tavern, and you don't practice poetry in the library.  However I assume a poet would wander into the library and write a novel/book of poems there, but I've never actually seen this happen.  All of the "artsy" books Ive seen have been held in the hands of people in my tavern.  I'll have to pay closer attention to who has what, so that I can see what happens if they petition for citizenship.  Their book might wind up in hte library, or just stay an "owned" item.

[Halnoth]

I have had scholar dwarves write a poetry book. I don't know what skill was used to write it though. I assumed critical thinking but it could very well have been poetry. I just recently started being more meticulous in tracking skill growth.

Wordsmith is definately used in poetry, however it is also used in scholarly writing.

Writing is prose and wordsmith is responsible for the tone.

When a dwarf writes a book they normally gain 12 in writing, 6 in wordsmith, and 10 in w/e subject. Occasionally they do not gain wordsmith. I am not sure what causes this but when this happens I have observed that the tone is described as "technical". There might be other descriptors though.

[cochramd]

I've been looking through the skills of all my dwarfs lately; I've noticed that out of 150+ migrants, only 3 (currently surviving) have had skills in writing and wordsmith, and they are also the same 3 that have had any scholar skills beyond the practical ones. I also noticed that all 3 of them are also engineers (or rather have engineering skills both practical and scholarly, since one showed up as a miller), but I think that's more to do with me making mechanisms and building traps like no one's business than anything else. Also, I play with uberdwarfs that learn 5 times faster than usual and don't experience skill rust. I've observed that this results in migrants showing up at my fort with high levels in their skills as well as a broad variety of skills, but I'm not sure what effect it has had on the number of ready-made scholars migrating to my fort compared to vanilla.

[Bouchart]

I've seen bards and the like carrying poetic books with them, but I'm not entirely sure how you would get them written.  Perhaps you have to embark with a poet or get a passing poet to use your library? I don't know how to force "poetry" when assigning a performer.  They could just as easily perform an instrument or dance instead.

I had a scholar write a poem called We See Brains.  That scholar didn't have much long the lines of relevant scholar skills or performance skills, from what I remember.

[MobRules]

All of the "artsy" books Ive seen have been held in the hands of people in my tavern.  I'll have to pay closer attention to who has what, so that I can see what happens if they petition for citizenship.  Their book might wind up in hte library, or just stay an "owned" item.

I wonder what would happen if a bookcase were placed in the tavern?

[Dozebôm Lolumzalěs]

I doubt anything of note.

[Halnoth]

Ok so I found some interesting things but because of the range of skills involved it is a little difficult to analyze, especially since we are still not sure of the full range of skills used.

First, discipline and observer appear to be scholarly skills. I placed all my military dwarves into scholar occupations and those two skills grew through discussions about the water cycle and related topics. The title given to these dwarves was "naturalist". This would imply that water cycle type topics should go in the natural science category on the wiki which I don't think it is at the moment.

Now discipline can grow through seeing dead bodies so that could contaminate the sample, but there were no thieves or ambushes discovered during this time period so I think the observer skill is safe.

Astronomy appears to be related to math since my astronomers were discussing math topic often.

Furnace operating appears to be an academic skill related to chemistry. After 3 years of study my chemist went from lvl 5 to 6 in chemistry and nothing to lvl 1 in furnace operating despite not touching a furnace.

Will continue post in a moment, Im at the barber.

[cochramd]

Anything on the animal caretaker, animal dissection and fish dissection skills? I have good reason to suspect that they are scholarly skills:

[Halnoth]

I haven't looked at those skills but I might as well since I'm covering a wide range already with these tests. I'll try to see if I have a dwarf with those skills only.

So, it appears that skill growth in related fields only occurs after a certain threshhold is reached in the original skill. To illustrate let me give a couple examples;

My Astronomers only have skill in Astronomy at lvl 3 & 5. They will discuss Math often but since they are still dabbling they do not extend their conversations to logic. My doctors on the otherhand will discuss any medical skill and logic but their discussion does not extend to Math or critical thinking.

However, I have a Diagnoser that I put in his own library who has lvl 6 diagnoser, lvl 2 logic, & dabbling Math & Critical Thinking

Chemistry  appears to be disconnected from the other skills.

I have not been able to test geography yet.

So far the relationships seem to be
                           Medical
                              l
  Critical Thinking - Logic
                              l
                            Math
                              l
                            Astronomy

This might mean that if you wanted to get a library off the ground you should embark with a dwarf who has critical thinking skill as they would eventually branch into most topics.

Pump operating branches into fluid engineering and furnace operator into chemistry.

I have not been able to get a dwarf to branch into optic engineer or geography yet.

[martinuzz]

I just had a dwarf write "time spent with the individual"

it conerns the meaning of individual happiness.

Never seen that word yet in a book. I wonder if it's a value, or just another academic subject.

[TheHossofMoss]

I have not been able to get a dwarf to branch into optic engineer or geography yet.

Interesting... I have a couple of geographers. I'll provide their skills/stats as soon as I'm home for your research!

[Walkaboutout]

As an aside to some of the current discussion (this seemed like an excellent place to ask this), has anyone noticed that their dwarves are constantly shuffling writing materials from storage coffers in their library to the finished good stockpile?

I've been watching the activity in my library for a while and what I see are dwarves coming down there with a "Store Item in Location" job, while not carrying anything that I can see. They approach a coffer, then leave, never having hauled or stored anything that I could see.

In addition, as mentioned, I often see dwarves come and grab unwritten quires with the job "Store Item in Stockpile" and then take that quire back up to the finished goods stockpile. Very shortly thereafter, another dwarf will come and grab an unwritten quire from the finished goods stockpile, and haul it right back down to a coffer in the library.

Mind you, this is in a library with very little activity. Maybe 10 written works (stuff that I bought off the caravan and then got copied when I had scribes), and 2 scholars who pretty much NEVER write books, they just ponder and discuss endlessly.

On that subject, is there a way to encourage writing? I made my militia commander a scholar and within a year he wrote a book about the first goblin he killed as an adventurer under my control. Since writing that book, it's been 7 or 8 years, and a couple goblin sieges later that he's survived and scored many kills in, and he has yet to write another book on any topic at all. As a former adventurer dwarf, he's a master in tracking, so he does have a scholarly skill as well. He likes to ponder foraging behaviors.

Mind you, his reluctance to write seems to be indicative of the fortress as a whole because no one else has written a local work either. I've had as many as 5 scholars assigned at a time for years, always pondering and discussing, but no one seems to want to write. Right now, as stated above, I have only 2 scholars and no scribes so the library is very quiet.

[cochramd]

On that subject, is there a way to encourage writing? I made my militia commander a scholar and within a year he wrote a book about the first goblin he killed as an adventurer under my control. Since writing that book, it's been 7 or 8 years, and a couple goblin sieges later that he's survived and scored many kills in, and he has yet to write another book on any topic at all. As a former adventurer dwarf, he's a master in tracking, so he does have a scholarly skill as well. He likes to ponder foraging behaviors.

Relieve him from military duty. Most dwarfs would rather train than ponder.

On a similar subject to what you said before that, if I have 2 libraries, is there any good way to have 1 library stocked with expensive parchment quires and the other stocked with cheaper paper quires? The latter library is where copies would be scribed, while originals would be written in the former.

[khearn]

It seems like every time I get a scholarly type immigrant (not visitor), he always has 3 points in some melee skill as well. I guess those academic debates can get a bit heated at times.

This always causes me a bit of a problem, especially early on in the fort when I really need military. I'd like to assign him/her as a scholar, but I really need the troops. So I end up with a military full of astronomers and chemists. Eventually, when I get a library set up and my military is strong enough to spare them, I'll start reassigning them as scholars.

But it just seems odd that every one I get arriving at my forts is a soldier/scholar. Anyone else notice this?