Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ChillThiz]

My last fort in 44.10, i was extra careful around disposing corpses after several goblin sieges using miners and engravers. After 2 years 90% of my population was hovering beneath 0 stress. They all got their individual temples, lots of different booze, almost every material of statues made everywhere, just getting every stress reliever i can get. You know who were stressed all the time? My military.

My military commander who got several FB kills and dozens of goblins couldn't handle the corpses. I specifically picked dwarves for military based on their mental strengths and how they handle stress.
The commander has 80+ in all mental aspects and is "brave" in face of danger, but for no apparent reason he gets bombarded with corpse flashbacks, same for the other military men.

His stress was reaching 10k, while others outside the military were bathing in happiness. If the one job the military has is killing them in the end, something is wrong. Nothing i could do was relieving their stress, outside of getting them out of the military, which would be stupid. In a few years they will tantrum 100% and thats the end of the fort and thats not FUN! and not something you can prevent no matter what measures you can take. As soon as i saw the 44.11 update, i insta-quit the fort and haven't played the game since. Waiting for the LNP pack for the newest update.

[PatrikLundell]

@ChillThiz: This thread is about 0.44.11, as it's quite well known 0.44.10 didn't get the balance right. However, if you keep you militia training 100% of the time with no R&R they should get stressed even in a balanced system because the only needs they get fulfilled are killing stuff (excitement) and martial training.

[Immortal-D]

Which is fine if you select Dorfs with those personality traits   Otherwise, a balanced training schedule is definitely required now.

[Robsoie]

My current observation

6 years old fortress (created in 44.11 too)
Fortress has good amount of alcohol regularly brewed , there's no shortage of it.
There's a temple for each dwarven worshipped deity, there's a sculpture garden that is the meeting hall too, the fort is fully self sufficient with food too.

On year 5 , a gob army went and was quickly annihilated by legendary dwarves swordmasters (letting dwarves to train for 5 years is a big gob mistake , as none of those dwarves were having any level of skill in swords when i drafted them)

As usual, the cleanup didn't went smoothly, the whole fort was going through the usual horror of "seeing gob die" etc...

A year later, year 6 , the dwarves seems to have recovered (while in 44.10 most of them would still be falling under depression) as i don't see anyone depressed, there are a few dwarves that still get uneasy memory of gobbo dying, but all of them seems to be back in control of themselves.
... excepted for 2 dwarves that went "haggard" for reason i still have no idea .

The only thing those 2 dwarves have had in common is that both have been captain of the guard and member of a military squad.
The 1st captain of the dwarf was replaced when he went haggard, the replacement dwarves had no obvious problem.
Yet after a time he went haggard too.

Since then i have sent them to conquer "<10 pop" gob pits in their own squad, so they're both now administrator of dark dwarven pits related to my fortress (so they don't throw random tantrum and due to their high military skills don't kill random dwarves around during their tantrum)

All in all, 44.11 is much better , i'll see if there is more dwarves falling under depression, but in opposition to 44.10 in which everyone was getting worse and worse despite all the "good thought" sources after a gob corpses cleanup, 44.11 seems to be working as intended.

[carewolf]

So the insanity trap of being Captain of the Guard is still not solved? Even in 44.10 I couldn't figure out what triggered it. Captains of the Guards just goes stress and insane like clockwork one after the other without even having been in combat or seeing any corpses.

[Robsoie]

Yes, unfortunately it looks like captain of the guard position is oddly hyper stressful for no obvious reason for any dwarves after a couple of years.

Some addition, another year was spent in my fortress, in year 6 there was another gobs attack (with a few ogres and trolls) , a retaliation from my conquest of a nearby dark pit i guess.

After the traditional massive destruction (gobbos really don't stand a chance after so many years of letting the dwarves train) , another batch of "seeing a goblin die" horror struck the fortress citizens.
This time it looks like they're not recovering much, we're in year 7 and already had to send in "suicide" razing mission 5 dwarves that had fell into depression, and i am starting to see several "under a great deal of stress" afflicated dwarves .

And most of those don't seem to be linked to any "gob dying" memory, the most negative are "feeling lonely" (it looks like those meeting hall aren't really working, dwarves don't seem to gain much friendship anymore) and there are a lot of positive source of thoughts, so i have no idea what is really going on for those.

[Sver]

The only thing I can think of that makes this position unique are thoughts about lack of chains/cages. Is it possible this takes up their memory slot and drags them down for long?

[Lordhermitcrab]

After a lot of elf and goblin sieges (and the resulting dozens of corpses), I'm not really sure if the stress thing is super balanced yet. After the second siege, there's been a kinda 'diet' tantrum spiral going down. I'd describe it like a slow-burn. A really long one spread out over 2 years. It's really slowed down labor and I've lost like 10 dwarves to insanity-related deaths and maybe equal to tantrum fist fights.

I don't know why everyone in my fortress became so haggard or harrowed. Once they were that low, it was pretty much impossible to bring them back up to any degree of happiness.

[Robsoie]

I don't think it's balanced either.
Can't manage to stop the "great deal of stress" either, despite on their description there's a lot of happy thought coming their way, once a dwarf is flagged by that status it seems to be only a question of year before he fall into the "haggard/stumbling around" from which i never managed to get a single one recovering.

[Lordhermitcrab]

I don't think it's balanced either.
Can't manage to stop the "great deal of stress" either, despite on their description there's a lot of happy thought coming their way, once a dwarf is flagged by that status it seems to be only a question of year before he fall into the "haggard/stumbling around" from which i never managed to get a single one recovering.

Yeah, as soon as I got any dwarves slipping into depression or obliviousness, they mostly stayed that way. There are short periods inbetween the episodes but they're extremely frequent and all the labor is now very irregular.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I don't think it's balanced either.
Can't manage to stop the "great deal of stress" either, despite on their description there's a lot of happy thought coming their way, once a dwarf is flagged by that status it seems to be only a question of year before he fall into the "haggard/stumbling around" from which i never managed to get a single one recovering.

I got a dorf through 'a great deal of stress'. Took a while, but once the main thoughts hit the long term memory, he was OK.
Depression is probably too late. A good trip to the hillocks is probably the best remedy.

[Robsoie]

Something i am noticing is that the dwarves don't seem to make friends like they used to in the past, i'm not sure if it's because i've been having some bad luck and all my dwarves are probably generated as complete loners, but on my previous long lived 44.10 depression fort , i noticed too that making friend was actually happening only rarely.

With of course the fortresses having meeting areas that dwarves get into regularly.
Maybe there's also a problem there, as despite i see dwarves going to the meeting halls and sculpture garden, most of them still have the lonely/no family unhappy thought regularly coming.

edit : 8th year of the fortress is starting.
and from 79 dwarfs we're now down to 52 , all the losses are in fact dwarves that fell into depression and that i sent into "suicide" razing mission against gobs sites.
the 6th year gave me the illusion the 44.10 problem was solved as i had dwarves recovering from the gob invasion cleanup, but the battle of the 7th year had the cleanup restarting the 44.10 behaviour of depression getting progressively more and more dwarves.

This despite several happy toughts generators (temples/meeting halls/sculpture garden/good quality item in individual rooms/etc...)
, funnily didn't lost a single dwarf from those gobs battle, it's the cleanup that seems to still break the dwarves after a few years.

I had observed some dwarves changing their mind about things due to some recurring memory, but in the end the depression still get them.

The main difference with 44.10 is that the problem takes a couple more fortress years to happen.

[tussock]

Friendship takes time, less busy dorfs make more friends, but they have to be not busy at the same time repeatedly, like my bonecarvers were off-duty for a year or two and each have 6-7 friends, and are often the sole friend of each of them because everyone else isn't regularly off work at the same time as their passing acquaintances. The spinners only work once a year so they have friends.

Anyway, dorfs have needs. Lots and lots and lots of needs, that all take time. In 44.11 if things are bad for a dorf it's not just bad thoughts, they also are stressed (distracted) by unmet needs. Every single thing they can't do that they want to do is a minor or major bad thought depending on how much they want it, and there's a ton of them.

Here's one I've had in caged for a couple seasons, and he was unhappy before that, obviously. Things that are distracting him.

Away from people. <- dwarfs need company.
Unoccupied. <- dorfs need work.
Unexciting life. <- many dorfs like trouble, get them in the military.
Unable to aquire something. <- oops, don't turn on the economy.
Kept from alcohol. <- obviously, dorfs like booze, there's a lot of happy thoughts for booze and mugs.
Lack of decent meals. <- cooking seeds is something I need to stop.
Unable to fight. <- angry dorfs get happy thoughts from brawling, and sad thoughts from not brawling.
Lack of trouble-making. <- seriously, this guy ...
Unable to argue. <- that's another possible happy thought for a couple angry dorfs.
Not learning anything. <- LIBRARIES! Almost everything that's a happy thought is also an unhappy thought for not having it.
Unable to help anybody. <- everyone bringing him water and food avoids this one, most dorfs don't care.
Unable to make merry. <- that's getting proper drunk, dorfs can only do that in pubs, .
Unable to admire art. <- come on, it's a lovely cage.
Unable to practice a craft. <- lots of dorfs need a craft job, over a few years this one gets bad.
Being away from friends. <- the downside of making friends, they still need time off.
Unable to practice a martial art. <- lots and lots of dorfs want to be in the military, others hate the draft.
Unable to practice a skill. <- skill rust, they all hate rust.
Unable to take it easy. <- no time off, dorfs must have time off, busy industries must have a large excess in workers.
Unable to pray to Kikrost. <- temples, just so important. Not at all optional, it's a big happy thought and they hate not getting it.

He would also be upset by going outside or getting rained on, but prison prevents that.

All of those things accumulate for the dorfs that feel them. The longer they don't have a skilled job to do, the worse that unmet need gets. Over a few years, a lot of them can add up to big stress.

So they need a pub, and a temple, and a library, and work that usually must include a skilled job, and they have to be able to do the jobs so the skills don't rust, and they want military service, and time enough to get around it all. If they almost get a bad feeling about lack of prayer or chilling out, they pop up a purple job and go do it, but some dorfs are a bit keen and will end up hauling all the time and not taking breaks for that stuff.


If you make those super-optimised forts where everyone is busy all the time, you'll get a lot done, but they won't make friends, they'll get a bit sad, only get the purple breaks and probably not near enough of them if they are of certain personality types, and if anything bad comes up like a sentient corpse pile, it'll drop them into high stress and they won't be able to get over it. To some extent, only your military should be hauling bodies anyway, it's unlikely for others to have the Willpower or Discipline to handle it well. Though I've found leaving a few dead dogs out where everyone can see them gets them into being less freaked out by death in general.

My happiest dorfs all have skilled jobs where they make masterworks and have some time off, and some time on. They're busy enough but not too busy, so they get around all the legendary rooms that give them a bunch of happy thoughts, and more than just once a year or so, and that lets them make friends too.

TLDR: If none of your dwarfs are making friends, it's a bad sign, and they probably have a lot of other unmet needs they also don't have time for.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Are they actually getting stress from unmet needs? That's just focus, isn't it?

I have 4 dorfs at 'great deal of stress' hanging out mostly freely in the tavern. They are holding steady so far. Each has over 20 passing acquaintances so far without any micromanagement needed so far. They're not lonely, they're enjoying the performances and the occasional flashback of miasma and snowstorms isn't phasing them. Pretty sure once their thoughts reach long-term and are reflected in their personalities, they'll be OK.

The one child who got stressed (mom died, apparently) has slipped into depression. Can't be helped. Will send her away once I can open the front gate (dwarven siege hanging out for the past couple of seasons).

[PatrikLundell]

@tussock:
- Unable to acquire doesn't mean economy, but getting trinkets to wear (unless that's being extravagant, in which case it's getting nice clothes: I have trouble keeping track of which one is which).
- Lack of decent meals now means not eating/drinking favorite items, and you're unlikely to be able to satisfy more than a small percentage of the population given the complete randomness of their favorites. Cooking quality doesn't have any practical use any more (apart from buying out caravans).
- Away from friends/family: Largely broken, as they're incapable of seeking out friend and family, socializing with whoever they happen to end up next to instead. Friend group burrowing might help.