(someone should copy this onto the official forums; I'm allergic to sites that don't use HTTPS in $CURRENTYEAR)
Everything below is by o11c on reddit. Here’s the link to the original reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/jf36zg/science_availability_of_social_skills_demystified/
So I got tired of being surprised when my chosen leader-broker got locked out of a social skill, and I decided to
do something about it.
So here is the result of some Science, believed to be complete (with one exception).
As far as I know,
every other source out there is wrong/incomplete on at least one point, except the trivial ones.
There was, however, one source that was accurate enough to be useful: Rhavviepoodle on the wiki talk page. A huge thanks to him/her for giving me a huge start and being explicit about things not tested.
Another huge thanks to the makers of DFHack, and in particular its
modtools/set-belief and
modtools/set-personality commands. Without that, this would've been unbearably painful.
No thanks at all to whoever decided that Dwarf Therapist should scramble the tabs every disconnect, or forget the sort order constantly. May all your candy be hollow.
As a quick reminder, "beliefs" are strongly based on the civilzation, and only change rarely for individual dwarves. Personality "facets" are strongly dwarf-specific, though central values remain more common.
For more on both, including the in-game text descriptors if you aren't using Dwarf Therapist, see
the wiki(note that Dwarf Therapist seems to show
relative beliefs during embark, but absolute once the game has started)
For convenience, tiers are defined as:
Tier | Belief | Facet |
1 | -50..-41 | 0..9 |
2 | -40..-26 | 10..24 |
3 | -25..-11 | 25..39 |
4 | -10..10 | 40..60 |
5 | 11..25 | 61..75 |
6 | 26..40 | 76..90 |
7 | 41..50 | 91..100 |
(Note that this means the "raw" value, not the inverted value that Dwarf Therapist uses for some facets)
In order of skill, simplest first:
Judge of Intent and
Negotiator are raised regardless of beliefs or facets.
Liar is gained if:
With these 3 exceptions, all other social skills are affected both by beliefs and facets.
Flatterer requirements:
- beliefs:
- facets:
- FRIENDLINESS ≥ tier 4
- FRIENDLINESS ≥ tier 6 to ignore beliefs
Thus, most dwarves who can gain
Liar can also gain
Flatterer, unless they are unfriendly.
Flatterer and
Liar are believed to be the only cases where a tier difference other than very low (tier 1-2), medium-ish (tier 3-5), very high (tier 6-7) is used (but I didn't test
every combination for the complex cases below; I only tested tiers 1, 4, and 7)
Persuader requirements:
- beliefs:
- facets:
- ASSERTIVENESS ≥ tier 3
- ASSERTIVENESS ≥ tier 6 to ignore beliefs
Comedian requirements:
- beliefs:
- facets:
- HUMOR ≥ tier 3
- HUMOR ≥ tier 6 to ignore beliefs
Pacifier requirements:
- beliefs:
- facets:
- DISCORD ≤ tier 5
- DISCORD ≤ tier 2 to ignore beliefs
Consoler requirements:
- beliefs:
- facets:
- SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS ≥ tier 3
- CRUELTY ≤ tier 5
- DISCORD ≤ tier 5
- SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS ≥ tier 6 || CRUELTY ≤ tier 2 || DISCORD ≤ tier 2 to ignore beliefs (but not other facets)
Intimidator requirements:
- beliefs:
- POWER ≥ tier 3
- TRANQUILITY ≤ tier 5
- HARMONY ≤ tier 5
- facets:
- ASSERTIVENESS ≥ tier 3
- DISCORD ≥ tier 3
- ASSERTIVENESS ≥ tier 6 || DISCORD ≥ tier 3 to ignore beliefs (but not other facets)
Conversationalist requirements:
- beliefs:
- LEISURE_TIME ≥ tier 3 (probably)
- FRIENDSHIP ≥ tier 3 (maybe)
- at least more than one other belief ≥ 3 (for full speed, see below) ?
- facets:
- GREGARIOUSNESS ≥ tier 3
- BASHFUL ≤ tier 5
- GREGARIOUSNESS ≥ tier 6 || BASHFUL ≤ tier 2 to ignore beliefs (but not other facets)
Now, here is where my science fails.
Conversationalist is "special".
Normally, it's easy to test changes to beliefs/facets, since dwarves will gain 1-2 XP per game-day of chatting, in all skills equally (though different dwarves gain it quite differently, details unknown. Possibly we lose due to pairing off and leaving an odd dwarf out, or where they're standing relative to each other? It doesn't seem to be attribute-based.)
For most dwarves,
Conversationalist follows the same pattern. But for some, if they have some very low beliefs, it increases but only slowly - about half the rate of other skills,
and there seems to be a lag of about 30 XP before they gain it at
all. This makes it
very annoying to test.
Either that or it somehow depends on
other dwarves ... but I doubt it.
The information on
Conversationalist-related facets should be accurate at least, and belief changes are at least
somewhat rare ...
If anyone wants to research further, I'm fairly certain that the skill gains at the full rate if all of the following are at least tier 3:
- ARTWORK
- COMMERCE
- COMPETITION
- COOPERATION
- CRAFTSMANSHIP
- CUNNING
- DECORUM
- ELOQUENCE
- FAIRNESS
- FAMILY
- FRIENDSHIP
- HARD_WORK
- HARMONY
- INDEPENDENCE
- INTROSPECTION
- KNOWLEDGE
Summary of beliefs:
All belief requirements can be ignored if the facet is extreme enough, except
Liar since it has no facets.
- ELOQUENCE ≥ tier 3 needed for Persuader
- FRIENDSHIP ≥ tier 3 maybe needed for Conversationalist (see above)
- HARMONY ≤ tier 5 needed for Intimidator
- LEISURE_TIME ≥ tier 3 probably needed for Conversationalist (see above)
- MERRIMENT ≥ tier 3 needed for Comedian
- PEACE ≥ tier 3 needed for Pacifier
- POWER ≥ tier 3 needed for Intimidator
- STOICISM ≤ tier 5 needed for Consoler
- TRANQUILITY ≤ tier 5 needed for Intimidator
- TRUTH ≤ tier 4 needed for Liar (not ignorable)
- TRUTH ≤ tier 5 needed for Flatterer
- unknown other belief(s) needed for full-experience Conversationalist (see above)
Summary of facets:
If any single facet is extreme enough, you can ignore the belief requirements. Note that you still need to meet all other facet requirements.
- ASSERTIVENESS ≥ tier 3 needed for Intimidator; ≥ tier 6 to ignore beliefs
- ASSERTIVENESS ≥ tier 3 needed for Persuader; ≥ tier 6 to ignore beliefs
- BASHFUL ≤ tier 5 needed for Conversationalist; ≤ tier 2 to ignore beliefs
- CRUELTY ≤ tier 5 needed for Consoler; ≤ tier 2 to ignore beliefs
- DISCORD ≤ tier 5 needed for Consoler; ≤ tier 2 to ignore beliefs (but that blocks Intimidator)
- DISCORD ≤ tier 5 needed for Pacifier; ≤ tier 2 to ignore beliefs (but that blocks Intimidator)
- DISCORD ≥ tier 3 needed for Intimidator; ≥ tier 6 to ignore beliefs (but that blocks Pacifier and Consoler)
- FRIENDLINESS ≥ tier 4 needed for Flatterer; ≥ tier 6 to ignore beliefs
- GREGARIOUSNESS ≥ tier 3 needed for Conversationalist; ≥ tier 6 to ignore beliefs
- HUMOR ≥ tier 3 needed for Comedian; ≥ tier 6 to ignore beliefs
- SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS ≥ tier 3 needed for Consoler; ≥ tier 6 to ignore beliefs
[/list][/list]