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[blue emu]

I'm playing a "Last Seven Dwarves in the World" fortress. v47.05, no mods.

I got a fairly encouraging start: four females (one of them bisexual) and three males (also one of them bisexual). I've done the usual things... after digging in, setting up farms and producing lots of booze and prepared meals plus setting up a small clothing industry to prevent a collapse of morale, I've given them several months off duty to socialize and hopefully to bond. I've moved them into double-bed rooms in order to improve the odds of dwarven hanky-panky.

Any other suggestions?

[callisto8413]

I was once told that Dwarves of the same labor marry each other.  In other words Farmers marry Farmers and such.  I could be wrong. 

[blue emu]

I was once told that Dwarves of the same labor marry each other.  In other words Farmers marry Farmers and such.  I could be wrong.

With only seven dwarves to run a whole fort, there ARE no specialists.

[Thisfox]

The "Farmers marry Farmers" thing is because they are more likely to see each other repeatedly as they have the same profession. I don't really specialise my dorfs as much, and found that they will crossmarry due to meeting up regularly around the hauling queue, the well, the temple or the library. I've got furnace operators married to farmers, etc. That said, my jewellers tend to keep to themselves down a long hallway (physical separation of furniture according to quality leads to less low-quality furniture being encrusted with gems) and so all my jewellers tend to pair up.

The trick, I am told, is to make little lockable bedrooms with the food and resources those in their off-time will need, which you can lock the doors of and not kill the dorfs of starvation by mistake. I'm told you keep those rooms full of fancy furniture, musical instruments, and booze and food, and lock couples into them until they propose. Having never had to worry about my fort being in the "last dorfs on earth" scenario, I have not tried this myself, and cannot say how effective it is. Careful not to starve them!

[vjek]

The fastest way I've personally seen marriages form is to designate exactly one meeting place, exactly 1 tile in size. 
That way, when not eating, sleeping, or performing an assigned task, the dwarves are all adjacent at that meeting spot, all as near as possible.
This appears to increase the chances of marriage, to the point where eligible couples seem to get married within a few weeks/months. 
YMMV, but that's what has worked for me in 47.0x.

[PatrikLundell]

I'm using marriage encouragement suites to get dorfs to marry:
- Designate a room as the overlapping bedroom of the two subjects.
- Two tile drinks stockpile (with one you typically have that tile occupied by an empty barrel)
- Two tile food stockpile. Both stockpiles are linked to take from their corresponding main stockpiles
- Make a burrow in the suite and assign the subjects to it (often requires fiddling because of cancellation spam when hauled stuff can't be delivered, as well as library stupidity where a serial reader gets cancellation spam when trying to return books).
- Make a tavern zone in the suite. I associate it with the main tavern. This adds another pull factor to get the buggers to actually enter their burrow (apart from food, drink, and sleep).
- Wait (and wait, and wait...) until the subjects are inside the suite. They may escape due to walking away aimlessly after eating/drinking/sleeping, thus extending the delay.
- Once they're both inside, remove the tavern zone until the freeloaders have given up and left, then lock the door.
- Recreate the tavern zone to get the subjects to socialize with each other exclusively.
- Wait for a marriage announcement, but check in on them once in a while to ensure they're not starving or thirsting (if that happens you'll have to let them out, restock the food/drink stockpiles, and herd them back in again).
- You can also check their relations screen to get some idea about progress. The more they get to know each other (assuming it's positive) the higher they climb in that list, eventually becoming lovers.
- Once they're married, remove the tavern zone and leave them to themselves. Once they're sufficiently bored and can't socialize they'll eventually get down to procreation. Spending time next to each other (or in the same tile) and then moving often leaves the female pregnant (I use a script to check for that. Without a script I'd leave them to themselves for a couple of weeks). I've see the female get pregnant while the male is sleeping, but not the other way around (and I'm not meaning the male getting pregnant...).

For more babies, use essentially the same setup, but now in their common bedroom (which may well be the same suite). Pull them into the burrow, lock the doors, disable the tavern zone (if enabled to pull them in), wait until they're performed their duty to the fortress, let them out when (deemed) done.

The adjustments to socializing made in the latest DF version appears to have improved the ability of dorfs to make friends, but I haven't seen any change in the rate of spontaneous marriages.

[Kat]

cut down on the number of livestock you have, because animal pregnancies can affect the number of pregnancies that your citizens can have.

[PatrikLundell]

cut down on the number of livestock you have, because animal pregnancies can affect the number of pregnancies that your citizens can have.

First time I hear that the animal pregnancy limit should be combined with the sapient one. Regardless, it shouldn't be an issue in the OP's low pop fortress, unless a catsplosion has gotten out of hand...

[Kat]

cut down on the number of livestock you have, because animal pregnancies can affect the number of pregnancies that your citizens can have.

First time I hear that the animal pregnancy limit should be combined with the sapient one. Regardless, it shouldn't be an issue in the OP's low pop fortress, unless a catsplosion has gotten out of hand...

It shouldn't, according to the documentation, maybe it's because I have a modded race? But I did notice that there were no children. Then I massively reduced the number of animals that had accumulated, and then the next year, I get 15 babies born. And about the same number the year after that. Which made me 

[PatrikLundell]

cut down on the number of livestock you have, because animal pregnancies can affect the number of pregnancies that your citizens can have.

First time I hear that the animal pregnancy limit should be combined with the sapient one. Regardless, it shouldn't be an issue in the OP's low pop fortress, unless a catsplosion has gotten out of hand...

It shouldn't, according to the documentation, maybe it's because I have a modded race? But I did notice that there were no children. Then I massively reduced the number of animals that had accumulated, and then the next year, I get 15 babies born. And about the same number the year after that. Which made me 

If you mess with non sapient castes I can imagine those falling into "the animal" bucket, but otherwise I haven't got any good idea of what's going on.

[Quarque]

The game clearly needs a Dwarven Dating Guild feature.

[Quietust]

I was once told that Dwarves of the same labor marry each other.  In other words Farmers marry Farmers and such.  I could be wrong.

Having the same labor is irrelevant - having the same skills (excluding social skills) will greatly increase the relationship compatibility between two dwarves, making it much more likely that they become lovers and eventually get married. Preferences are important, too, as are beliefs and personality facets.

The "Farmers marry Farmers" thing is because they are more likely to see each other repeatedly as they have the same profession.

The only reason Farmers would exhibit this effect more than other dwarves would be because they all become Idle at around the same time (i.e. when they finish planting/harvesting) and are more likely to socialize - if you give all of your other dwarves regular time off, they'll form friendships and romances too.

[Halnoth]

Yes, as Q says, it all comes down to how much time off your dwarves have. If you want them to form relationships then you have to let them idle in the meeting area.

 It does help if the meeting area is smaller. For 7 dwarves a 4x4 room ought to be enough space to allow some tables and chairs yet still keep the dwarves close together.

[PatrikLundell]

I wouldn't let the dorfs pair themselves up in a minimal pop fortress, as you're likely to get them to pair up such that otherwise eligible dorfs would be out of the age bracket of the remaining free dorfs and you'd have wait for 20-40 years for the last pairs to be able to form up.

[TheEqualsE]

Once you do get them married you could encourage births by turning up the child capacity on the control panel of the Lazy Newb Pack.