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[John Johnston]

I have lots of dwarfs in my fort and several statue gardens.  There is usually a very large amount of work to be done, including masonry (making rock blocks), masonry (building walls), mining (for stone) and hauling (move stone to the masons).  Nearly all the dwarfs have the masonry and stone hauling labours turned on.

In practice, they do not waste any time partying.  At all.  While the building is in progress, all the dwarfs (except nobles, FG, RG and military) go to work, constantly.  They do not waste any time.  When the building stops, they go back to partying.

When they do party, it helps them gain skills (and hence indirectly stats) and (I believe) helps them form friendships and romantic liaisons.  Noble dwarfs with high social skills are (I believe) more effective at preventing unhappiness.  Also, if a statue garden includes any particularly spiffing furniture the dwarfs will get happy thoughts, and if you have different types of good furniture (eg. if you dump all those artifact millstones, floodgates, hatches etc. into your statue gardens) they will get several happy thoughts.

Also, you can be fairly sure that your statue gardens will have at least one member of the Guard hanging around, so you can use them to position your defences.  (assuming you value the presence of the Guard; I do, you may prefer not to have a Guard)

Aaanyway, reason I'm saying this is that I keep seeing people saying how awful parties are, and I just don't think that's the case.  It may once have been true, but parties don't currently harm your dwarfs productivity.

I also don't believe that dwarfs having friends from partying has a serious effect on tantrum spirals.  If anything it may (properly managed) have a positive effect, because your dwarfs will have social skills that can help reduce tantrums, they can get *lots* of happy thoughts from partying, and they will all be more resilient to injury (as they will have higher stats).

Thoughts?

[Nilik]

As long as there's a constant supply of work, fine. If there's no work and you want to let them party for a bit, fine. The problem comes when they're in the middle of partying and suddenly you need them to work. For big mining/masonry jobs like you describe, parties are not particularly disruptive. My weapon/armorsmith however is a pain in the arse because of this. Naturally, I don't have enough steel for him to constantly be making armor, I just keep him hanging around so that if I ever need three suits of plate made right now, he'll be ready. In practice he'll go idle for a bit, and then throw a party. His parties must be really good too, because they can last for months. 

[JoshuaFH]

of course they last for months, dwarf parties are second only to roman parties.

and the roman parties were awesome.

[Refar]

You can draft/undraft him to take him away from the party.
If you let him spar a bit so he's at least "Novice" in any military skill, he won't even get a bad thought from it.

I think deconstructing the buildings should end the party as well.

[(name here)]

Undesignating the room works too.

[Soadreqm]

Freeing the room works great. I always do that when I need something done NOW instead of whenever the dwarves get around to it. I don't think it even gives them unhappy thoughts. And when the dwarves do have spare time, I let them spend it however they wish.

[BurnedToast]

meeting zones work just as well, without the side effect of parties.

Personally I just give each dwarf a separate room and make them sit in there, alone, when there is no work to be done. Who needs friends or lovers anyway? A nice side effect is because no-one knows any other dwarf, other then the starting 7, no-one cares if random dwarves end up dead for whatever reason which is great because I usually don't care either.

[R1ck]

I never have parties, not because I don't want to, but merely because my dwarves are too busy working like slaves. If I ever see the idle dwarf counter go up to 1 or more, I will hunt down that dwarf and find out what the problem is. All the guards and animals hang out in the party room though.

[bubba4399]

My most recent fortress was brought down by all the dwarves having to many friends.

a couple of people died from a few freak accidents in close proximity and immediately half my dwarves began to tantrum which caused the other half to tantrum.

[Agent_Irons]

I never have parties, not because I don't want to, but merely because my dwarves are too busy working like slaves. If I ever see the idle dwarf counter go up to 1 or more, I will hunt down that dwarf and find out what the problem is. All the guards and animals hang out in the party room though.

I do this. 

Yeah, dwarves with high social skills may crack less frequently, but when they do, they go bad. If they're legendary in social skills, that means they have many many stat gains. Enough to hand out and take a serious whupping. Your useful dwarves are weaker, and die quicker. The guards will take longer to take them down, which means more deaths from a single tantrum. More deaths-> other epic slackers tantrum - > your military dies.

[Tormy]

I never have parties, not because I don't want to, but merely because my dwarves are too busy working like slaves. If I ever see the idle dwarf counter go up to 1 or more, I will hunt down that dwarf and find out what the problem is. All the guards and animals hang out in the party room though.

Bleh, evil emperor! 

[brainfire]

It's for their own good. My three thousand year reign will end with true freedom for all dwarves, the Golden Path complete.

[SombreChapaeu]

I don't have any problems at all, even when dwarves get crushed by catapult rounds... this may be because my trader is LEGENDARY in almost all social skills, does not crack under pressure at all and kicks ass. Also my military is lead by this one dwarf who is constantly in a state of eternal rage... she instantly fell in love with my bookish peace-loving hoardmaster... no babies as of yet.

[Mohreb el Yasim]

and the roman parties were awesome.

i liked them much too, haven't drinked so much since thausands of years ...

[Brendan]

I never have parties, not because I don't want to, but merely because my dwarves are too busy working like slaves. If I ever see the idle dwarf counter go up to 1 or more, I will hunt down that dwarf and find out what the problem is. All the guards and animals hang out in the party room though.

I suppose when you have the economy in place you can explain this away in an in-universe fashion by saying that are simply ensuring that there are 'jobs for all', allowing your citizens to live comfortably.