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[Rysith]

If Lorbam the dabbling swordsdwarf becomes surrounded but still slays six goblins on her own with a -iron short sword-, then I want to be able to give her a masterwork steel sword with pictures of six goblins on it, made with their own bone, and her favorite gem in the pommel if that strikes my fancy.

Yeah, it's that kind of thing that I worry would suffer if we let the dwarves make all the decisions on their own. Part of the story and fun in DF comes from making things up on your own and working them in, even if they make no sense from an in-universe perspective. Look at Ironblood's tomb in Nist Akath, for example. I don't think you can make the claim that that didn't add to the emergent story.

People who make sterile clones will get just as bored if you let them micromanage as if you don't (though they will get more annoyed if they can't).

[Apegrape]

I think it would have been nice if we could set the general category for what to be engraved.

[Normandy]

I find that yeah, though emergent stories can be interesting, don't forget, I'm still the one playing the game. As said by Will Wright and probably many before him (and paraphrased by me), games shouldn't be stories read to us (even if said stories are awesome and are completely generated in-game allowing for an infinite number of such stories). Games should instead allow us to create our own stories. Maybe I get a little more satisfaction, and a little more connected to my dwarves when I personally order a masterwork steel sword with pictures of six goblins on it, made with their own bone, and her favorite gem in the pommel if that strikes my fancy, rather than if the game does it itself. Both end in the same result in-game, but the former leads to me enjoying the game more because I'm participating more; I'm an integral part of the story.

Granted, there is certain pleasure in seeing what the dwarves come up with on their own, a feeling of autonomy and sentience in those little bits of information in your computer. But there is also a certain pleasure when I come up with something like that too. Why can't we have both?

[Aquillion]

I don't think that specifically asking a particular blacksmith to make a fine pewter toy boat is mind control. It's useful too, since nobles demand stuff like that, and the player has to provide it.

This.  This is the most important consideration.

I prefer less micromanagement in general, but whichever way it goes -- nobles should not make demands that the player cannot specifically order their dwarves to fulfill.  Having a noble demand a pewter toy boat and then forcing the player to just queue 'crafts' forever and hope that a dwarf randomly decides to do the legal mandate that will get him thrown in jail if he doesn't just feels silly, especially when the player has so much control over the important parts of what is produced otherwise.

[Urist McDetective]

I don't think that specifically asking a particular blacksmith to make a fine pewter toy boat is mind control. It's useful too, since nobles demand stuff like that, and the player has to provide it.

Why are nobles talking to you, when all they really need to do is ask craftsdwarves & have the game make sure you know it is happening?
I like Fossaman's theme idea, but also another concept came to mind.

You need to be able to micromanage if you want to adjust to it.

Asking dwarves to do what you want, based on happiness levels.
*edit further later* gah ... life!

[Kanddak]

I was thinking about this a while ago.

Here's what I propose:
Players should be able to micromanage as much as they want to, down to the level of controlling engravings and decorations with a screen that combines legends mode with the stockpile options.
But dwarves' psychology should be involved.

Test case 1: I let my engraver engrave according to his own sense of creativity when he's doing most of my fort. But when I'm doing my military tombs, I commission very specific engravings of each soldier's achievements in battle, and when I do the baron's room, I want a cautionary mural with engravings depicting the previous baron mandating crystal glass and subsequently being drowned. The engraver should easily oblige.
Test case 2: I micromanage the exact engravings for the whole fort. The engraver should suffer a cumulative effect, somewhat like sobriety, where he gets unhappy thoughts, works slower, perhaps engraves at a lower quality, and takes more breaks.
Test case 3: After several dwarves die in a carp-related accident, I order the now-unhappy engraver to engrave a bunch of squares. Already on edge because of his friends' deaths, my arbitrary orders are simply the last straw! The engraver throws a tantrum on the spot. Perhaps he stalks off and starts engraving depictions of violence on random available surfaces.

These effects should be modified by personality; dwarves with high IMAGINATION, ARTISTIC_INTEREST, or LIBERALISM don't like being micromanaged at all, whereas dwarves with high DUTIFULNESS, TRUST, or COOPERATION might let you do much more.

It could also work with dwarves' preferences, where an artist might be overjoyed to be commissioned to engrave a whole hallway with depictions of the cows whose haunting moos he so appreciates, but will be unhappy if ordered to engrave purring maggots, which he absolutely detests. You don't normally have so many engravers that this would often be relevant, but it's the kind of small detail that really adds a lot to things, I think.

It would work well with context-sensitive engraving. If you give them an order to do engravings in a room designated as a tomb, and request depictions of events from that dwarf's life or preferences, they don't mind as much because it makes sense. On the other hand, if I order my high-SYMPATHY engraver to engrave toads all over the rooms of his friend who absolutely detests toads, he might be very upset by such an inappropriate order.

[Urist McDetective]

I agree with most of what you said, except for this:

Players should be able to micromanage as much as they want to

Having complete direct control over the orders dwarves recieve (and work on) should be somewhere from at least a bit special to outside the base game.
The examples of what people are expecting to order should be possible without direct orders.
Tomb area reserved for a soldier (soldiers)? Reserve nearby engraving space for them & engravers should immortalise their achievements in stone. If Dapper McDwarf is buried in a tomb, expect murals of his lady-dwarf chasing exploits. Don't be suprised when there is an entire wall dedicated to pomade engravings, though.
If your engraver is a nasty bastard with a grudge against the mayor, it shouldn't be suprising when they decide to carve purring maggots & GCSs around his bedroom - but it should be because your engraver is a nasty bastard with a grudge against the mayor.
Getting soldier tombs with engravings of the local elf tribe petting kittens, waiting randomly for magma safe hatches or watching for that mandate toy to come through are things that should be either avoided or be happening for a reason.

[Kanddak]

The examples of what people are expecting to order should be possible without direct orders.

Oh, definitely. Engravers should have a better sense of what's appropriate, and do things like proper military tombs and engraving hated vermin on grudges' rooms on their own.
But maybe I want something very specific, like for a certain hallway in my museum to have an engraving of each mayor, running in chronological order from north to south, and the next hallway to have an engraving of each artifact creator. I think I should have the option of micromanaging that much if I want to; it's just reasonable for the dwarves to resent it if I do it very often.

On the other hand, I also love the idea of being able to say "Dwarves! This should be a suite of rooms worthy for the baroness consort!" and having them produce furniture as necessary and set it up automatically, to save me micromanaging where I don't want to. Hell, put furniture in the economy, and have dwarves rent space instead of a bedroom defined from the bed, buying their own furniture in stores and hauling it around when they save up enough to move to larger rooms. That would be great.

The options should be there for players to choose to micromanage as much as they want to or as little as they want to!

Aside from affecting dwarves' happiness, though, the player's choices about level of control should affect migration. More free-spirited dwarves should have some sense that if they migrate to the fort run by the obsessive-compulsive control-freak micromanager, they're going to end up taking a magma bath the moment they step onto the map and the player checks their personality, so they tend not to show up in the first place. This kind of thing would integrate nicely with larger-scale politics in the world.

[irmo]

I was thinking about this a while ago.

Here's what I propose:
Players should be able to micromanage as much as they want to, down to the level of controlling engravings and decorations with a screen that combines legends mode with the stockpile options.
But dwarves' psychology should be involved.

If I can micromanage as much as I want to, can't I just tell them to be happy being micromanaged?

Test case 2: I micromanage the exact engravings for the whole fort. The engraver should suffer a cumulative effect, somewhat like sobriety, where he gets unhappy thoughts, works slower, perhaps engraves at a lower quality, and takes more breaks.

No, he won't, because LOLLegendaryDiningRoom.

It would work well with context-sensitive engraving. If you give them an order to do engravings in a room designated as a tomb, and request depictions of events from that dwarf's life or preferences, they don't mind as much because it makes sense. On the other hand, if I order my high-SYMPATHY engraver to engrave toads all over the rooms of his friend who absolutely detests toads, he might be very upset by such an inappropriate order.

They should know to engrave a tomb with events from that dwarf's life. That's what the walls of tombs are for. I shouldn't need to tell them, and then have them be thrilled that the voices in their heads told them to do something reasonable for once.

[Kanddak]

If I can micromanage as much as I want to, can't I just tell them to be happy being micromanaged?

Sure. Go to your raws and add this to [CREATURE:DWARF]:
[PERSONALITY:DUTIFULNESS:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:COOPERATION:100:100:100]
[PERSONALITY:LIBERALISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ASSERTIVENESS:0:0:0]