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[SquirrelWizard]

Okay, as much Fun as tantrum spirals can be, there should be some method of dealing with them, or at least running damage control.

My fortress of about 110 dwarfs suffered 8 casualties in a goblin siege. Of course there was massive tantrums and unhappiness after this (most of my dwarfs were estatic prior to the siege) and that has lead to a massive number of melancholy and beserk dwarves. Luckily most of my beserk dwarves went nuts in their rooms, so I just lock the door and let them stew. But every now and then one goes nuts in a public place, and ends up killing another dwarf which seems to start the spiral anew. I have tried posting military dwarves in public areas but thats only a stopgap method that fixes the result not the cause.

as I said, I had 110 dwarves prior to the siege, 102 after the siege, I now have 57 dwarves left over including a small migration, and some are still beserk and melancholy.

okay enough backstory.

The problem is that the dwarven leadership, that is the stink'n nobles, cant take an active role in helping quell the unrest amongst the populace. Sure the Mayor will have a chat with a tantruming dwarf, but thats a one on one situation in a fortress with a large population that is frothing at the mouths. What wold be another option is to have a noble enacted party/celebration. It would be an option you'd turn on at the option menu, during this time there is a permenant party in all meeting areas, in which dwarves with a low happiness score would go and celebrate, also during this time, dwarves consume 2x as much food/booze as normal. The aim of the party would be more focused on resolving the issues stemming from happiness loss that cant be combated by standard methods.

Pros: Active Defense at a total collapse due to tantrums.
Cons: Increased Food/Booze consumption. Lower effeciency as dwarves party more often. Dwarves Socialize more which could lead to further spirals.

[Pjoo]

Clearly you need anti-depression drugs.

[nil]

Well, justice should be able to handle tantrum spirals.  Right now, it doesn't do a great job because beatings and hammerings do as much damage as incarceration does good.  The new health care system should help this situation a lot--don't know if it will be enough, as you could still have a spiral fueled by berzerkers and suicides who go nuts without ever tantruming first.

But yeah, I think is the way to go, rather than some entirely new feature.  All the pieces are in place, it just needs some tweaking.

[Candlejack]

Couldn't you just make every floor square in your fortress a cage trap?

[SquirrelWizard]

so yeah... after 45 dwarves bite it, teh tantrums stop. I guess death is really the great equalizer afterall..

[nil]

Yeah, eventually everyone with friends dies off, and you're left with the guys who were too new or busy to socialize.

[Granite26]

Yeah, eventually everyone with friends dies off, and you're left with the guys who were too new or busy to socialize.

Good riddance to those slackers...

(Note, I don't have these problems because I maintain 99% employment... no one has friends)

[Aquillion]

The best way to prevent tantrum spirals is to ensure that your dwarves are happy to begin with.  If they're very happy, the unhappiness hits from death won't make them tantrum, and the spiral will never get out of hand.

Obviously, a legendary dining room and rooms for every dwarf are essential.  Valuable objects in key areas where dwarves will see them and admire them helps, too.

Having a wide variety of food and products on sale in shops will help, since dwarves will be more likely to find things they like.

In terms of dealing with things after a dwarf tantrums, cage traps at key locations also help, since a tantruming dwarf will get caught in one...  and won't die, which will avoid unhappy thoughts from that.

It helps to keep an eye on your dwarves and note who is already borderline unhappy.  Try to catch unhappy dwarves before they tantrum, and either lock them away or produce things they like.

[bluea]

I thought we already knew a big piece of this is "in".

I mean, doesn't beer-as-a-flow mean beer waterfalls, dining rooms of 3/7 beer, beer wells, beer fountains? And wine for the whiners.

[Derakon]

The best way to prevent tantrum spirals is to keep your dwarves from making friends. The bad thought from losing a friend to tragedy is -30; the good thought from having a legendary meal is +20. However, the former can easily stack up very quickly if everyone is friends with everyone else and you lose a half-dozen dwarves in some mishap. Suddenly all of your dwarves have just taken a -180 hit to their happiness, which is easily enough to put them in the danger zone.

The problem here is that the sad thought from dwarves dying doesn't scale with the number of friends/family members the dwarf has. In my opinion, the dwarf who has 100 friends shouldn't mind so much if one of them dies, compared to the dwarf that has only 1 friend and no family and thus is very likely to go insane if his friend dies. Think of it like the other friends/family members helping the dwarf to cope with his loss. It's a similar mechanism as that currently in use for masterwork destruction.

[Vattic]

While I agree with Derakon's suggestion there is one other thing in particular that bothers me about how dwarves react to death. If a dwarven warrior dies in battle after felling many foes and defending the fortress I could see most of his friends being happy that he died in such a dwarven way. I must admit though that perhaps I am letting my own view of the dwarves get in the way.

[Keuran]

What I really don't understand is how dwarves feel that the solution to 5 of their friends getting killed by a marksgoblin is to kill another 20 friends, then kill other peoples' friends because 20 more of their friends just died for some unknown reason, especially when the whole spiral starts because a legendary miner has a baby, then while digging, she drops her child into some magma or water or a chasm, then gets all upset and attacks her best friend, because the best friend is obviously the reason her child got dissolved in the magma. I swear, if you gave these dwarves lawn darts the survival rate would be 0.

Maybe the reaction to deaths should be changed just a little bit.

[Jakkarra]

Metagame feature.

Losing is FUN.

[Neonivek]

I don't think for the most part the Justice system should be changes to make it more leniant, since it is by far the most realistic Medieval justice system ever used in a videogame (Oblivion's is laughable "You Genocided a whole town, your going to jail for a month!"), so it has a lot of culture. It just needs to be expanded.

Though suffice it to say I do think the whole psychological aspect of dwarves does need an overhaul because death is both much too powerful and at the same time not powerful enough.

Someone has their wife die but they are content because they slept on a really nice bed that day in a room with a cool door.

Someone has a squad of his buddies he barely knows die and he goes on a murderous rampage.

I don't mind Tantrums happening, in fact I wish I had them happen more often.

As for "Tantrum Defense", except for the total collapse of your Fortress you should be putting doors on all the rooms so you can lock them in.

As for Nobility: Look they are in it for themselves, what do they care of the common folk? These are the same dwarves who get bad thoughts for eating in the same room as commoner.

[Nicpon]

In my opinion, the dwarf who has 100 friends shouldn't mind so much if one of them dies, compared to the dwarf that has only 1 friend and no family and thus is very likely to go insane if his friend dies

This is very good suggestion!

What I really don't understand is how dwarves feel that the solution to 5 of their friends getting killed by a marksgoblin is to kill another 20 friends, then kill other peoples' friends because 20 more of their friends just died for some unknown reason,

Do you realise that you are trying to find reason in MADNESS?

And people (I'm not psychologist, but it is shown in literature, movies etc.)  tend to kill other people (in madness) to ""compensate"" their losses. ("They killed my Jenny, and nobody understands me, now I'll show you what is it like!")