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[Mechanoid]

Often when the metalsmith arrives, s/he will have a spouse. However, there is no way to know this until you assign one of them a bed.

So, i suggest that a lowercase 'o' be placed after the sex symbol to represent that that dwarf is married. Maybe even followed by the name of the dwarf they're married to. This way, by letting the player know that the dwarf is married, the player can easilly avoid putting them into high-risk situations; mining, military, milling, lava forging, etc.

Also, for the enhancement of the atmosphere, married dwarves should equip themselves with a ring, or buy eachother a ring in their favorite material type. It gives a money sink for the dwarven economy, and a slightly emotional feeling (more so if it was a legendary dwarf) when you see a dwarven corpse with a ring on it.

That also said, whenever a spouse dies, the lowercase 'o' should be replaced with the striked-o, the symbol the spun silk (ie: after the dwarf collects it) uses, to represent the dwarf had a spouse, but that the spouse died. This could be applied to immigrants, to give them more of a history. They would also keep their ring, instead of discarding it -- unless these dwarves arn't highly emotionally tied to eachother. Theoretically, the more dwarves that marry and die to a dwarf, the more striked-o's will appear next to that dwarfs name...
Which should also reduce the chances of that dwarf getting a new spouse.

[Silveron]

Straight forward and simple. I think this would add a good bit of atmosphere. Also it allows you to assign the couples to the same room if you wanted.

[dav]

Family trees would be a good thing.  (I like the idea that dwarves have extremely complicated family trees, as per War God's Own, but even immediate family would be good.)

I like the idea of marriage symbols and purchasing things for spouses.  (Not just rings, but furniture and favorite crafts of the other.)  And for heavens' sake, throw out your husband's/wife's ratty old shirts!

[Mad Jackal]

I really like the idea of "marking" spouses, and the buying of rings, and even the family tree aspect mentioned too.

I think it would add to the "history" and atmosphere...

[Wood Gnome]

the spouse could be mentioned in the same paragraph that tells you the dwarf likes cows for their haunting moos and is an uncontrolled alcoholic......  it would give an important reason to study each dwarf that arrives instead of noting that 27 new dwarves immigrated (again) and go straight back to digging new tunnels.

[dav]

I assign all new dwarves beds, and nickname the married ones anyway, so its sort of the same thing, but really much more time consuming.

[Seryntas]

Why don't dwarf families share last names, anyway?

[dav]

Maybe they pick their own, or are given them based on birth characteristics/the phase the moon/what kind of ore was found that day.

[Aquillion]

I think it just isn't implemented yet.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

I agree that more information about family relations would be nice. Currently, in Fortress Mode, there seems to be no simple way to tell who is married to whom and who is whose child and so on.

Child-parent information should remain there, even if the other dwarf dies. After all, the remaining relative may visit the grave (or throw a fateful tantrum destroying your fortress - but I digress).

Deathworks

[Tallim]

You could in theory add a section to the likes/dislikes part of the profile representing future spouses.

Then the chances that two dwarves would marry/breed would require them to have corresponding likes.

He likes Female Metalsmiths.
She likes Male Miners.

Then as their skills grow they become more attracted....
This would give a semi realistic method of attraction between dwarves. Also similar likes/dislikes could be used. Two dwarves bond over their love of good dwarf Beer and Red Spinels.

[AlanL]

I noticed the gender specification. This leads to questions of the handling of homosexuality.   :p

[Jusal]

I like the idea but... rings? Isn't that just a christian tradition? They are dwarves, let them exchange gemstones or... battleaxes or whatever dwarves exchange.

[Kholint]

I think dwarves would exchange a locket containing a strand of eachother's beard.

Genetic predisposition would be lovely; a legendary miner would give birth to a child who would be better at learning to mine for themselves.

Also related to the family tree thing- a new feature for legendary artifacts. Artifacts created by strange moods and such could be treated as family heirlooms- passed down from generation to generation. Wouldn't that be great?  

[Neopergoss]

quote:Originally posted by Kholint:
<STRONG>Genetic predisposition would be lovely; a legendary miner would give birth to a child who would be better at learning to mine for themselves.

Also related to the family tree thing- a new feature for legendary artifacts. Artifacts created by strange moods and such could be treated as family heirlooms- passed down from generation to generation. Wouldn't that be great?   </STRONG>

That genetic predisposition part sounds a bit too much like Lamarck's theory of evolution.  I guess you could add a predisposition to a certain job in with their preferences, but it shouldn't be based on what their parents became good at.  It should only be based on what their parents' predispositions were.

I kinda like the family heirloom thing, except that it would become even harder to pry those valuable artifacts from those dwarves' hands.  It wouldn't really matter for things like clothes, but you might want to give that masterpiece sword to your legendary swordsdwarf.