Currently, Dwarves are not in control of their jobs, in fact it is the jobs that find the dwarves, and that is a large part of the reason that the dwarves are so stupid sometimes. What I suggest is that dwarves have a step immediately after they get a job where they check the condition of the fortress and themselves, and kind of predict what that job will do. This could work by having each job announce to the dwarves, for instance, "I am a food job; I will make you less hungry; I will use up some food," Or, "I am an attack job; I will damage a sieger; I will put you in danger," Or perhaps "I am a hauling job; I will move this rock; I am 23,324 tiles away, and the rock must move 48,293 tiles."
At this point, say a dwarf receives the job waves from the hauling job. He then checks his status, then the fortress, and he can see that there are more rocks over by the one he is going to get, so he can check to see if they have jobs too, then he goes and does the job if everything is OK to him. Otherwise, he removes himself from the job.(This is kind of like the system they use in The Sims, from what I have read.)
In this way the existing system can still be used while allowing for the dwarf-centric developments later on (such as dwarves preemptively eating, or avoiding the !!Kitten Mitten!! in the middle of a squad of goblins, or simply allowing dwarves to consolidate hauling trips.) What does everybody think? Is this at all practical, Toady One?
P.S. A smaller idea not worth it's own thread, since dwarves have less accurate inventories in the new version, perhaps stockpiles with bins and everything are easer for dwarves to count? A way to reward us neat-freaks, and make the one-tile "Quantum Stockpiles" less attractive.
gahhhh i typed too much my fingers hurt...
Oh, sorry, FlamingKittenMittin, I KNEW that that was familiar. xX!!PTTG?!!Xx
[ October 02, 2007: Message edited by: PTTG? ]