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[expwnent]

I've seen lots of stuff about prevention of tantrum spirals, but not much about treatment. Are there any good ways of increasing happiness in the short term? Often, you can see a trantrum spiral coming, but I've found that almost as often, it's still too late.

The main problem with tantrum spirals for me is with dwarves upset about the death of their friends. I've started mass-producing burial receptacles, but I'm not sure how much that helps. Does it help?

[TigerPlushie]

How about detention? Locking up unhappy dwarves in an AWESOME room?

[FaultyLogic]

Well, if you don't have time for coffins, make sure there is a graveyard stockpile a bit off, so they don't have to endure the decay of their friends. I think that helps a fraction.

Perhaps have alot of caged critters and goblins and let the dwarf take joy in some slaughter?

[expwnent]

How about detention? Locking up unhappy dwarves in an AWESOME room?

How does this work? Do they get happier from admiring well-constructed things? Do their chains/cages have to be touching the things they admire or just in the same designated room?

[Macalano]

Apply magma.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Read Headshoots.

[TigerPlushie]

How about detention? Locking up unhappy dwarves in an AWESOME room?

How does this work? Do they get happier from admiring well-constructed things? Do their chains/cages have to be touching the things they admire or just in the same designated room?

I'm afraid, that you can't chain dwarves without applying justice. You'd have to lure them into a room and lock the door as soon as they are in. in terms of safety, a drawbridge over a small hole might be preferable to a door, since it might get destroyed in a tantrum. I don't clearly remember if dwarves can do that.

But yes, looking at fancy stuff makes them happy.
Killing them would solve the problem with them, but might just make other dwarves unhappier.

...I haven't spent enough time here, I think!

[darkflagrance]

How about detention? Locking up unhappy dwarves in an AWESOME room?

How does this work? Do they get happier from admiring well-constructed things? Do their chains/cages have to be touching the things they admire or just in the same designated room?

I think that dwarves get a happy though whenever they are present in the tile next to the fancy item in question - at least, museums generally arrange the furniture artifacts so that visiting dwarves must walk directly adjacent to them. Also, I don't actually know what makes dwarves admire stuff. In my most recent fort I placed some masterwork ropes in my gateway, but only a few dwarves gained the admiring thoughts (though it might also be because not all my dwarves go that way...)

[Hyndis]

Pause all jobs and have just a 1 tile big meeting zone.

All of your dwarves will socialize together and get happy thoughts from talking to and making friends. If any dwarves do tantrum your guards are right there to end things quickly.

[Grendus]

Mist generator. Granted, if you're in a tantrum spiral, it's too late, but if you have one set up it will ward off tantrum spirals very well.

If your dwarves aren't on the verge of tantrumming yet, you can draft them and let then wrestle a bit. Sparring is a pretty strong happy thought if drafting won't launch another tantrum.

Use magma to dispose of your dead if you can't bury them. Burying them is a happy thought, but magma is quicker and burned corpses don't rot, avoiding the "Endured the decay of a friend" unhappy thought.

Create a damn good meeting area. Use artifact furniture or manually create very valuable goods. The happy thought comes from value, I believe, so even a base quality native platinum statue studded with base quality valuable gems will still trigger the happy thought. Use your most valuable materials.

[Yagrum Bagarn]

I brought a fortress out of a tratrum spiral.  By the time I had 50 population, I'd had 25 deaths.  An entire third of my population.  Dwarves weren't happy and I didn't have enough coffins.  The King had shown up really early because I accidentally struck HFS and he was trantrumming, picking fights with [read: killing] children.  My armorer had entered a mood right after striking HFS and made a set of greaves out of the stuff, which boosted my fortress to TEN TIMES what it had been worth, attracting sieges WAY too early.  A goblin siege had just claimed several champion wrestlers at once, so their spouses and friends were sad.  It was a map without wood, so this early in the game, after the huge greaves-related immigrant wave, I was WAY behind on beds, too.  Lastly, I was out, out of alcohol.  Limited ore and no wood for barrels.

I engraved my dining room and placed a few more tables.  Every artifact I could build (hatch covers, tables, chairs, floodgates, grates) was placed in a high-volume traffic area.  Several of my unhappier dwarves got drafted to the Fortress Guard.  That gives them an unhappy thought, but also a happy thought to counter.  Then they get to spar, which is a strong happy thought.  Once they were happier, the slightly unhappy dismissed from the guard thought isn't a problem.

The tantrums stopped, but I lost he king to a berserk rage.  I wasn't upset, though.  I really didn't want him in the first place and I didn't have the means to build him nice rooms yet.

[Kraegan]

Apply magma.

This

[Kanddak]

By the time I had 50 population, I'd had 25 deaths.  An entire third of my population.

There are three kinds of people: Those who can count, and those who can't.

I once had marginal success in ending tantrum spirals with the following protocol:
- Try to get dwarves imprisoned by chains.
- Draft prisoners and put them in armor. Remove the "justice" room designations from all unused chains.
- Deconstruct their chains! They will get a +1000 "happy to be free" thought and be removed from the tantrum spiral.
- However, their sentences may be changed to beatings. This is why they are wearing armor.

The trouble is casualties of dwarves who are initially sentenced to beatings.
But it was a fun approach to using the justice system to do some actual good.

[Pandarsenic]

By the time I had 50 population, I'd had 25 deaths.  An entire third of my population.

There are three kinds of people: Those who can count, and those who can't.

Dude.

50 population and 25 deaths means he had 50 living dwarves and 25 dead ones, which makes 1/3 dead.

Come on. A little effort.

[Grendus]

By the time I had 50 population, I'd had 25 deaths.  An entire third of my population.

There are three kinds of people: Those who can count, and those who can't.

That's division. And it's correct.