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[BodyGripper]

Idea, inspired by Atlas Shrugged:  Get your fortress up and running, with a decent population and everything.  Then, take away all your most skilled workers (anyone with a skill over "Expert", or maybe higher/lower?  Champions don't count.), and build a separate fortress for them.  Only they may work on it, and they should be locked inside.  Any time one of the other workers reaches the milestone skill level, send them to the new fortress.

Ideally, your skilled dwarfs will live ecstatic lives, while the peasants and nobles descend into tantrum spirals and starve to death.  (Hopefully, your skilled workers aren't friends with them.)  Bonus points if you remove a skilled worker just in time to keep him from satisfying a noble's demands. 

Any thoughts?  I hope I'm not copying anyone.  And I don't start an Atlas Shrugged flame war. 

[Diablous]

This sounds very complicated. Probably be easier in the next version, thanks to burrows.

[Itnetlolor]

Minor issue. Tantrums may be inevitable provided lots of inter-personal contact between "peasants".

[Cypress]

I can certainly see that working, but lets take it one step further
Drain the ocean.
Build a city of glass and bronze.
Put your dorfs in big old diving suits.
Turn off the pumps, and let the ocean cover your city.

[100killer9]

Luckily, tantrums may be inevitable provided lots of inter-personal contact between "peasants".

Fixed.

[NW_Kohaku]

Sorry if I spin off on a tangent about Ayn Rand for a bit...

I would suspect Rand would have wanted all your initial dwarves executed, due to their being Communists.  (Working for communal benefit with no pay... even with the economy, they're still pretty much communist.)(... Actually, now I feel like nicknaming my Hammerer "Rand".  It gives her a good reason to want to execute any dwarf she can get away with...)

One of the major arguments against Rand's works, though, was always that there was no real way to tell who were truly the "skilled" members of society.  One of the major critiques being that it was simply assumed that everyone would recognize "greatness" whenever someone saw it... but how can you really tell the difference between a man who was just lucky, or a man who took an educated gamble?  A rock star might look like he's coasting through life, but he has tremendous amounts of competition, and very likely practices his craft on a nearly daily basis, while a CEO might get rich simply by being hired for LOOKING "leadery".  By some measures, the nobles, who own everything, should be included in the same lot as "legendaries", since they are effectively the CEOs or major shareholders of Dwarf Fortress - they do no real work, make random insane demands, and live a life of luxury simply because they were born owning everything.  (We all just hate nobles because we're playing from the perspective of the communist dwarves... damn capitalists!)

Actually, this kind of makes me want to see a fort where all the nobles want to go Atlus Shrugged, and leave those worthless peasants to "wallow in their own muck"... but then, that's covered by "Unfortunate Accidents", just on a larger scale.

As for tantrum-spirals... most of my legendaries have few friends.  They spend all their time in their workshops, or on quick trips to grab materials, booze, food, or occasionally collapse in bed after making 100 straight masterpiece or exeptional whatevers.  They never get a chance to socialize.  (Although the founding 7 are generally always friends, they'll almost certainly be among your skilled workers.)

[They Got Leader]

I may try the whole build underwater thing, though I might take a shortcut (which still will take a lot of time) and design the whole underocean place using Dtil to individually replace water with magma so that I create the whole underwater fortress from scratch. That is, make 7/7 water into 7/7 magma which instantly should turn to an obsidian block which I will then have to mine out and smooth into my underwater palace.

Even though its less work then the whole drain ocean and build idea, it will save a lot of FPS. Sure, its cheating, but I think it will be awesome anyways.

[Imp]

I think this fortress pattern would be highly successful in terms of dwarf survival and happiness, if and maybe only if all labors (except fishing and hunting if there is anything to hunt) were turned on for all the unskilled/lowskilled dwarves.  10 or 20 or 100 pairs of slow clumsy hands all doing a job at the same time can effectively get a lot of work done in a short space of time.  Such a system just needs more space to spread out, and arguably more raw materials (Like more stacks of the stuff that forms stacks, (Like with food, cause each will usually be just 1 plant instead of 5)


Of course, the player (effective leadership and motivation) would also need to be paying attention and working towards the worthless ones' success, not failure.  A saboteur, be they overt or subtle, can and often does tear down any unguarded target.

[BodyGripper]

By some measures, the nobles, who own everything, should be included in the same lot as "legendaries", since they are effectively the CEOs or major shareholders of Dwarf Fortress - they do no real work, make random insane demands, and live a life of luxury simply because they were born owning everything.  (We all just hate nobles because we're playing from the perspective of the communist dwarves... damn capitalists!)

I see the nobles as being a lot more like the looters (antagonists from Atlas Shrugged), which include people who owned businesses but didn't know how to do anything, and made insane demands without caring about possibility.

[NW_Kohaku]

By some measures, the nobles, who own everything, should be included in the same lot as "legendaries", since they are effectively the CEOs or major shareholders of Dwarf Fortress - they do no real work, make random insane demands, and live a life of luxury simply because they were born owning everything.  (We all just hate nobles because we're playing from the perspective of the communist dwarves... damn capitalists!)

I see the nobles as being a lot more like the looters (antagonists from Atlas Shrugged), which include people who owned businesses but didn't know how to do anything, and made insane demands without caring about possibility.

Yes, but what I was saying was that while we can easily perceive nobles in DF that way, in reality, it's not that easy to see who is a looter, and who is a ruthless and successful capitalist.

The book "Outliers" is pretty much all about this, but I think one quote in particular illustrates the idea, where Jeb Bush was talking about how he was an "entirely self-made man", and that his family's huge wealth and political influence (which, after all, helped him become governor), as well as the education and job opportunities that they afforded, as well as the friends and contacts he could make by leveraging those assets, were actually a detriment to his personal success.

I just imagine the nobles being sort of like this - convinced that they got where they are thanks to their own hard work, instead of being lazy, useless, and overall generally detrimental to the function of the fortress they are leeching off of, thanks only to their accident of birth. 

This brings up the problem of just who the "skilled" people are - I mean, really, is a skilled soapmaker a "skilled" dwarf?  It doesn't even make them a better worker when you get right down to it... 

The notion of the looters and such was that they were, basically, the people who gamed the system, who lived on welfare... But even peasants are actually relatively hard-working haulers.  It's simply that hauling doesn't give experience.  If it did, they would be high-level haulers who got paid fairly well.  The idea of Atlus Shrugged was that the "skilled" were metaphorically carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, supporting the rest of society, which was decadant and leeched off the work of a few... but the reason you have haulers is that without haulers, the legendaries have to haul their own crap, and the division of labor (if unfair) actually helps carry the weight of dwarven society.  The unskilled are generally as productive as the skilled, they simply either haven't had a chance to get their XP up, or have been stuck with hauling duty. 

(Unless you want to divide your fort by their "excellence" trait, which says whether they just do enough work to get by, or are continually striving for excellence.)

Really, the only leeches are the nobles and children... which again, wind up just being references to the "Unfortunate Accident" article... unless, of course, you want to give your female dwarves in the military a fine suit of babymail armor.  (And even those tend to make decent harvesters... and with a large enough farm, and a textile mill or kitchen for export, you can actually really use that.)

[BodyGripper]

I get what you're saying, I think.  And I'm not saying that this would be a good way to run a fort, or that the other workers are useless;  I just think it'd be neat to have a situation like that in the book, where a few decide that they don't need the rest, because they can do their own hauling and planting.  (I know there's more to it than that, but that's basically the part that I'm interested in)

[NW_Kohaku]

Right, well, I did leave warning that I would go on a tangent about Ayn Rand...  She's one of those subjects that can spark some controversy, or so I hear.

As for making a self-contained community, though, maybe it would be interesting to make it something more of a "class warfare" deal, or something cultural.  ("Blue collar" miners and farmers hate those "also uneducated, but slightly more elite" craftsdwarves with white collar(ish) jobs.)

Sure, YOU can see how much experience a dwarf has in something, but that doesn't mean that dwarves respect all jobs the same.  What if the military-industrial complex (armorers, mechanics, seige jobs, weaponsmiths, and all military dwarves) decided that the civilian population could no longer be trusted, and that they were staging a military coup, because they were the only "skilled" dwarves.  Alternately, the farmers, cooks, and brewers could see the other dwarves as simply making "useless crap" to trade with other races.

Rather than just making some arbitrary decision about a certain XP level, what if some vital function of society went on strike.  (After all, it's much more likely for all the stonemasons to get together in their little guilds, and decide on conspiracies like this rather than only meeting with people of arbitrarily decided skill levels.)

[Shade-o]

Perhaps a fort where any dwarf who achieves a high skill, say, Legendary (easier to pick out thanks to flashing name) has to periodically fight in an arena against groups of captured animals and invaders. They would live in rooms attached to the arena, with food and drink dropped in through a hole. Come fight time, the levers are pulled and the recruit enters the field of honour. They can never escape unless they do something very impressive, like beating a horde of goblins to death with a marmot corpse, or having multiple limbs torn off but winning anyway. Their high stats would ensure a good fight.

Alternatively, this could be switched for an immigration program, where peasants, cheesemakers and fish dissectors have to get to 'Proficient' Wrestling before being allowed into the fort proper.

I don't really know why a fort would make their best workers enter a death arena, but the idea intrigues me.

[Hyndis]

The notion of the looters and such was that they were, basically, the people who gamed the system, who lived on welfare... But even peasants are actually relatively hard-working haulers.  It's simply that hauling doesn't give experience.  If it did, they would be high-level haulers who got paid fairly well.  The idea of Atlus Shrugged was that the "skilled" were metaphorically carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, supporting the rest of society, which was decadant and leeched off the work of a few... but the reason you have haulers is that without haulers, the legendaries have to haul their own crap, and the division of labor (if unfair) actually helps carry the weight of dwarven society.  The unskilled are generally as productive as the skilled, they simply either haven't had a chance to get their XP up, or have been stuck with hauling duty. 

This is true in real life as well.

The lowly migrant fruit picker. Unskilled worthless leach, right? But without any fruit pickers all of your doctorate engineers would starve to death.

Similar in DF, without haulers nothing in your fortress will get done. Your industry will grind to a halt and your fortress will be covered in garbage and miasma. They do a job that doesn't require a great deal of through or training, but it is absolutely vital to the survival of the society.

[Hyndis]

With regards to the OP, I had a similar thought on making two different fortresses on the same map.

Your initial 7 dig into the mountain. And then seal themselves off from the rest of the world, never seeing the surface ever again. Their children then populate the underground domain they carve from the stone.

A small surface castle is the entryway to the sealed off underground domain, with a shallow underground fortress there. Its just a small, simple affair.

Create a meeting zone there. All migrants will wander around in that shallow underground fortress. When you get enough population to have a hammerer or captain of the guard, appoint your most badass dwarf to that position. Use dwarf manager to adjust their skills so that they are extremely good at wrestling and have them do farming.

All of your other migrant dwarves will be left to their own devices. Mostly they'll just end up hauling the food grown by your elite dwarf, the king among the peasants. No military, no traps!

When invasions come, your only dwarf able to defend will be that single legendary dwarf. If he's taking a nap, too bad. Everyone else gets slaughtered. With 25-30 ranks in wrestling he should be able to easily defend himself from any attack, so your fortress will not be wiped out.

However as it would be a shallow underground fortress, it would soon be filled with miasma from all those rotting corpses. Leave the bones where they lay.

After a few decades of this, you will have one extremely badass dwarf and a ruined fortress filled with bones of dwarves, goblins, and elves. Underneath that in a sealed off hall, preferably guarded by traps and magma, will be the deep underground fortress where the descendants of your original 7 flourish.