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[HatfieldCW]

I got to thinking about my marksdwarf who went insane after a purple ampersand ate his kitteh, and it seems to me that the atmosphere and history of a fort should influence the significance of good and bad thoughts.  For instance, if you're under constant siege by terrifying subterranean beastlies, with a couple dwarves being carried off or devoured every year, then perhaps the population would become resistant to that kind of trauma.  On the other hand, if you've gone 10 years without an accidental death and a child falls down a well, it would be the news of the year, with everyone engraving little pictographs of the kid and the parents flipping out and on and on.

I never really understood the "doesn't really care about anything anymore" tag, so maybe that's already doing much of what i'm describing here, but I like the idea of a fort having a cultural meta-personality, with tolerances and susceptibilities that are shared among all its residents.

[The_Kakaze]

A fortress personality is a really cool idea.  It could be the sum of the dwarves likes and dislikes, and influence the personalities of the dwarves within, each changing the other.  That way it would sort of be set by the starting seven and what they choose to build, but slowly altered by later events.  It could be updated when the dwarves have a chance to do something cultural, like talk or party or when new friendships are formed.
This seems like a good place to draw from for artifacts as well, with a smaller influence by the individual dwarf creating it.  Unless that dwarf is a true outsider which could be possibly governed by a soul trait.

[NW_Kohaku]

Heh, zeitgeist, and having the rebelliousness of a dwarf determine how much he behaves in accordance with the overall trends or status quo of the overall fortress.

I like the idea of dwarves growing callous or compassionate, in response to the way you have governed your fortress quite a bit...  Although I still like to think of happiness as a "SAN meter" rather than a "eating a nice meal always makes the gloominess of a zombie carp eating my son go away!" meter. 

[Furtuka]

I like idea...

...hmmm it would probably make the dwarves in sucsession games a  little unbalanced

[Sindain]

I like idea...

...hmmm it would probably make the dwarves in succession games a  little unbalanced

hehe...  after one or two good rulers an evil one comes along and after *accidentally* killing 5 dwarves the whole fortress goes berserk... it would be glorious 

[Impaler[WrG]]

The main benefit would be a kind of 'auto' difficulty leveler, if your keeping everyone happy it gets harder to keep them happy, if your making everyone miserable it becomes easier to make them happy (or harder to make them even more miserable?).

[praguepride]

The main benefit would be a kind of 'auto' difficulty leveler, if your keeping everyone happy it gets harder to keep them happy, if your making everyone miserable it becomes easier to make them happy (or harder to make them even more miserable?).

Exactly. Suddenly putting in a mega-happy-thought-waterfall isn't such a good idea because then the first time a child gets snatched or a soldier dies, everyone gets pissed off and starts breaking masterpieces.

On the flipside, if everyone is miserable and dying, it makes the game a little easier to recover from because the downward tantrum spiral's slope is reduced.

I think the key of this would be momentum. For example, if you're population is very happy for 50 years and then all hell breaks loose (literally, HFS ) then the population should be highly sensitive to bad thoughts for at least half the time as things were in paradise. It shouldn't be an instant flip. So tantrum spirals in "happy" fortresses are even more steep then in "normal" fortresses.

Morale would cease to become a "just max it" kind of thing and might be more along the lines of balancing it.

Then again, that would make things very hard as simple things like waterfalls and epic dining rooms currently max out the happy-meter. Perhaps a voimtarium? taking away people's beds?

[NW_Kohaku]

The main benefit would be a kind of 'auto' difficulty leveler, if your keeping everyone happy it gets harder to keep them happy, if your making everyone miserable it becomes easier to make them happy (or harder to make them even more miserable?).

Exactly. Suddenly putting in a mega-happy-thought-waterfall isn't such a good idea because then the first time a child gets snatched or a soldier dies, everyone gets pissed off and starts breaking masterpieces.

On the flipside, if everyone is miserable and dying, it makes the game a little easier to recover from because the downward tantrum spiral's slope is reduced.

I think the key of this would be momentum. For example, if you're population is very happy for 50 years and then all hell breaks loose (literally, HFS ) then the population should be highly sensitive to bad thoughts for at least half the time as things were in paradise. It shouldn't be an instant flip. So tantrum spirals in "happy" fortresses are even more steep then in "normal" fortresses.

Morale would cease to become a "just max it" kind of thing and might be more along the lines of balancing it.

Then again, that would make things very hard as simple things like waterfalls and epic dining rooms currently max out the happy-meter. Perhaps a voimtarium? taking away people's beds?

Hmm... that makes my support for this idea wane a bit...

I can support a notion that makes commonly occuring events "mundane", but I don't like the notion that if things are really going well, it is instant, guaranteed tantrum spiral as soon as anyone dies of anything, even a pet dying of old age. 

That just goes into the masochistic, and would force micromanagement if you really had to start taking away beds to have to balance out happiness.

Rather, I support a notion that dwarves will start to take things for granted.  If they constantly get masterpiece prepared meals, then the bonus for eating a good meal wanes.  A legendary dining hall becomes staid over time.  A waterfall's majesty loses its splendor the more you see it.

Likewise, a dead body is horrific the first time you see it, but by the fifth time this week... well, at least it's nobody you knew.

After all, in real life, people blow things that are rare out to absurd proportions, while ignoring the common.  Plane crashes are rare, so they get huge amounts of attention.  People getting mugged, or dying in car crashes, nobody even bothers reading the statistics unless their jobs revolve around it.

To that end, I would suggest "death" should not, by itself, be a given category of negative thoughts, but rather, the type of death should matter.  One of my original generation cats dying of old age?  Probably should have less of an impact than your pets being Funned to death by the spaghetti clowns, or being smashed by an atom smasher or otherwise horrific, or purposeful deaths.

[praguepride]

And perhaps overall morale effects how serious those "deaths' are.

So you could classify stuff as "good times"/"bad times" stuff.

People being murdered
Artifacts/Maseterpieces being stolen
Poor quality food/no beds/inferior housing

those would be bad times stuff. When times are good, the impact of those would have a much higher impact. When times are bad, they'd be lower.

"good times" stuff would be things like high quality food/drink/clothing/furniture
dying of old age/natural causes


So here are some scenarios:

A fortress is in a bitter seige. dozens of dwarves have lost their lives and the populous has grown numb. They are used to poor rations, inadequate booze supplies, and constant death. However, their noble king passes away of old age. Suddenly, the dam breaks and the tears start flowing.

Not only do they have to worry about the goblins outside, but the king's natural death is a reminder that they cannot evade death forever.


Afortress is in paradise. Waterfalls and artifacts everywhere. The king dies of old age but the populous is only marignally effected. It's sad but it was his time and he lived in such a wonderful time. However, a dwarf gets ambushed and is horribly slaughtered by goblin ambushers. This is terrible and the dwarves are in uproar! How could something like that be allowed to happen when they live in such luxury?

[NW_Kohaku]

Hmm... I think that there should be differences in the way that cumulative effects of events should play out...

If people around you keep dying, you don't bother making friends, you don't want to know someone who may up and die on you soon.  You want to take pleasure in immediate gratification because there's no point in worrying about tommorow, for tommorow you may die.

When times are peaceful and prosperous, a death is a tragedy, but even then, you can find plenty in life to keep living for.

Even the finest wine can grow dull as you know that it is always on tap.  When every meal is a masterpiece, you forget how rare such things are in the world, and lose your gratitude.

Wheras if your masterpieces are constantly defaced, and your artifact stolen, the first time, it is just a fluke, but every time after that, it becomes obvious that your life's work, that you had dedicated so much time into becoming skilled in, means nothing to these people around you, and each insult to your art is just another twist of the knife!  The more common it is, the MORE it makes them angry.

The more often someone visits the unicorn in the zoo, the more they fall in love with the animal.

Death of old age is... well, it's natural.  It is sad, but you can see it coming, and it doesn't get easier or worse every time.

As such, there might be something where each event would be of decreasing, increasing, or neutral importance the more frequently it happens.