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[Sphalerite]

Imagine you are running a prosperous long-term fortress, with a growing population and a not excessive rate of death.  Your reader/expedition leader/social dwarf becomes your mayor in time, and is probably elected many times over.  Things are pretty cool.  You get attached to him, and he ends up one of your more experienced and highly valued dwarves.

Assuming your fortress survives and prospers, you attract nobles. Your count, baron, or duke, and his/her consort, show up and officially take over the fortress - although your popularly elected mayor is still there, so that's cool.

Now, what do the ruling nobles do, other than mandate impossible-to-manufacture goods?  They pump out babies.  A noble and consort can produce at least a baby a year, sometimes more.  Few other dwarves in the fortress can match their fecundity, since even haulers are usually too busy to have quite that many kids.  Military dwarves breed, but their children have a somewhat higher attrition rate than those of nobles.

A noble's children follow her everywhere, a noticeable swarm of little red smiley faces.  As they do they socialize with each other, the other nobles, and anyone else who pauses to take a break.  This usually results in them all being friends with each other, as well as quite a few other dwarves.  When the first one of those noble spawn reached adulthood, their massive number of family and friends usually cause them to win the next mayoral elections.  From then on, your mayor will be a child of the nobility.  It may change from one to another over time, but there is little you can do to give any other dwarf a chance to beat the noble's voting block.  Seems to me to happen about thirty years into a healthy fortress.

I saw this happen in my fortress, but it didn't really occur to me what was happening till I re-read the story of Nist Akath and realized this was how Captain Ironblood was finally replaced as mayor.

The obvious answer most of you will suggest is burning the nobles in lava.  While this is always hilarious, you'll have to do it every few years, and it will kill your immigration rate.  You could merely kill the consort, who won't be replaced and will prevent the nobles from developing a family voting block.  The damage is already done in my fortress's case, although my recent experiments in suspended animation for troublesome nobles are yielding promising results.

[Naes Draw]

The damage is already done in my fortress's case, although my recent experiments in suspended animation for troublesome nobles are yielding promising results.

Really? Do you have any notes on the tests you might share?

[Blackburn]

I have a possible experiment that could serve as a solution to this problem.

Simply designate a place as the "noble zone." A place where every useless, lazy, horny noble lives that contains everything they need.

Put them in, lock a door, VOILA! Isolated nobles.

It's like a noble zoo. Occasionally dump supplies down there, or alternatively, sacrifice a few dwarves so that they have their own personal farmer, weaver, etc., all in one isolated area of the fort where the kids can't interact with the rest of the population.

[shadowform]

Except the Dwarven voting process doesn't require them to know anyone else.  With a large enough family, it's still entirely possible for one of them to be voted mayor.

Personally, I find that the children of nobles usually end up suffering from lethal 'accidents' while sparring with steel-equipped legendary swordsdwarves shortly after joining the illustrious military.  Those that don't, well, deserve to be elected mayor.

[Blackburn]

Except the Dwarven voting process doesn't require them to know anyone else.  With a large enough family, it's still entirely possible for one of them to be voted mayor.

Thus the importance of the Noble Vacation Device (NVD).

I'm sure you're familiar with it. Practically every experienced DF player builds one...

[kilakan]

you mean the mini adventure to the center of the world?

[Sphalerite]

Really? Do you have any notes on the tests you might share?

My suspended animation chamber for troubled nobles makes use of the creature stuck in midair bug.  I have a single-tile retracting bridge on a solid floor, surrounded by walls and doors.  I force the noble in question to stand on the bridge by using of a bait lever for the noble to pull and careful pausing and locking of doors.  I then have another dwarf pull the lever connected to thr bridge repeatedly.  By carefully waiting till the noble is airborn and saving, I can sometimes get them to be stuck in midair.  This sometimes takes several tries to get right, the conditions which trigger the bug seem somewhat random.

Once stuck in midair a noble doesn't seem to get hungry or thirsty, their mood does not change, they don't seem to make mandates anymore.  I'm pretty sure they'll no longer become pregnant, and I suspect they may even no longer age.  At the same time they aren't dead so the family doesn't get upset and no replacement is sent.  So far I've suspended the tax collector, and am working on suspension cells for the hammerer and countess consort.  I prefer to keep the count free because he meets with diplomats, and so far this count has only ever mandated easy to make stuff.

The process is really fiddly and takes a lot of micromanagement, so I'm still looking for ways to better streamline the process.

[NW_Kohaku]

Yeah, this is why I immediately tested my spiking chamber on my baron consort...  (Of course, the Baroness still had a child, since she somehow got pregnant on the walk into the fortress)

However, there IS hope - all you need to do is set all dwarves to harvest, and ensure that all your other dwarves are too busy to ever harvest themselves.  Just make a huge farm (200-400 tiles). Guarantees children and even nobles are always employed.

My fortress doesn't have parties, and nobody has friends.  Too busy.

We're all happy Communists here in our gulag wonderous socialist utopia!

[shadowform]

My god, that's beautiful Dwarven science at it's finest.  Also deliberately exploiting a bug.  But hey, I'm sure all of us use quantum stockpiles.

I usually wait until I find out what a noble likes before I vacate their position.  One of my barons really liked brass (which was perfectly fine) and his wife liked blue diamond (Uh oh!) but mandated nothing but spears (Whew.)  Both of them were treated with appropriately elaborate housing, thrones, and tombs. 

The Duchess was also exceptionally delighted when she found out her throne had dozens of upright spears already installed when she arrived.

[NW_Kohaku]

Completely accidental, actually, that was my first fortress, and I went a little crazy zoning farms because I got it in my head to start a major textile mill, with 5 farmer's workshops, 5 looms, 5 dyer's workshops, and 5 clothier's workshops... then I needed the pig tails to actually FEED this behemoth.  Then I had to assign about 30 dwarves to nothing but farm and textile-related jobs.  Then I keep my remaining haulers busy with all the stone from all the projects I'm constantly digging.

It's just by accident that children are all that's left.  Of course, now I've got a legendary farmer child (I'm naming her "Ceres"), which is nice because I've been pulling growers out to take on other duties, and I need another legendary, as soon as she hits "adulthood", by which I of course mean "puberty", since you can start marrying and breeding at 12 years old in this game.  (Incidentally, doesn't this raise the question of Pedophilia for anyone else?)

[silverskull39]

I think dwarves operate on the euphemism "If there's grass on the field, play ball!" except more dwarvenly. Like, "If there's a beard down below, give her a throw!" or some such.

[Blackburn]

I think dwarves operate on the euphemism "If there's grass on the field, play ball!" except more dwarvenly. Like, "If there's a beard down below, give her a throw!" or some such.

Ow, my sanity.

...That's probably the standard reaction to any discussions of dwarven breeding.

[Don Blake]

Two things to note.

First, dwarven reproduction (or anybody else's) doesn't actually seem to require sexual contact.

Second- since there is no real puberty as opposed to adulthood in the game, one can assume that dwarves at twelve are physically mature, and as emotionally mature as dwarves ever get.

[NW_Kohaku]

Don't forget cradle-robbing goes both ways in this game.  A 100-year-old female can start a relationship with a 2-year-old boy, and wind up marrying him almost as soon as he hits 12 years old if they have enough time spent bonding together, and children often have time for bonding.

edit: responding to Don Blake:

Then why do Humans have 12 years old, as well?

[silverskull39]

...aaaaand now I'm imagining an ancient, wrinkly, leather-skinned she-dwarf going up to a mini dwarf and saying "I hope you brought your pick, because I've got a shaft that needs digging."

ewwwwww.