How do dwarves build attributes like disease resistance, recuperation, and mental attributes?
If by mental attributes, you mean Soul Attributes (Memory, Focus etc.), it is believed that performing tasks from skills which relate to that attribute will increase it. E.G. the Appraiser skill is linked to Memory, so performing trades with that dwarf will raise the Appraiser skill and the Memory Attribute. The wiki lists which skills relate to what attributes:
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Attribute#Skills_By_Soul_Attribute[/url]
As far as I know there is no way to raise disease resistance or recuperation.
I have a question I've been unable to get answered elsewhere: how can I increase the tile size of my game so I can read it?
I typically play on a 1280x720 monitor, and with ASCII I can zoom enough to read things clearly. However, with any graphics set, of any tile size (even modified tile sizes of 45x45 or larger, some of which I enlarged myself with graphics editing programs), everything is too small and I need to squint and can't read well. I've tried editing the init file for the resolution / grid size, black space Yes/No, changing the Print Mode, Windowed/fullscreen, even raising/lowering the resolution of my monitor. In the end, the physical size of the tiles, when measured by a wooden ruler against the screen, is always the same, and tiny.
(Changing to a large, 45x45 tileset for example, will make the initial window have large tiles, but the window spills off the screen and as soon as I touch it or resize or go to fullscreen it reverts to the same tiny tiles. Especially strange is that changing my monitor resolution down to 800x600 still keeps tiny tiles.)