And as a final question, is there any trick to using the stat building workshops? My dwarves seem to get addicted to them and train themselves until they starve to death. In one case, even if I disabled the train swimming task, he'd just mill around the pool until I added it again and refused to do anything else.
Was that just a freak incident or did I miss something?
I
think it's a freak accident. With the stat workshops, my dwarves will usually put them as a priority above all other jobs, but I've never had one put the task above eating, drinking, or sleeping. They also seem to have a very odd habit of always picking certain stat-building tasks above others, when they have a choice.
Doctor: When presented with "study medical notes at the library", and "practice *insert medical skill here*", they will
always pick the former. Library seems to always trump anatomical theater. Training dummy trumps library. Normal theater trumps training dummy. And of course, they'll always completely ignore any other task assigned.
My problem now is the pretty standard "My military won't keep their armor on" issue. Well, sometimes. It's pretty arbitrary - they'll go pick up a helmet, or a mail shirt, but won't keep the rest on (They'll put it on for a move or kill order and then drop it wherever they are when it's canceled). However, this is probably a vanilla DF problem.
It seems that embarking at 4 AM is a stupid idea. I accidentally forgot my carpenter and assigned two dwarves with mechanics!