And how shall I repent o' God of KIDDYLAND!? (see what I did there?)
As a matter of fact, I did. Epic lolgasms ensued.
I think Karne may actually be onto something; Considering that dwarves tend to be in slightly worse moods than in 40d due to a number of factors (mass death from goblin sieges and constantly starving themselves so they can
Make Plant Fiber Sock /R spring to mind), they would probably hover around "content" so long as nothing else pisses them off, which if Karne is correct would indeed lead to a higher proportion of possessions (Yes, I am aware that correlation does not imply causation).
I don't remember clearly, but I seem to recall that I got a lot of possessions in my old fort until I installed 4 ruby-encrusted
funstone statues in my dining hall, which pretty much shot everyone's mood up to "ecstatic" immediately. It could've been the other way around, though; my memory's bad.
If anybody has the time, I think we could test it like this:
Sieges
OFF (to minimize unwanted bad thoughts)
Pop Cap 40 (to conserve FPS)
The tester will run 2 forts. Fort A (our "content" fort) has a mediocre unengraved 6x6 dining room and Fort B (our "ecstatic" fort) has a huge 30x30 dining hall with engraved walls and gold/
funstone everything. Neither fort will have beds (which should provide a steady influx of negative thoughts) and both will be at the exact same location (i.e. save after embarking, then copy the file and play each seperately) to negate additional variables. Each fort will be played until the 30th mood, and how many of each mood type will be recorded. If the dwarves in Fort A get too happy, drop one of them into a death pit (the small dining room should mean they'll all be friends very soon). If they get too sad, temporarily place
something nice in the dining hall for them to ogle.
I'd do this myself, but my comp really doesn't like the current version and I don't think I'd be able to finish in any resonable amount of time.