Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

They are BAD!!  We will have none of them!

8 (5.6%)

An occasional bad though is acceptable.

52 (36.1%)

Bad thoughts are part of the well-rounded darf psyche, bring them on!

60 (41.7%)

I love tantrum spirals.

24 (16.7%)

Total Members Voted: 143

[gtmattz]

This is just something I have noticed seems to vary from player to player.  I was watching The Matrix last night, and Agent Smith's little speech with Morpheus where he explains how the first version of the matrix failed due to lack of bad thoughts got me thinking about it. This attitude seems to vary from one extreme to another, so I figured I would toss this poll up here and see what kind of opinion people have. 

[slothen]

there's no point in having thoughts if there aren't bad ones.

[Musashi]

I'm having a mixed position about this. When I see an unhappy dwarf (generally the same ones), I keep an eye on them but don't actually do anything about it, except maybe assign them temporarily a bedroom for a future noble if they complain about the sleep or the lack of bedroom ownership. I don't care much about anything anymore, by which I mean unless I'm losing one of the very few dwarfs I want to keep alive for whatever reason, I don't regret seeing a dwarf die and I'm very, very likely not to do anything about the threat to the other dwarfs (be it water flow, wild animals, or syndromes spread through extract).
The way I manage my fortress however, I rarely see unhappy ones. The standard bedroom is 2x3 because it's easier to the eye for me and it allows me to dig out more stone for big constructions; I engrave most owned rooms because I like to pause sometimes, chill out and take a look at the latest engravings. And I'm finishing slowly a megaproject that will hopefully project mist over several levels of my fortress in the main halls in order to make the dwarfs happy, do a little bit of cleaning, utterly kill my FPS, and feed at last the damn well in the hospital.
So... I guess the factor in their happiness is caused by the specific project of my fortress rather than my philosophy overall. If I wanted to waste as little stone as possible and play with magma instead, you bet I'd already have gotten tantrum spirals.

[Shrugging Khan]

Occasionally check them for circumstances that need improvement, but overall I don't bother much as long as the dorfs are mostly in the green.

[Lagslayer]

I'm still getting used to the game, so I'd rather not have a tantrum spiral just as things get rolling. I have yet to have a dwarf go insane unless it was from a failed mood, and it is not that difficult to prevent it thus far. So, for the moment, I suppose an occasional unhappy thought is ok.

[Johnny Madhouse]

I voted for tantrum spirals despite seeing them very rarely. They're only fun if they don't happen on purpose.

My first cave in was a good example. I deliberately caused a cave in 40d to quickly make a two-story tall barracks ceiling but I didn't know that cave ins crashed through floors with nothing underneath them. I ended up driving the ceiling through fifteen z-levels of fortress directly down to my magma workshops on the bottom floor. Dead dwarves and masterwork crafts littered the area like autumn leaves. Magma had sprayed all over, including into my booze stockpile created so my metalworkers wouldn't have to walk far. It was amazing, and I think creating that on purpose would be cheap.

[Aner-Dyfan]

I provide the nessessities for happy dwarves, just haven't got around to making them all happy. Generally only housing half my inmates population and lacking booze for most the year does that.

I don't go out of the way to make any specific dwarf happy, berserkers give my military some experience which my so called terrifying embark is failing to give. Thus far combats involving the wildlife have been 0.3encounters a year.

[abadidea]

I want my dwarves to be happy, but I don't have the time to make more danged chairs 

My biggest problem has been them getting upset over long military duty, but most of them are still at the dabbling to novice level despite me repeatedly throwing goblins at them to practice on.

[Internet Kraken]

I never have problems keeping dwarves happy. Even in Townbrush, when half the fort was dead for most of the time, the majority of dwarves were ecstatic right up until the plague hit. I honestly think there should be more bad thoughts, especially ones related to being locked in the fortress or enemies being nearby. It would add additional difficulty to sieges and ambushes when you try to outlast them just by turtling.

[Aspgren]

My dwarves always find a reason to be upset.. and I wouldn't have it any other way!

the day they break the computer and escape unto the rug though....

[Veroule]

Most of my dwarves have nothing to complain about.  Those in the military are given a fulltime lifedeath sentence.  They have lots of unhappy thoughts and I make them ecstatic anyways.  It is pretty easy when each squad of 9 is given a 9x9 barracks room, with 9 chests, 9 armor stands, and 9 weapons racks available to be owned by each of the 9 bedrooms assigned there.  Then there are all the little spears with exceptional mechanisms, and suddenly every member of my military has a great bedroom.

[AngleWyrm]

I give everyone Decent quarters, and they are generally Happy to Ecstatic, with a few Content. The military is mostly Content, with a few Happy and Ecstatic.

[The Dog Delusion]

IMO, a few bad thoughts aren't so bad, especially if the dwarf is still happy or ecstatic. I think that having the possibility of negative thoughts basically balances and justifies the entire "thoughts" mechanism, to be honest. But yeah, as long as a dwarf's mood is overall good, I don't worry too much about a few bad thoughts...

...but sometimes, it's pretty hilarious to find a miserable dwarf and look at their thoughts to see all the bad things that have happened to them lately, lol.

[Max White]

I do my best to bring happyness to my people, but sometimes a wood cutter is going to get caught in a rain, or a farmer will be plauged by a rat, it just can't be helped. Anything that can sway mass mind, though, like making more chairs, I will try.

[Untelligent]

What with all the dwarves in my current fort that have been shot by goblins, eaten by forgotten beasts, and... er, grimed by grimelings in the first few years alone, with all of the dead bodies just being dumped in the river and none of the living dwarves having any private bedrooms or foodstuff variety, not to mention that for half a year I send a handful of them outside to work during the freezing weather and they're probably cave adapted because they spend the other half of the year underground and never get to see the summer sun because there's a major river over my entrance, I'm surprised I haven't had a tantrum spiral yet. I'll have to draft a bunch of migrants into the fortress guard as soon as I rebuild the military from that last goblin ambush.