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[Rez]

I'm sick of tantrums.  My last fort ended in an unstoppable tantrum spiral  .    I've been thinking the last few days about how to make my fortresses much more tantrum resistant.  Previously I tended to make a large meeting room and let all my dwarves mill around in there socializing.  Of course, since everyone knows everyone else, as soon as someone dies [violently], everyone gets unhappy, then someone hits someone else, and then, etc.etc.  End of that fort.

I've come up with a few ideas.  Beyond the obvious things of having nice stuff around, I'm thinking specifically about making the structure of my fort reduce tantrum damage.  I'm thinking that I want to reduce dwarf to dwarf contact as much as possible.  To do this, I think I want to have separate bedrooms and dining rooms for every dwarf.  Decentralized workshops will probably be required as well.  Preventing contact between separate industries will probably help; metalworkers will toil in the depths next to the magma and will never see my farmers and carpenters. I probably will utilize doors and modular construction to be able to lock off trouble sections.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

[Bdthemag]

But then you won't have as much fun! Losing is part of the game, its probally the best part actually.

[Rez]

Sure, but it'll be more Fun if my forts will reach middle age, so I can have real fun by penetrating the circus or doing silly things on the surface.  I'm struggling to have that happen atm.

[Ahrimahn]

Use the legendary engraver you inevitably got at some point and engrave every surface in the dorms and make only luxury meals no matter what happens they will be ecstatic at all times.

[Lectorog]

Create a personal fortress for each original dwarf. One pick for each, all labors enabled. Complete isolation; entirely closed off.

Optional: Make a fortress just for migrants. See how they fare. Conditions variable. (Other option is letting them slowly die and tantrum in the wilderness.)

[CapnUrist]

Keep everyone as ridiculously happy as possible. In my fortresses, my most important dwarves (to me) are the cook, the brewer, the engravers, the carpenter and all my metalworkers.

• I smooth every available surface to train up my engravers, then once they're legendary or near it (it shouldn't take long to train up 3 legendary engravers), set about engraving the dining hall, the bedrooms, the booze stockpile, the prisons, and anywhere else I feel could use some lovely history.
• A legendary cook with enough ingredients will produce food that makes ambrosia look like dog leavings, in huge quantities; my current fortress, the Riverbed of Surprises, has over 6000 prepared meals stockpiled, most of them masterpieces, and that's after losing an entire wing of the kitchens to an accidental magma spill.
• Brewers are also good, but their skill isn't quite as necessary, I've found; as long as dwarves have a large quantity of alcohol and a large variety available, they're happy as elves in the jungle.
• Nice furniture in their bedrooms, as well as the aforementioned engraving, keeps dwarves very happy. A high level carpenter makes better beds, and even near-worthless metals such as zinc and lead make dwarves happy. If metal is too precious or rare, I'll use stone and ensure a high-level mason (Great or better) makes the cabinets and coffers.
• It may seem an odd suggestion, but a nice jail can help as well. My current prison is made up of 12 3x3 cells without walls; instead, they are suspended over a pool of magma. Gold chains center each cell, and surrounding them are a bed, chair, table, 1 tile of food stockpile, and 2 booze tiles. A jail keeps your captain from having to beat criminals (s/he'll still do it, but only for serious crimes, so that candy hammer is also a plus), and making the cells nice and including some amenities helps balance the bad thoughts from imprisonment.
• Finally, try to keep your dwarves alive. Don't send your 5-man, barely trained squad of swordsdwarves to fend off the siege alone. Lock yourself in and wait them out if you don't have the military strength or proper traps to handle the enemy. One dwarf dying will upset a few people for a month or two. Ten dwarves dying will set off a powder keg of unrest and rage, especially if you let all your dwarves be friends like I do.

With this in place, ecstatic dwarves all the time... until you hit the HFS unprepared.

[psychologicalshock]

I never had a complete meltdown after I began building legendary dinning rooms and employing 95% of my population at all times. That way everyone gets super happy from the dining room and nobody cares when some random guy dies.

[Puresowns]

Another thing you can do is simply create a small self sufficient area of your fortress that has a small immigrant wave worth of dwarfs locked away so they don't form friendships with the main fortress. Added plus is that these guys will be able to survive anything short of FPS death, so EVENTUALLY your fort will recover.

[Gnauga]

Make sure they're all working constantly. If you don't see the text Idlers:0 on your screen, you're doing this strategy wrong. Actively party-poop by deconstructing any tables that some stray child tries to organize a party on. If they don't idle, I think, then they don't socialize. I did this with my first fort. Wiped about a quarter of my fort (of over a hundred) to magma accident. Everyone else said "meh" and got to work cleaning up the magma spill.

[Strant]

If you want to avoid parties, make a meeting zone instead of a meeting hall.  This will stop people from partying in the dining room

[Necro910]

Have a massive fortress guard armed with cotton candy warhammers.

And then have a cage to store your whole fortress in. Give the guards candy shields for safety.

[wuphonsreach]

CapnUrist nails most of it.

- Individual 2x2 bedrooms, smoothed (maybe not engraved) with 1 bed and 3 cabinets is one thing I shoot for by year 3 or 4.

- Legendary dining rooms (plural) that hold about 8-12 tables + chairs.  Everything is smoothed / engraved before placing furniture (or at least engrave where the tables and chairs go before placing).

- Multiple meeting areas, a bit scattered.  This spreads them out and lessens the !!FUN!! if someone throws a tantrum.

- High quality food and booze.

- Don't send dwarves out to die when mechanical levers or traps can do the job.

- Smooth and engrave room for coffins early on.

- Build a mist generator.

- Build a dwarven bath in a main passage.

Worst I've had so far was losing 15-20 dwarves (out of 60-80) due to bad tactics in a siege (led by a demon shrew), and a surprise visit by a dragon while I was cleaning up the goblinite from said siege.  I basically had to wait it out, keep everyone else busy, and tried to isolate the really bad tempered dwarves.

[synkell]

Or you can choose the path of most resistance blood , create a 15 z level platform , have a meeting hall of all your dwarves under it . Have all the kittens and puppies or whatever excessive animals you have in a small bridge slung underneath , pull level to drop all the animals to their doom. If im not wrong , all the dwarves who see this will have " not care about anything anymore" .

[Mechatronic]

The best solution is to have a well defined and practically impregnable civilian area where nobody dies a violent death that should be defined as a burrow and you can quickly get your civilians into. Also, draft dwarves into the military when they arrive as migrants and never, ever let them off duty so they end up making civilian friends, who will wig out when they die.

Or you can choose the path of most resistance blood , create a 15 z level platform , have a meeting hall of all your dwarves under it . Have all the kittens and puppies or whatever excessive animals you have in a small bridge slung underneath , pull level to drop all the animals to their doom. If im not wrong , all the dwarves who see this will have " not care about anything anymore" .

Really? I think "not care about anything anymore" simply correlates with military levels. I've had migrants arrive, say, proficient in a weapon skill and also as hardened individuals.

[Diamond]

Or you can choose the path of most resistance blood , create a 15 z level platform , have a meeting hall of all your dwarves under it . Have all the kittens and puppies or whatever excessive animals you have in a small bridge slung underneath , pull level to drop all the animals to their doom. If im not wrong , all the dwarves who see this will have " not care about anything anymore" .

Really? I think "not care about anything anymore" simply correlates with military levels. I've had migrants arrive, say, proficient in a weapon skill and also as hardened individuals.

I read it somewhere here that it is linked to number of deaths witnessed. So that's the exact reason why you throw puppies into danger room while squad is training there.