Bay 12 Games Forum

As to the Q, you could always save, use the mood tool (but not "force"), and see if it thinks you're eligible. If yes, kill the game (do NOT "save and exit"!), and reload the save and go on about your business.

I am, however, not always sure if I am eligible for strange moods, due to complex requirements...

Yeah, you're either over-thinking the details, or just see "math involved" and start backing away slowly.

The requirements are pretty simple -

• 20 dwarves that are not "babies" or active military.
  
• No current (or very recent?) mood
  
• Active fort (i.e. "making stuff & mining stone")

That's about it. The last is a given unless you're trying some experimental run and your dwarfs are just sitting around producing nothing, and/or just mining out soil.

Also, used to be, once you had a mood, there was a countdown that starts before the next (with the % staying at 0% for a short while, then slowly growing), so more than 1 every...mmm... couple seasons or so was rare (prev versions - that min frequency may have changed, or been removed???).

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Strange_mood#Conditions

If you want the specific details, yeah, that can be a bit more of a headache - but unless you're doing something odd, once you have 20 (non-child/ non-active military) dwarves it's actually really hard to NOT qualify.

Yeah, Forbid it and just let it decay and you'll have a nice stack of high-value bones and a skull for your moody Bonecarver dwarf or any Macabre mooder.  Don't know if the horn separates when it rots, tho' that'd be nice to have too.

(Unless you're in a really evil area and there's a chance it might rise again?)

Go to the wiki, and find out which Labors pump which Skills with the Attribute(s) you want to boost. I'm guessing things like Miner and Pump Operator might(?) be helpful, but you should make sure. Set a dwarf to that task, make them "Legendary" in that, then move on to the next. Should do the trick.

I wouldn't be surprised if goblins/etc. wipe out the other 3 races, but not vice versa - so dwarves will always risk becoming fewer, while goblins can only become larger. At 100k years, it's not impossible that there are still dwarves, just ~very~ unlikely any survive.

That's just a theory. But I like it.

First, I hope you're using Dwarf Therapist.  If not, I would completely agree with you. Easy plug-and-play gui doesn't do much of anything that the vanilla version of the game doesn't do via those clumsy hotkey menus (unless you want to cheat).

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Utilities#Dwarf_Therapist

Once there, it's easy to scan preferences (pop-up w/ mouse-hover), and organize your dwarves by job, by skill, by migration wave (to see who's newly arrived), by "highest moodable skill", by well over a dozen different views. And with filters - bonus.

Then, give each one a distinct and meaningful "nickname" - even if it's just "p#" for all those no-skill peasants. You have a main carpenter? Then "Carptr". Your Trader? I know what I'd call him. This lowers the stress of organizing, coordinating and over-seeing a large population immensely.


If you ARE using that and are still overwhelmed, then, yeah, pop cap is the way to go.

"Rusty conversationalist"? Do you have no meeting hall? Is this guy a leper? How does that skill go "rusty" in a fortress full of dwarves?

Experience has spoken.

<bows to experience>