Bay 12 Games Forum

My dwarves seem to be using lots of soap. Three dwarves are more or less constantly occupied with making ash, lye, and soap (population of 100). Fortunately, I'm producing enough tallow by butchering cute puppies and kittens useless canines and felines.
Is there something that I could do to reduce this undwarvish compulsion to wash themselves? They seem to be getting a happy thought from it every now and then ('nice soapy bath' or something), but I'm getting lots of unhappy thoughts if I have to cut down every tree on the map just to keep my soap production running. Not to mention that I used to think "Lye maker? Welcome to the military!" and now I actually need them little buggers.

Forbid the soap as it comes off the line or hits the stockpile. Otherwise, "LOAM ON MY TOES - CLEAN SELF" "GOBLIN BLOOD - CLEAN SELF" etc etc etc

Did you try fabricating a few splints? Is wood too scarce?

Only if it's in reaction to a syndrome; there aren't any "mind-affecting" syndromes per se yet.

I use custom profession names mostly for honorifics; a dwarf who does something particularly noteworthy gets a special profession. Others may get a title for organization; this is typical if they have a low-use but important skill that they're likely to surpass with one of the high-job-volume skills. That helps a lot for organization. Otherwise, recent immigrants in a large fort that I haven't settled on skill-sets for will get a temporary profession like "newcomer" or somesuch. And, of course, anyone who does something especially stupid or unhelpful goes down in the histories for it.

Is separating the military from the civilians the only way to stop a Tantrum spiral? I always fail in doing so which turns even a pyrrhic victory into a loss due to angry parents -.-*

I mean shouldn't it be possible to pamper them to the point where they can just take the hit? I mean separating them feels kinda exploitisch since these dwarf fight to death to protect their Home, so shouldn't they at least now who they are dying for?

So any advice on this this is appreciated, since this is currently the No.1 issue that makes having an army  not fun atm 

Nice things. Lots of nice things, all over the place. The more excellent, pretty-pretty-oooo-shiny stuff around, the more stuff there is to notice. Nice stuff will give happy thoughts. And happy thoughts are what mitigate unhappiness, which is the prime cause for tantrum spirals. Have a good variety in food and drink, and you'll see happier dwarves. High-value rooms and architecture helps, too. Friendships, in this case, are less desirable. A dwarf gets sad when his friend is chopped up during the Twenty-seventh Attempted Abduction. Lots of friends means lots of sadness. Make sure you've got plenty of chairs and beds, or there will be complaints. Pets can help, but much like friendships, their deaths cause sadness. On that note, prompt burial helps to lessen the impact of death. AFAIK, there's always mist, too. Dwarves love them some mist.

I think artifacts are gone on reclaim.

Aside from that, they cannot be marked for dumping.

That is my hope since first playing of this game. I thought it would be added already. I have no idea why there are no priorities yet.   

Rather than react with knee-jerk sarcasm, you might try to explain what you mean.

Do you want to have options to lower/raise the priority of different areas of designation, different types of designations, specific dwarf's job priorities?

There are, in fact, already priorities attached to jobs. You may not feel work is correctly prioritized, but you are incorrect in asserting priorities do not exist.

As for "building tasks," do you mean jobs in workshop queues, the priority level for the "construct building task" or [ b ] menu priorities, generally? Care to add some content to your suggestion?