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Author Topic: Musical forms and hapiness  (Read 2748 times)

Urist9876

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Musical forms and hapiness
« on: June 08, 2020, 07:47:24 am »

My dwarves are currently dancing, singing and playing an instrument in the tavern.
Lots of dwarves participate. When they stop, another group continues the merry making.

I do zero stress management in this game. I just limit the work a bit. Over 80 dwarves, three years in. Worst stress level +150. Several < -10k. They go out in sun and rain and hate it. Then they go dance and all is well*). It will get a lot worse and I might have to do things. For now, due to a lucky draw on the performance, things go well beyond expectations.

I am lucky this time: the number of participants depends on the musical form. I guess the more the better. Also the behaviour for lots of dance and music is somewhat random. Sometimes dwarves are more into poetry. Is there anything that helps developing new music forms or dances?

In most fortresses music making and dancing seem to decline over time, as poets and storytellers do more and more performances. Is this what you observe too?

Handling musical instruments seems to need a lot of micro management. Currently I will first observe what instruments are simulated and make those first. I put buildable instruments just outside the 5x5 dancing area. It seems to work there. Then I'll make some easy to craft instruments to fill up the chest in the tavern and repeat the procedure for temples. Dwarves seem to be happier when using instruments instead of simulating.

Some musical forms and dances are developed to worship a specific god and will be performed in temples. They happen rare, but trigger a lot of good thoughts. I started a very young world (5 years). Few music forms are developed so they made a dance for worship too.

Lastly I'll craft some big instruments that are not used and use them to decorate temples and inns - hoping they might be used someday. Most of the time I start over after about 20 years. Maybe I'm not patient enough to see it happen?

*) Dwarves getting good feelings from skill increases for dance, music, musical instrument, singing and most like merry making and watching performance. Somewhat similar to military training, but maybe even better.
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martinuzz

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Re: Musical forms and hapiness
« Reply #1 on: June 08, 2020, 11:29:39 am »

8 years in, I still haven't seen any dwarves perform anything musical.
The tavern has all instruments (dwarven, human and elf), a 14x9 dancefloor, yet the only performances I get are poetry recitals.

Must be noted that I only have my 10 starting dwarves, who all got some extra skills during embark.
How can I get them to play music? They all have knowledge of many musical pieces, all are skilled musicians, everyone has skill in an instrument..
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Urist9876

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Re: Musical forms and hapiness
« Reply #2 on: June 08, 2020, 01:38:10 pm »

To get dwarves play an instrument you need ots of offtime in the tavern or temple and luck.

Maybe an adventurer could kickstart things by making musical compositions and writing them down.

Musical instruments need to be stored in chests build at the tavern zone. If those are not available, dwarves will simulate instruments. Some instruments are to big to be stored in a chest, they need to be build.

14x9 is very big for a dance floor. Try a smaller and designate the rest of the room as a dining hall. Although I doubt it matters for music making, it is something you can try.
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martinuzz

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Re: Musical forms and hapiness
« Reply #3 on: June 08, 2020, 04:52:21 pm »

I don't believe dancefloors can be too big, only too small for some dance forms.
My instruments are in chests, and those that can be built are built. My dwarves have lots of offtime, and are already familiar with muscial compositions.
What I could try is make more instruments, there's only one of each. Maybe the 'simulate instrument' won't work if there's one available but more are needed, I should test that.
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martinuzz

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Re: Musical forms and hapiness
« Reply #4 on: June 08, 2020, 07:15:50 pm »

I just assigned all my dwarves to the tavern as performers...
And 2 seasons later, finally!  One dwarf is chanting, 3 are dancing!
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TubaDragoness

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Re: Musical forms and hapiness
« Reply #5 on: June 09, 2020, 01:49:15 pm »

I've had dances where all the instruments were simulated by singing dwarves, so I don't think instruments factor into whether they'll dance or not. I think it honestly comes down to chance in your world gens for how many dances there are, how popular, and how many "players" are needed. Some forts I've had dances all the time. Others, not a single one.
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vjek

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Re: Musical forms and hapiness
« Reply #6 on: June 13, 2020, 09:16:53 am »

8 years in, I still haven't seen any dwarves perform anything musical.
The tavern has all instruments (dwarven, human and elf), a 14x9 dancefloor, yet the only performances I get are poetry recitals.

Must be noted that I only have my 10 starting dwarves, who all got some extra skills during embark.
How can I get them to play music? They all have knowledge of many musical pieces, all are skilled musicians, everyone has skill in an instrument..
I've seen full square, circle, line dances on day 1 with a single dwarven civ in a short (<1000yr) history world, so, it's certainly possible.
The only thing I can think of is that there are three types of preference with respect to entertaining. Poetic, Music and Dance.
It's possible, I suppose that they don't have a favorite of each?
In any case, if you're inclined to dfhack to try and test..
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

martinuzz

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Re: Musical forms and hapiness
« Reply #7 on: June 13, 2020, 03:22:41 pm »

Most of my dwarves already have favoured music and/or poetry forms.
I've seen them perform 3 times now, two times music from our own civ, and one performance of a musical piece of, I think, a goblin civ, simulating an instrument I do not have, even though I have all the trader elf and trader human civ's instruments.
Do goblins even make instruments?
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Musical forms and hapiness
« Reply #8 on: June 14, 2020, 03:21:32 am »

Most of my dwarves already have favoured music and/or poetry forms.
I've seen them perform 3 times now, two times music from our own civ, and one performance of a musical piece of, I think, a goblin civ, simulating an instrument I do not have, even though I have all the trader elf and trader human civ's instruments.
Do goblins even make instruments?
Goblins have their own instruments, as do every civ, including all the dwarven, human, and elven ones that aren't your neighbors. One of the problems with known music is that it doesn't seem to be tied to your civ, so the odds of you actually being able to get the instruments specified are fairly slim.
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martinuzz

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Re: Musical forms and hapiness
« Reply #9 on: June 14, 2020, 06:49:41 am »

I guess in the new version it is possible though to get most (except the goblin ones), by raiding other civilization's sites so they start sending caravans.
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Musical forms and hapiness
« Reply #10 on: June 14, 2020, 07:36:37 am »

I guess in the new version it is possible though to get most (except the goblin ones), by raiding other civilization's sites so they start sending caravans.
I think so, provided raid corruption won't kill the game for you. Also, I'm not sure if it's been verified that caravans are sent from further away than 30 tiles. It might be that they'll be prepared to send troops anywhere, but that their caravans have a limited range. Note that I have no data either way, so it's just a speculation.
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vjek

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Re: Musical forms and hapiness
« Reply #11 on: June 14, 2020, 09:19:52 am »

As a test, I gen'd a 10 year old single-civ dwarf-only world, and embarked with 7 completely unskilled/default peasants.  No dfhack changes, just vanilla.
Within 1 week, they are all dancing:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
One group as a 5 wide line dance, the other two together, nearby.  All simulating the various instruments.  On date Granite 22.
The last time I looked into this, I do recall the size of the dance area did have some bearing.  In the test I just did 5 minutes ago (and all my normal tavern testing) I make the largest area possible (33x33?) immediately on the surface, resulting in a 31x31 dance area. (no trees)
Again, I don't know for certain, but it's possible they simply don't have a large enough area?

Urist9876

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Re: Musical forms and hapiness
« Reply #12 on: June 18, 2020, 12:57:01 pm »

I have a similar world as Vjek. started at year 5. It was also a very small world.
They knew one dance at start. Another dance was made up in the fortress itself. Both dances use instruments from their own civilization.
I discovered a bit late that my dwarves do not even know any poetic forms.
Over 150 dwarves now. 3 or 4 don't like to be away from traditions, indicating they miss poetry. None of them stressed so hopefully they do not bother too much.
One dwarf did got stressed. A fellow with bad focus. A few months of military training restored him. He'll get archer training now to improve focus, so it's easier to fill needs and get no bad thoughts from that.

Without nonsense as poetry and only one book, my dwarves keep dancing. Playing instruments. Chanting.
I've set the bar for dwarf happiness a lot higher as in normal fortresses. If you want really happy dwarves: avoid purple labeled activities (unless scholars or teachers). Make sure they can fill their needs before that.

The archers train indoor. The rest of the dwarves still go outside. They still hate it and some became cave adapted. Puking. The result is expectable: personality changes. Urist has become more stress resistant because of mulling over the rain. Right. That ain't gonna stop me doing that.

I've wondered before if personality changes are purely random or that a positive effect is more likely when a dwarf feels good (and the opposite: negative effects when a dwarf feels bad). Any thoughts on that?
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