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Elections
v50.12 · v0.47.05 This article is about the current version of DF.Note that some content may still need to be updated. |
Site-level nobles, such as the Mayor, are elected for one year. Elections take place at exactly 4:00 PM on the 17th day of summer (specifically, 2000 season-ticks after the beginning of the season). If you don't have a this position-slot filled, then the election will happen at the beginning of every season, rather than just summer. If an election doesn't trigger after gaining the minimum ammount of dwarves needed for whatever reason, assigning the previous position as "leave vacant" will force an election.
When an election happens, it's usually the dwarf with the highest social skills who gets elected. Since children have nothing to do but socialize, they gain lots of social skills which carry over when a child becomes an adult at age 18. Thus, it's not unusual for an 18-year-old to gain this position. Their chief competitors are vampires (who also tend to have high social skills), tamed gremlins, and other non-working citizens of your fortress, since they cannot be put to work either. Any citizen can be elected.
For responsibilities or positions that use more than one skill, no skill takes priority in electing a creature: an accomplished comedian is more qualified for the TRADE responsibility than a skilled appraiser. A creature may be elected to multiple positions at the same time.
Civilization nobles[edit]
If noble positions at civ-level are created by modding, they can also be Position_token#ELECTED. In worldgen, there is no functional difference between ELECTED and no appointment rule except that ELECTED nobles tend to have high social skills and/or skills related to the position, while non-elected ones are assigned randomly. They are not re-elected after a certain period of time. This means that they stay in this position for life and their successor will be elected again.