Great Hall

Overview
The Great Hall is a Dining Room that has been designated as the Great Hall using the check box in the Dining Room dialog. There can only be one Great Hall in the kingdom, but the designation can be moved at any time. The worth of the Great Hall and its furnishings count double when determining the number of new gnomads arriving.

Because attracting new Gnomads is essential to building a successful kingdom, the Great Hall is an important feature that needs to be planned with care. It should be large, have a decorative floor, decorative walls and be equipped with birch furniture and valuable trinkets such as statues. Several torches should be placed to give it good lighting. The objective is to make this room as valuable as possible so it will attract more Gnomads.

Idle gnomes congregate in the great hall, so it makes sense to designate a great hall from the start to ensure that idle gnomes are kept out of harm's way.

Strategy
At the beginning of the game, make a small dining room with two or three tables and a few chairs. This will meet the needs of the initial population, and the space can be repurposed later or left as a "snack room". Then select a place for the Great Hall and mine it out, designating it as another dining room. The location should be near the Kitchen and food/drink stockpiles. (It's also a good idea to have it near sleeping areas, since that makes it easier to check on the number of idle gnomes). Use the Replace Floor command to replace the natural floor with decorative stone provided by the stonecutter. (Birch or metals can also be used and are even more valuable, but are usually in short supply). Make birch tables and chairs and arrange them as desired. Add torches and any statues that are available. You can increase the worth of the room even further, by replacing the surrounding walls and providing doors of birch wood. When complete, add the Great Hall designation and the room is ready. Leave enough space to place more valuable statues and trinkets later when they can be made.

The Lag Bug
Up through game version 0.8.4, a bug existed that made the Great Hall problematic. If too many gnomes went idle, the game would slow down to the point of nearly stopping, and there was little the player could do except wait and hope it recovered. This bug was solved with release 0.8.5.2 and should no longer be an issue.