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[Idiom]

Where do immigrants come from? Seriously, where are these people coming from? Do they appear out of thin air around the outskirts of wealthy cities, or are they real already existing people attracted from surrounding cities?

Immigrants need background.

If I cheat and get enough wealth to attract a full 200 dwarves in a few years, the surrounding cities should be empty. Your starting dwarves should be pre-existing people, as well as the immigrants. Right now, I believe only the royalty is. I want my retired adventurer to migrate to my fortress (or multiple ). Each dwarf attracted should be attracted for personal reasons. If you have a load of ore but no metal workers, metal workers should be attracted to your fort. Or a load of cloth, and no clothiers. Raw gems, but no jewelers. If there is work available for that dwarf at your fort, and they think they'd be better off at your place, then they should immigrate. If you see a lot of action, and a dwarf's personality is blood-thirsty, then they come. If their family was killed and/or their home destroyed (army arc FTW!), they come to seek another that is close by. If your legendary craftdwarf is killed, craftsdwarves come to try and fill in his shoes.

Bit of a bloat here, but sending off caravans with requests to attract particular professions of dwarves, regardless of your fort's job situations. Another bloat to tack on, reading a dwarf's background on their thoughts and personality screen. "Was born in ___ at ___. Parent died in ___ at ___ by ___. Became a ___ because the last local one ___. Came here seeking ____." Final bloat to tack on, that dwarves will migrate from your fort and back to other cities. Too unhappy, too much tragedy, more work available elsewhere, etc.

Same with your adventurers. You should be able to pick someone existing to play. You'd get a background history as well that way too. Have them change their name (or not) when you posses them, and acquire whatever skills you pick to have on top of their existing. I want to play as an armless hammerdwarf or a blind marksman from one of my failed forts. Or some random farmer whose wife was killed and go about avenging. Or some town drunk that I suddenly turn his life around into a master swordsman.

Do still keep the option to create immigrants on the spot (init.txt?), and to create adventurers from nothing. Probably easier to run the current immigrant spawning than this.

---
On a side note, my last wave of immigrants to spring up out of the ground around my fort included a "Soaper". Not a "Soap Maker", but a "Soaper". WTH? Job list showed soap-making highlighted, so if that is what "Soap Maker" appears as on the info screen, fixing that should be on the 'to-do' list. "Soaper" is just a little queer sounding.

"What do you do?"
"I soap."
"I see..."

[Erk]

It's already in development. Can't recall if there is anything in the current arc about them, with the roads and stuff, but detailed immigration is certainly an upcoming feature.

[Capntastic]

Yeah you should really read the devnotes and such before posting 'suggestions' that basically describes the sole stuff Toady's been working on for the past several months.

[Okenido]

Well you see when a mommy dwarf and a daddy dwarf are lovers or higher on the relationship screen they...

(In other words please don't suggest things that are already in devolopment)

[Idiom]

There's no search function for the dev notes. This stuff is a lot to crawl through looking for just just a few points.

[Capntastic]

Ctrl-F = search on most computers.

Anyways, it just seems like one would be somewhat familiar with the game's goals (long and short term) as well as what's been going on recently in its development before making a big suggestion.   The past and personalities of NPCs during worldgen is pretty much the number one thing that Toady's been working on lately, so it's pretty obvious it'll soon have an effect in-game.

Also, seeing your edit:  http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_single.html is all the devplans in one page.

[Idiom]

Ctrl-F on 25 something pages. Didn't see the link to the condensed page. Well now I know...

[ShadowDragon8685]

Maybe "Soap Maker" and "Soaper" are a hanging thread? Pretty soon, Toady will implement the hygene arc, and it will become important to supply your dwarves with baths, plumbing and running water. Get Roman FTW! You can implement public bath-houses, and the "Soaper" is someone who cleans other dwarves with blinding speed and efficiency, saving them the time and trouble of doing it themselves, thus getting them out and back to work faster. Of course, the downside is that, instead of if you had supplied every dwarf with a private bath, they would soon be Legendary Soapers and get the stat boost therefrom.

[Mikademus]

There's also been a slew of threads on requesting immigrants with particular skills and immigrants being attracted to fortresses with a profile matching their skill sets.

Not the same as the OP but closely related.

[Skizelo]

Is there anything in the bloats about emigrants? It'd be a bitch when your legendary miner decides to set off and found a new colony, but it's irritating to me when people still come to you from the mountainhome when you are the mountainhome.

[Neonivek]

I am sure there will be emigrants eventually... just not anywhere close to now

If you want to keep your legendary people just give them great room and board!

[Mephansteras]

I think the thread on goal-based dwarves deals with emigrants pretty well.

Your legendary dwarves don't have a reason to leave the mountainhomes. They're well established, well off, and have made a name for themselves doing what they (presumably) like doing. It's the lower skilled dwarves who'd be most likely to head off to a new fort. They need a place to go make a name for themselves, and they can't do that too well in the same fort as Urist Mightyforge, creator of the Legendary Spear "Darkwhispers" and about 500 other masterwork weapons.

So, they head off to greener pastures, as it were. Emigrants should mostly be younger dwarves who haven't gotten too far along in their chosen profession or dwarves who can't find work in the current fort. That would explain all the peasants the show up as immigrants.