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[Johuotar]

Make a distinctive mason's workshop... out of black bronze or something with a very unique color. 

Microline!

Make a dozen or so normal mason's workshop, and set it to not accept Legendaries or Dabblers. These workshops will make blocks, and blocks only

I think its because blocks have no quality levels, but don't know why that matters. O.o

[lanceleoghauni]

Constructions should give XP next release IIRC.

[omglazers]

Scientist --- all healthcare skills, mechanics, siege engineer, siege operator, pump operator
Commoner --- hauling, furnace operating, farming skills

Never tried putting haulers as furnacers and farmers.

Im gonna have to try this today.

As for mechanics/healthcare I think those should be seperate. I always have dedicated doctors/haulers and mechanics just get tossed in with stoneworkers and woodworkers

[Fedor]

Four pages of posts, and not a SINGLE person has appreciated one of the greatest beauties of any immigration wave:  Lots of new dwarves, each with a chance for interesting material preferences or helpful character traits.

So what if you get five cheesemakers?  If even one likes to work steel, build ballista parts, craft platinum, aluminum, or gold, or make crossbows - well, things are looking up.

But not if you don't even LOOK.  "Oh, let's flush away this milker whose attributes I haven't even looked at into the magma!  Retraining - what's that, dude?"

And people wonder why their forts look like crap...

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

And people wonder why their forts look like crap...

Do you have any idea how much metal you have to waste to level up a legendary blacksmith from a Grand Master milker or cheesemaker?

And what happens when they get a mood?

I have to deconstruct every Craftsdwarf's Workshop (I use them to make bone bolts for my marksdwarves... hey, gotta do something with all those bones lying around!) to make sure they don't waste valuable materials to make their useless artifact scepters, earrings, and thongs.

[Misterstone]

I don't get the problem.  I admit, it might be aesthetically annoying to have all these idlers wandering about, but feeding them is not a problem, and if I have a lava industry going, I can ALWAYS use for furnace operators to pump out more sweet metal bars.  Also they can always be made into miners, engravers, haulers, fisherdwarves, planters, herbalists, etc. etc.

Or just draft them into a squad of crossbow trainees; make them a huge stockpile of bone or wooden bolts and let them practice shooting wildlife/fish/captured troglodytes, crundles, etc.  This kind of training works fairly quickly.

I can understand it's kind of overwhelming and annoying to manage all those people, but in reality the fortress does not suffer too much from it.  The only big annoyance I find is that I sometimes only want a very talented dwarf crafting something, and these suckers with novice skill level come in and start mucking up the automatic production process.

[Hyndis]

Scientist --- all healthcare skills, mechanics, siege engineer, siege operator, pump operator
Commoner --- hauling, furnace operating, farming skills

Never tried putting haulers as furnacers and farmers.

Im gonna have to try this today.

As for mechanics/healthcare I think those should be seperate. I always have dedicated doctors/haulers and mechanics just get tossed in with stoneworkers and woodworkers

The commoners do jobs that don't depend on skill, such as smelting ore in a furnace, or for jobs that I just brute force, like farming, cooking, brewing, etc. This leaves the legendary blacksmith with lots of free time to make useful items. Sure, a bunch of dabbling farmers will grow less food per tile than a single legendary, but it gives everyone experience. And it takes a surprisingly short time to have an army of legendary farmers. They also get the status bonuses from all of this working, which helps out with the military.

My mechanics are usually idle since its not that often that I put them to work. Because they have so much idle time I also have them do healthcare, which means there is always an idle doctor around to tend to an injured dwarf.

[Fedor]

Do you have any idea how much metal you have to waste to level up a legendary blacksmith from a Grand Master milker or cheesemaker?

Yes.  Exactly one.

And what happens when they get a mood?

... because, should that dwarf get the call, even a single job in any moodable skill (blacksmithing being one) is enough for the dwarf to choose that skill over any level of non-moodable skill.  All of a sudden, one of your "useless" milkers is a legendary you-name-it!

I have to deconstruct every Craftsdwarf's Workshop (I use them to make bone bolts for my marksdwarves... hey, gotta do something with all those bones lying around!) to make sure they don't waste valuable materials to make their useless artifact scepters, earrings, and thongs.

My goodness.  Are you seriously suggesting that you allow all the dwarves you never trained to die when they get moody? 

Prepare for strange moods in advance, people!

[Eric Blank]

I never complain about useless immigrants, I just assign them a subset of skills based on what they have already, maybe charge a few with different labors if I feel like getting a new miner/woodsman, and sometimes make a new squad. Unless I want something done they can just stand around all day and do nothing, but they usually end up hauling shit back and forth anyway. If i feel there are too many people I kill anyone I don't want with a drawbridge. 60-80 dwarves is perfectly fine since I assign all necessary labors upon their arriving on screen, after that I just give jobs at the workshops that I feel a need for and there'll be SOMEONE with that labor turned on that will come and do it within a decent time frame.

Efficiency isn't my middle name, it's not even in my name or loosely related to anything in my name, and neither is giving a shit what is going on with anything but the project I'm focused on. I honestly don't understand why people get so hot-blooded-nuts when things don't go absolutely perfect.

[MiniMacker]

For some reason, Armok heard my pleas and has been giving me useful migrants. No milkers or cheese makers for me! I received a 10 Grower, a 13 Brewer and two miners (With 7 and 11 respectively), the rest of the newcommers weren't special, but they had surprisingly good combat skills.

*Rubs beard*
Is it that I was sacrificing people in my old fort? Perhaps Armok was pleased with the suffering...

[gtmattz]

Microline!

It is MicroCline... there is a C in there dammit...   

[Tokeli]

Wow. I don't feel nearly as terrible at this game now after reading this thread. I mean, I suck at maintaining anything, but taking care of all these dwarves never seemed like a problem.

I always embark with 2 miners and 4 picks (and then assign 2 more miners) and build a high-density bedroom level that can hold all my dwarves for years. A still, farm, gathered plants, beds, doors, tables and chairs are the first things I make, and in large numbers. The first migrants I always set as my workshop dwarves. The rest are usually drone workers or soldiers. It's really nice to have 40 dwarves smoothing a fortress all at once.

[sinister agent]

Do what I do, assign them to hauling duty (though I also have them set to wood burning and furnace operating sometimes) and enjoy your unstoppable tide of haul-crazy dwarves just waiting to carry stuff around and make your fortress run smoother.

After having similar problems with my first fortress, this is pretty much what I do.  There's always something to haul, even if it's just getting all the loose stone out of the rooms, and anyone can smooth a floor or wall.  After a while you reach the point where there's just crafts and such to haul about, and more ore and stone than are worth storing, but by then you'll probably have more need of occasional skills like potash making, fish tickling, door contemplating, etc. 

That or draft them.  Don't bother with weapons if you really want rid of them - have them charge and distract goblins while the real soldiers clobber them.

Also, while I try to give all my dwarves their own room, sometimes this just isn't possible, and it's not necessary either.  You'll rarely have more than a fraction of them asleep at any one time, and they're not fussy about where they sleep, so it can wait.

Once you get to the point where you have a frequent 5-10 idle dwarves out of about 60, you're probably actually doing quite well.  They work hard, so let them loaf a little.  They'll probably all die horribly in a few years anyway, and if there's nothing much that actually needs doing, it's not a problem.