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[Onirae]

Very appropiate, a newcomers question for a newcomer to the forum

ANywho, just picked up this game 2 days ago, still learning

But have one question: I just finished my first year (winter was tough, massive food shortage, had to heat bunnies and ponies to survive), I had 17 adults and 8 childs (damn kids, they only eat and don't move rocks to the stockages)

So... midway through spring... 71 (seventy-one) new dwarves joined!!!

WTH? Is this normal? I will have to make a completely new level just for them to sleep!

And they didnt bring anything else than a goat, a couple of kittens and another bunny, but the latter is a child's pet, I morally can't eat it... yet.

Any suggestions? Especially for the food part

At the moment of writing this I didnt assign roles to the new comers, but the old ones were (just food-related):

1 Farmer
2 Cooks/Brewers
2 Fishers
1 Trapper/Hunter
1 Plant Gatherer

Accepting suggestions!

[MonkeyHead]

Totally normal.

Its hard to have too much raw labour at your disposal. Rocks need hauling, ore needs smelting and axes need wielding. SUggested uses for your growing population: Start a military. Smooth and engrave communal areas. Build defensive structures. Mine and smelt ALL the ore you can see. Cut all the trees. Forage all the shrubs. Fish all the fish. Just dont let them idle and socialize too much.

[walberg]

Get some farm plots running, pronto. Given you've already had a food shortage, the new population is going to be hunting for rats and lizards fairly quickly, which tends to make dwarves a wee bit grumpy.

[Trif]

Oh, you're in for Fun times. I've never had migrant waves of 71 dwarfs, especially not in the second year. It looks like the RNG has blessed you with a special challenge. It'll be a lot of work, but if you make it through the next year, you are truly worthy of Dwarf Fortress. _{(And if not, hey, Losing is Fun).}

Your priorities right now are food and bedding. Divide the migrants into groups: you'll need a lot of plant gatherers and fishers. Clear the map of bushes. At the same time, you'll need a lot of storage space. Dig some large storage halls and fill them with food stockpiles. Rotting food is not something you want right now.
For additional storage, mass-produce rock pots. You'll need maybe 5 stone crafters working on repeat, each in their own workshop. It'll go faster if you set a stone stockpile next to the craftsdwarf workshops and use some wheelbarrows for hauling the stone, that's optional though.
Don't cook anything right now, that's a waste of food. Your bottleneck is going to be booze. Even if you get some additional brewers, the migrants will probably have to drink water for a while because if you brew too much, there won't be enough food.

The fisher dwarfs will get you a constant income of fish (if there is any on your map), but to be sustainable, you'll need more farm plots. You'll probably lack the seeds to expand the underground fields, but the plant gathering should get you a lot of above ground seeds. You'll have less protection there, but it's just a temporary measure, and starvation is a more urgent problem than external attacks. You'll need maybe 10 to 15 dedicated growers for planting the seeds. In the orders menu (o), you should turn on "Dwarves all harvest" (h) to speed things up.

It would be best to divide your population so you can do all these things at the same time. That's a lot of management, but it'll pay off.
And while you're doing this, see if some migrants brought axes. They'll all become woodcutters. You'll need a lot of wood for beds (maybe hire a few more carpenters), about 30 should be good enough for a sufficient communal bedroom because they don't all sleep at the same time. If you have any wood left, make it into barrels for more food and booze storage.

Good luck, you'll need it. Have fun.

[vadia]

don't freak out if 10 or so are hanging out -- it won't end your game.

If you have military, give them some breaks because they tend to become frinedly with each other quickly, and until they become tough they are the most likely to become unhappy because of long training etc.

[Onirae]

Excellent tips, they finally stopped eating rats due to the low food supply.

Just when I thought I had everything under control, right before I was about to trade with some pointy ears, my leader and main miner decided it was fun to leave the trading post and start crafting legendary weapon stands

Beautiful, yes, but once he finished, the elves packed their things and left

Oh well

Another wave, 30 new migrants this time. Perfect, need to have an army mounted, 2 goblins stole my cage traps (ironic, isn't it?)

Now I still have many rocks to smelt and trees to chop and my 52 childs won't do anything about it

[SnK-Arcbound]

Atleast children don't count towards your civ cap that starts spawning sieges and megabeasts.

[Brewster]

Yeah.... and I imagine of those 71, 36 are children? 

1) Group of 5-10 Herbalist go pick the ground clean of plants.
2) Set-up Farmers indoors and outdoors, and have a group 5-10 planting and brewing only.
3) Have a few stonecrafts pumping out rock pots (make sure there's a stockpile connected adjacent to it, w/ a wheelbarrel for the stockpile, so they don't take ages to make pots)
4) Fish if you can - gonna need a fish cleaner if you do.
Have you slaughtered your two wagon-hauling animals?
You can attempt to hunt, but if you don't have a skilled Marksmen it's going to be a season before they bring anything down depending on the wildlife you have.

This SHOULD hold you until a trade caravan comes. Trade your extra rock pots to them for more food/booze.

[vadia]

Excellent tips, they finally stopped eating rats due to the low food supply.

Just when I thought I had everything under control, right before I was about to trade with some pointy ears, my leader and main miner decided it was fun to leave the trading post and start crafting legendary weapon stands

Beautiful, yes, but once he finished, the elves packed their things and left

Oh well

Another wave, 30 new migrants this time. Perfect, need to have an army mounted, 2 goblins stole my cage traps (ironic, isn't it?)

Now I still have many rocks to smelt and trees to chop and my 52 childs won't do anything about it

You can turn off needs broker and you can assign a different broker.

[Onirae]

Sigh, they keep coming

Why is my place so nice?

Will remove all the decorative mithril walls and use mudstone instead.

Now I literally have more kids than adults (year 2: 104 children, 87 adults)

Any way to quarantine the place? Don't want more people until these kids grow and stop leeching my already low resources

[I am Leo]

Turn on the plant gathering labor on a few idlers and send them out to scour the surface for seeds.
Turn on the ability to cook seeds in the Z menu and they'll keep your dwarves fed until your farms are up to speed.

[pixl97]

Yes, over time you'll learn to work on the most important basics first without creating too much value. Get the farming area dug and built. Plan out where you want your trade depot to be. Start on bedroom locations and get a stack of beds built and ready to go. Get the butchers, kitchen, and still setup with room for food storage.

Once that is lined up, I"d suggest making rock crafts and a few bins, that way when the first caravan shows up you can buy food and beer.

I'm not sure if you're using a mod or not, but get Dwarf Therapist no matter what. Give you an easy to see list of what labors are assigned to which dwarves. Also read up on how to set the child cap, otherwise your fort can become a juvenile detention center.