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[Afghani84]

Hey guys,

I thought it would be interesting to pool some data about the migrants that show up at your fortress. They are a major part of the game and I had a hard time finding detailed information about them. Here are some questions I am interested in:

Where do they come from? I know they can be historical figures but is there a ratio between migrants that arrive from other existing fortresses and those randomly created upon arrival? Are their stats (attributes, traits) hard-coded or do they change each time you reset the wave? What determines which migrants you will receive, e.g. proximity of other settlements?

Maybe you guys are interested in other things that I can add to the list. I hope this thread will help to solve some (or maybe even all) of these questions and enhance our knowledge on those buggers showing up at our doorsteps uninvited.

I already did some own !!SCIENCE!! on the topic and hope that others are interested and motivated to contribute to increase the data pool. I will be updating the data as other people share theirs. Here's what I have so far:

Settings

World Size: Smaller (33x33)
History: Very Short (5y)
Number of Civilizations: Medium
Maximum Number of Sites: Medium
Migrant Wave: First
Repeats: 20

Data on migrants

Historical
Name                       Skills                # of occurence                             
Bembul K        [2]Wounddresser            17/20
                      [2]Bone Doctor
Imush M         [1]Brewer                     17/20
                      [1]Grower
                      [1]Presser
Asob K            Child                           17/20
Oddom O         Child                           17/20
Dastot U        [2]Wood Burner              17/20
Ustuth I         [1]Fisher XYZ                17/20

Randomly created*
Name                       Skills                # of occurence
Tosid M         [10]Carpenter                  1/20
Endok N         [1]Pump Operator            1/20
Morul I          [2]Tanner                       1/20
Sarvesh U      [13]Dyer                        1/20
                    [5]Armor User
                    [5]Fighter
                    [5]Dodger

*I did not list all skills for randomly created dwarves here as they usually were novice or adequate in a variety of skills, mostly social or military.

(Tentative) Conclusions

• It seems that historical figures are more numerous in migrant waves than randomly generated dwarves. This finding has to be validated over multiple migrant waves and different settings though (world size/history, number of civs/sites).
• For all historical figures attributes and traits seem to be hard-coded upon birth. Resetting a wave does not change them.
• Dwarves that do not show up in Legends mode before the migrant wave tend to be different from historical figures: they seem to have overall better and more skills (this might just have been a lucky draw and needs more sample size; even if it turns out to be true for a very short history, it might even out with older civilizations), they seem to be younger (in their 50s as opposed to 60s and 70s for historical figures), and they strangely often are Novice Swimmers (maybe a hint that they reached your world from the seas beyond?)
• The first four on the list are a family and always showed up together. They are historical figures and migrated from another settlement in the north. Thus it seems that families will definitely stay together when leaving their home.
• Number 5 and 6 on the list are from the same settlement as the family (1-4) and often migrated together with them. Thus migrants seem to group up with others from the same settlement even if not directly related. In two cases, 5 and 6 migrated without the family. I'm not sure if this confirms or challenges the theory. More !!SCIENCE!! needed here...
• I don't know yet whether proximity of other settlements increases the probability of dwarves to immigrate from there since all other dwarven settlements in my world are clumped together on 2 world tiles. It would be interesting if someone has data on this.

I'm looking forward to see some more !!SCIENCE!! posted in here that can be added to this. So let's have a closer look at those beggars, shall we?

[Ruhn]

I think the hard-coded migration waves might be randomly generated, then the other ones based on real dwarves existing in the world.
Which migration wave had the family of 4?

[krenshala]

I know that the entire wave is generated before any of them actually step onto your map.  I only know this for sure because I once accidentally paused the game for other reasons just before a migrant wave arrived to check some things in Dwarf Therapist.  The new migrant wave showed up in the DT dwarf list, and the game paused to let me know the wave had arrived right after I unpaused.  I don't know for sure how long before they arrive that they are generated, however.

[Eric Blank]

Actually the hardcoded migrant waves also often have dwarves from historical populations. I recently received several families in the first two with the parents in their late twenties (it was a very young world), whereas dwarves generated from nowhere seem to most often be between the ages of 50-80.

Cataloging where they're coming from sounds like a great idea Afghan. Maybe you can use a map to pin down the locations of these settlements. They could just appear to be coming from the same settlements because that settlement has a much larger population than the rest of the nation.

[Matoro]

Legends viewer utility will help you greatly in locating the origin fortresses.

[Afghani84]

I've updated the initial post and added quite a bit of my own findings. Hope you guys check it out and maybe contribute some of your own as well! 

I think the hard-coded migration waves might be randomly generated, then the other ones based on real dwarves existing in the world.
Which migration wave had the family of 4?

It was the first wave, so migrants apparently have a chance to be from existing settlements or randomly generated right from the start.

I know that the entire wave is generated before any of them actually step onto your map.[...]I don't know for sure how long before they arrive that they are generated, however.

It cannot be more than 24h ingame time since I reset the wave many times with a save that was one day before it arrived.

Actually the hardcoded migrant waves also often have dwarves from historical populations. I recently received several families in the first two with the parents in their late twenties (it was a very young world), whereas dwarves generated from nowhere seem to most often be between the ages of 50-80.
I agree with your first point but I found the exact opposite for the age of migrants. The generated ones seem to be younger than the historical ones on my very young world...

Cataloging where they're coming from sounds like a great idea Afghan. Maybe you can use a map to pin down the locations of these settlements.
Thanks, feel free to do some own tests if you like! What I used to do so far was abandon the settlement and then look at the map in the embark screen to find other sites. I might try out Legends Viewer though.

They could just appear to be coming from the same settlements because that settlement has a much larger population than the rest of the nation.
I don't know if that is a factor. I checked the settlement where most of my historical migrants came from and in the case that 1-6 all immigrated to my fortress they left their old mountain hall with just 2 dwarves behind. I'm already prepared to see them in the next wave 

Legends viewer utility will help you greatly in locating the origin fortresses.

Thanks, I will have a look at it!

[Loam]

they strangely often are Novice Swimmers

I've only had these show up in the one Small world fort I made (I usually play Medium).

[Kaos]

When I checked where vampires could come from (there was a common thought that they could only come from one of your parent civ's settlements), using Legends Viewer I found out that as long a vampire was a dwarf it didn't matter if he was settled in your parent dwarven civ or any other civ for that matter dwarven or not, even wanderers were able to migrate. I think it would be relatively safe to assume that this holds true for any historical figure.