So I only recently started playing DF2014 after a DF hiatus, and am getting the hang of stuff, but there are a couple things I am confused about.
Firstly, on the arrival of the outpost liaison in my first autumn, I discovered that one of my embark party had been appointed queen, presumably because all the other sites of my civ have fallen (the liaison listed a bunch that had been conquered), although the dialogue indicated that she was sister to the previous queen, so it may have been just chance. Regardless, I pushed on, throwing all seven of my dwarves into outfitting an appropriate palatial apartment.
The problem is, I am getting onto my third summer and have yet to receive immigrants. I was under the impression that even if your civ falls, immigrants will still come. If immigrants travel across the map like armies do, perhaps they are en route and I just picked a distant civ without realizing it?
Likewise, despite picking a civ actively at war with goblins, I have seen hide nor hair of intruders.
As for the bug, my Queen likes to mandate the construction of coffins and greaves. Setting aside how irritating it is to keep up with demands despite only having seven dwarves, I am having problems with my materials seemingly going missing. I've been using bone for greaves, with a refuse stockpile inside set to only take bone/etc, and have had no problem untill recently. I slaughtered a donkey, got a stack of 16 bones in my bone pile, but three or four times the craftsdwarf (who is also the queen) has canceled the job because "there aren't any bones." I tried switching my general outdoor refuse pile to not accept bone, hoping that they would then stay in one place, but that hasn't seemed to work. I'm not sure if she is grabbing the bones and then moving them before canceling the job, or what. The bones aren't in the pile when she cancels, but turn back up eventually - however, they aren't showing up on the stocks list, at least right after she cancels. Nobody else has any reason to use the bones, as far as I know.
I'm currently doing a little cat/puppy extermination for bone, but the mandate is about to expire and I'd rather not have anyone get hurt given the labor crunch. Of course, seeing as the only bone carver is the queen herself, maybe she'll self-flagellate.
I'm on the fence about continuing this fort as it is, and if no immigrants show up or I can't meet these ridiculous mandates I'll probably stop, but given how nice and settled the fort is I'd rather not. Thoughts?