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[The Navigator]

Immigration offices don't really strike me as the kind of thing you'd find in DF's setting, but you'd still think settlements would have some way of keeping out people they don't want. And the best way of making immigrants know they're unwelcome (besides killing them) is to simply not give them a place in the fortress.

I was thinking that a good way of handling immigration might be to have immigrants tag along with each caravan. They'll hang out with the traders at the depot flashing their X's and it's up to the player to assign them a bedroom, or mark a dormitory to accept immigrants. If they haven't been given a place to stay, then they will leave with the caravan.

So to simplify, a bunch of immigrants will come in with each caravan. The player (ostensibly whichever dwarf is in charge) can:

-Manually assign a bedroom to a specific immigrant. Immigrants would not take empty rooms on their own - only dwarves belonging to the fortress would do that.

-Mark a dormitory to accept immigrants. Dormitories would accept as many immigrants as they have bed spaces. Once an immigrant is part of the fortress, they'll be able to move into an empty room on their own and make room for more. In this way dormitories would act as a kind of 'immigrant buffer.'

There are a bunch of ways to expand on this, but that's pretty much the gist of it.

[Caesar]

There's a single problem with your idea here;

Although I do like to take in immigrants at the start of my fortress, I start building my bedrooms probably late in the second or third year.

Perhaps it'd be better to have every immigrant have a one-screen conversation with some assigned noble to determine whether or not they are welcome.

[The Navigator]

But why would immigrants stay at your fortress if they are just going to be worked like slaves and left to sleep on the floor with the animals? The point of immigration is to go somewhere with better prospects than where you came from. And you wouldn't need to have entire bedrooms, just enough bed spaces to accommodate new arrivals.

[Silverionmox]

But why would immigrants stay at your fortress if they are just going to be worked like slaves and left to sleep on the floor with the animals? The point of immigration is to go somewhere with better prospects than where you came from. And you wouldn't need to have entire bedrooms, just enough bed spaces to accommodate new arrivals.

That's assuming all migration happens voluntarily

[Wyrm]

Or that the migrants know that a wandering titan has battered down the gates and drunk all the booze.

[Pilsu]

If in the end of Oregon Trail, you, your family and your 13 grandfather clocks were told that there's no room and that you should go back home, would you do that? I think it's a bit silly to be able to cherry pick immigrants and send the rest back home halfway across the world. Certainly, you needn't let them into your fortress but any rejects probably shouldn't just go home. It seems more likely they'd set up a village nearby. Tensions would probably mount if you refused to lend them aid during famine and war.

Families should probably refuse to be separated. I could see some immigrant families being friends with each other and if only one is let in, the other would request that you reconsider.

[dizzyelk]

I don't think that they'd go home, but I could see them move on to the next settlement if it was close enough. Might even consider that human town over the ridge. Of course, if the humans don't want them it might make them mad at you...

[Ilmoran]

If in the end of Oregon Trail, you, your family and your 13 grandfather clocks were told that there's no room and that you should go back home, would you do that? I think it's a bit silly to be able to cherry pick immigrants and send the rest back home halfway across the world. Certainly, you needn't let them into your fortress but any rejects probably shouldn't just go home. It seems more likely they'd set up a village nearby. Tensions would probably mount if you refused to lend them aid during famine and war.

I'll give them aid... magma is aid, right?  I mean, think of all the cool things you can do with magma; magma is obviously aid.

Families should probably refuse to be separated. I could see some immigrant families being friends with each other and if only one is let in, the other would request that you reconsider.

Sounds like an unhappy thought!  (Forced to watch as friend was turned away to the harsh wilderness for being a potash maker).

[Pilsu]

A lot of room for personality interactions. Suitable traits would result in the dwarf demanding that his friends be let in. The mayor's conversational skills might also play a role in talking him out of it if the friendship isn't solid. Grudges would probably be formed.

Of course, right now, social skills are a matter of idling for a few months in a meeting area so it'd quickly trivialize the mechanic as a whole. The mayor grinding for a year or two in parties would make her a master of persuasion, capable of making people abandon their friends at the gate.