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[Vic Romano]

I often find myself becoming bored when the population of my fortress gets too big to keep track of. I enjoy the first few months where you can keep track of who each dwarf is and what they are up to. What do you think the best population cap is for that? I’m thinking I might drop the cap to ten, then kill off the useless migrants from the first two free waves.

[Flare]

60 if I want to keep track of every single dorf in my fortress, 120 if I want to play optimally. I usually find myself playing at 120 though.

[Friendstrange]

Without children, 50-60. Micromanaging heaven. Everyone gets a deluxe suite and several can be double legendaries. Beast attack cap is set to 40.

With children 80-150. Gotta make up for the buggers. Spartan childcare should I get involved directly in their raising.

Megaprojects: 200. Everyone is expendable. Long live the dwarven dream.

[Sutremaine]

40's good for general fortressing, 60's necessary if I have every industry set up and producing goods on a regular basis. Child cap is zero, always.

Megaprojects I can do with the same numbers, as 120 dwarves would make the fort more than twice as slow as 60 dwarves and therefore the project would take longer from my point of view.

[Viking]

I like around 100 to 120, with 20% allowance for kids or whatever. There is no real rhyme or reason behind this other than it being half the standard 200 dwarf pop cap, it's is easier to take care than 200, and losing a few dwarves here and there won't break the fort.

[Loud Whispers]

Depends on what the average mortality rate per year is really.

[NRDL]

Depends on what the average mortality rate per year is really.

Another potential DF motto. 

[moki]

30 is fun when concentrating on the personal aspects. I can remember most dwarves by name, profession and preferences and the game is more like "the sims". Having no real attacks makes it somewhat boring and building anything needs years, even when everybody is legendary in their profession.

Around 60 is great for a micromanaged fort. 15-20 can be specialized workers, 24 make a decent military and the rest can do hauling and masonry without anyone ever having no job. Megaprojects take a lot of time, though.

100 makes for a good military fort. 40 can do the supporting work with very few skilled workers for making weapons and armor. Having 60 or more dwarves in the military makes battles more interesting, because you can actually manage your squads and not just order everyone to charge into goblin christmas.

For megaprojects, more is better. I don't know if my system can handle 200 or more dwarves, but if it works, I'll have them all. Send 10 miners to the quarry and 80 masons to the building site... no one cares about their names or exact numbers, as long as the work gets done. A dozen workers died in an attack? No problem, new ones are on the way.

Of course, children are a problem... of 139 dwarves in Artobducim, 53 are children, and there's barely a month without another one popping out. Most of the mothers are in the military, so killing them would basically result in enraged legendary hammerdwarves playing golf with civilian's heads. In 12 years, it'll be awesome, but now it's just annoying.

[nopil3os]

I'd go with around 110.
10 miners and 10 masons (for the start, they can be repurposed later), 5 carpenters and 5 woodworkers, 5-10 good grower, 2 cooks and 2 brewers, 10 alround-smiths, 10 clothier/weavers, 20 military and the rest (medical team, nobles, haulers)
edit: forgot about 5 mechanics

[peskyninja]

I usually go with 150 but due to shitloads of kids I usually end up with 210.

[Mimodo]

I conscript my children to the farms. I would send them to the mines, but it doesn't work that way. Most of my children are better growers than half my farmers