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[genital_grinder]

I was wondering how do you guys deal with ever increasing number of new dwarfs, especially after trade? I use dwarf (the)rapist, however it is tedious work nonetheless. I am enjoying the game so far until it comes to dwarf management... I mean setting the jobs for 100-200 dwarfs is unappealing even with external utilities. 

PS: I got 57 new dwarf immigrants at once! This is a downer, things are moving too fast

[b22]

I had the same thing happen to me, only in my case I had no problem finding work for them. The influx of immigrants led to premature invasion and eventually 40 dwarfs dead (including everyone with any inclination as to which side of weapon goes where). So the rest were busy for some time building a damn burial chamber...

[Merendel]

set your population limit lower.   I find that with a limit of say 100 I dont get the massive 50 migrant waves that I sometimes get with a 300ish limit, I'll get 20 or so even with high wealth production and then they stop after the ambasidor sees I dont need any more.

Alternitively you could just kill off useless waves.   Setup a room no biger than 10x10 and build a rasing draw bridge in it.  when unwanted squaters show up lock your other dwarves inside and set that room as a meeting area.   when all the squaters have gathered lower the bridge on them and prepare a bunch of slabs.   As long as you get them all in one go the chances of a tantrum spiral are slim as they are unlikely to have any friends/family/aquatences and the missing but memorialized bad thought is much less than the found brutaly murdered bad thought.

Mass conscription is also an option.  throw em at the next siege.

[genital_grinder]

I guess the solution would be not to trade so many valuable goods in the first year. I have the limit set to 100 though but I find this as cheating because it is modifying the ini file. Conscription idea seems nice.

A side question: what should I do with all of this dwarfs if I want to make them useful (other than conscription)? Assign everyone an unique profession (skill) or just make them haulers for the time being? Because I have a feeling I need to make all of that dwarfs useful at once, am I right or is it best to gradually recruit new jobs?

[b22]

usually you always find something to engrave.

[Blue_Dwarf]

"Dey took or jobs!"

[Gaybarowner]

haulers are always great to have keep 20ish dwarves woth only hauling or engravers engravers engravers and more engravers

[Zealord]

Lots of military, a good amount of haulers, extra masons to help you with projects or engravers to tidy up your fort.

[joeclark77]

I have a custom profession defined in Dwarf Therapist called "Trooper" that has all hauling labors, masonry, woodchopping, plantgathering, and sometimes engraving enabled.  It was intended for my off-duty militiamen, but you could also use it for nonmilitary dwarfs while you figure out what you need them for.  Have you tried clearcutting the forest and gathering every plant on the map yet?

[Hyndis]

There's always more room in the military.

Seriously, a large military equipped with crossbows can make short work of nearly any threat. More dakka always works. If its not working, you didn't bring enuff dakka.

[Mushroo]

A few thoughts on immigrants:

1. You know they are going to come sooner or later, so why aren't you prepared? Try to have 10,000 each of food and drink stockpiled, then your fort will never go hungry or thirsty. Dormitories are fine, no need to go crazy with complex individual bedroom systems unless you are not good at making them happy in other ways.
2. They come with skills enabled now (this bug was fixed in the last release) so there is no need to micromanage jobs or use Dwarf Therapist.
3. Don't bother recruiting dwarfs with no military skill into the military, unless it's as archers. Unskilled melee dwarfs, you might as well save the trouble and just drown them in lava.
4. Nothing wrong with having high # of idlers. I consider it "winning" the game in fact.
5. If you want a smaller population then either lower the cap in the d_init.txt or keep your fortress wealth/exports low so you attract fewer migrants.

finally and most importantly

6. Once I stopped caring about individual dwarfs and learned to view the fortress as a colony of disposable individuals, like an ant or bee colony, I was able to enjoy the game on a whole new level.

[genital_grinder]

Thanks guys this is all very helpful. As I understand I don't need to worry about setting every dwarf with an unique job right away? I only need few designated smiths, crafters, honeyworkers etc... and assign tose jobs gradually

[Mushroo]

Thanks guys this is all very helpful. As I understand I don't need to worry about setting every dwarf with an unique job right away? I only need few designated smiths, crafters, honeyworkers etc... and assign tose jobs gradually

I find it's much easier to use workshop profiles (q, P) to limit the number of smiths, crafters, etc. rather than to toggle the jobs on/off with individual dwarfs. For example if you have 10 smiths (legendary, high master, and 8 novices) and you set the forge profile to high master or better, then you have effectively restricted yourself to 2 smiths (until a high master immigrant arrives and/or one of the novices has a strange mood).

[Hyndis]

Dwarf therapist can also let you set custom professions.

Assigning dwarves to a custom profession is a quick and easy shortcut. Just wait until new migrants all show up, pause the game, use DT to sort out the migrants into their new jobs, and thats it.

[Hyndis]

haulers are always great to have keep 20ish dwarves woth only hauling or engravers engravers engravers and more engravers

I've found this is helpful as well. Have a small number of multi-legendary dwarves who only produce things, but do no hauling or any other gruntwork. Maybe 10-15 of them is enough. These guys make everything in the fortress, and they may be legendary at 10+ different skills. Everyone else is just a farmer and hauler who supports these legendary dwarves.

The only way to get promoted to be an elite is to either show up as a migrant with very high skill in a desired field, or to become legendary through a strange mood.

The farmers/haulers are entirely expendable and replaceable. Unless they earn the right to become an elite through a mood, they're worthless. They do all of the dangerous jobs, they're the only ones who go outside of the safe core of the fortress, and they also fill the military ranks.

In a large fort I might have 20 elites and 200 farmers/haulers. This would be 10 support for every 1 elite, so the elites never need to worry about anything other than boozing, sleeping in a luxurious bedroom, and producing masterwork items. The elites are also never in any danger as they never leave the well protected core of the fortress. And just to be thorough, the elites also do wear armor and weapons at all times. They don't actually go out to fight, but just in case a peasant throws a tantrum or goes berserk this allows the elite to remain safe and kill the disruptive peasant easily.