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[foil]

Hi there, im wanting to start a small survival fort with only 2 or 3 starting dwarves.  Is it possible to start a DF game with only 2 dwarves and would it be possible to limit the numbers from migrant waves to maybe 1-3 dwarves instead of 10+ arriving?

Im wanting to see how well i do with only a handful of people but dont want to start any tantrums by roasting the surplus migrants.

I know i can limit the max dwarf numbers using LNP but dont want to stop migrants completely, just keep the numbers down to a small, just surviving community kind of thing.

Thx for look, foil.

[FuzzyZergling]

I don't think there's a way to do this, sorry.

[Garath]

without getting very creative, I don't think you can easily embark with less than 7. I know some tools let you embark with more, I don't know if those can be used to embark with less. Similarly, there used to be no easy way to stop migrants. I think now you can use dfhack to force a check if migrants should come. First put the max number of dwarfs down with the LNP or by editing the d_init file though, as that is what it checks to see if migrants should come. If you do it early enough you might prevent even the first two waves. I'm still not sure about that though.

I think I read somewhere that the game ignores population caps if you set it below a certain level, such as one (1), and continues to send migrants in that situation, but I'm not even half certain on that (didn't try it myself).

[Torrasque666]

use dfhack and its startdwarf command

[smjjames]

I don't think theres really any way to control the number of migrants other than the pop cap and limiting your wealth.

Although you can use a combination of the pop cap and fix/population-cap to keep migrant waves under control.

[Tarqiup Inua]

I suspect completely aboveground fortress prevents any migrants (except those first year that are resolved separately), but you mustn't dig out any tiles.

[Merendel]

I suspect completely aboveground fortress prevents any migrants (except those first year that are resolved separately), but you mustn't dig out any tiles.

Never heard this one before.   If that technique has any effect at all I'd suspect it would be more from the drastic limiting of your fortress wealth as you'd have no stone/metal to craft goods with.

[Garath]

Space mined out also creates a little bit of architectural wealth iirc

[Raphite1]

You're stuck with the starting seven and first two waves of migrants. However, if you quickly kill the extra ones before they form friendships, it'll have little effect on happiness levels.

[Merendel]

However, if you quickly kill the extra ones before they form friendships, it'll have little effect on happiness levels.

As long as you dont forget to slab them.  a poltergiest or two could really ruin the fortress mood. :p

[Larix]

You can't really limit immigration after the first two waves. Either you completely disallow further migrants, or you're liable to get buried under massive waves everytime you create a bit of fortress wealth. Limiting wealth creation to rein in migration would be possible, but feels gamey and is likely to cripple your fort's development. If you really want to explore a game with limited dwarfpower, blocking migration (by a 5-10 population cap) is probably best.

Adding further restrictions like only building aboveground will typically limit population growth, simply because your fortress wealth will grow at a much slower pace; but that's not very reliable. When i played with the 'no digging' challenge mod, i got no migrants at all in the second year, because the fort was too poor. By the spring of year three i was hoping to finally get barely acceptable housing finished for my 25 beards, when BAM - 43 dwarf migration wave. Yeah, i quit.

[Tarqiup Inua]

I suspect completely aboveground fortress prevents any migrants (except those first year that are resolved separately), but you mustn't dig out any tiles.

Never heard this one before.   If that technique has any effect at all I'd suspect it would be more from the drastic limiting of your fortress wealth as you'd have no stone/metal to craft goods with.

I tried it out several times, goblin and kobold thieves never appear until you dig the first tile out.

The moment you do, they appear en masse and start pathing towards you... perhaps it has something to do with definition of "pathing to your fortress" before it becomes clear where your fortress actually is.

But don't take my word for it, it could be wealth, sure...

[Garath]

I beliee you untill proven otherwise

[Larix]

I think the "no digging" mod is pretty good counter-evidence. You simply _cannot_ dig (mining skill removed from dwarfs) and you get all the goblins and migrants you want.

Not digging is a good way to reduce the produced wealth, so hostiles and migrants take longer to trigger.

Digging or not _does_ affect the number of artefacts you can have. The number of moods you can have is limited by the number of "revealed" tiles. You generally can get a few moods without breaking ground(x), but to have more than five or so artefacts, you must dig.

(x) contrary to what the wiki says, i've had moods without opening up any "subterranean" tiles, but only a few per fort.

[Tarqiup Inua]

They actually made such mod or are you, in fact, referring to a style of play that doesn't include digging?

See, if it is a mod, then it surely has more features than just giving you a challenge that you could impose on yourself without it in the first place... so who really knows what does the thing change...

...then again... you are probably right, I wouldn't know for sure.