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[masonmason]

My first migrant wave held two dwarves which was a painful twist of fate. The second wave contained three adults and SEVEN children. Im not sure what to do with the children at this point as it takes them 4-8 years to be useful and not resource sucking little beasts and my fort is already having a difficult time caring for its current population. I needed more workers damn it. Any ideas.

[masonmason]

I now have NINETEEN "FUN" "LOVING" CHILDREN ALL FROM MIGRANT WAVES.
Is this normal is this a bug is this simply random "fun" I must deal with?

[greycat]

It's completely normal for a fortress to have a labor shortage for the first year.  But even if you just had your starting 7 and a whole herd of children, you should still be able to survive.  Just focus on the basics, and postpone the magma waterfall built out of cave crocodile soap.  For now.

Booze, food, and physical security are the fundamental concerns.  If your (underground) farms are adequate, and you've got a raising drawbridge to block the entrance, then you should be able to weather any external threat.

After that, get your dwarves a dormitory with some nice beds, and a dining hall with some tables and chairs.

Once those things are in place, you should be OK for a while (until the clothes start wearing out, which takes 2 years).  That should give you the time to expand the farms, build rock pots to store more booze & food, expand the dining hall, start digging bedrooms, start creating some armor and weapons, etc.

[masonmason]

It's completely normal for a fortress to have a labor shortage for the first year.  But even if you just had your starting 7 and a whole herd of children, you should still be able to survive.  Just focus on the basics, and postpone the magma waterfall built out of cave crocodile soap.  For now.

Booze, food, and physical security are the fundamental concerns.  If your (underground) farms are adequate, and you've got a raising drawbridge to block the entrance, then you should be able to weather any external threat.

After that, get your dwarves a dormitory with some nice beds, and a dining hall with some tables and chairs.

Once those things are in place, you should be OK for a while (until the clothes start wearing out, which takes 2 years).  That should give you the time to expand the farms, build rock pots to store more booze & food, expand the dining hall, start digging bedrooms, start creating some armor and weapons, etc.

Couple of questions regarding rooms. Is it okay if bedrooms overlap a wall? Is there a way to custom size a room? Dormitorys are open to all so does it matter how nice they are IE if I smooth and engrave them will it make it better? Dining halls is there a table to dwarf ratio? can dwarves move over tables and chairs or does there need to be space to make everything accessible?

[Decidophobia]

You can resize a room with the + and - keys. As far as I know room quality doesn't matter in a dorm, so if you want to start smoothing, prioritise the dining room. And tables and chairs (as well as most other furniture) don't block movement, so you can fill a room with them if you want. You don't need a table/chair for every dwarf; just start with a few and expand later. (They can eat without a table, they'll just grumble a bit.)

[masonmason]

You can resize a room with the + and - keys. As far as I know room quality doesn't matter in a dorm, so if you want to start smoothing, prioritise the dining room. And tables and chairs (as well as most other furniture) don't block movement, so you can fill a room with them if you want. You don't need a table/chair for every dwarf; just start with a few and expand later. (They can eat without a table, they'll just grumble a bit.)

Thank you for your help. I have just a last couple of questions. I died (goblins jumped down a pond I drained and forgot to wall up and slaughtered my civies.) so I started a new game in a nice zone and it rains putrid slime all the time. any idea why and if its just flavor or has worse effects than rain?

[Detharon]

You can resize a room with the + and - keys. As far as I know room quality doesn't matter in a dorm, so if you want to start smoothing, prioritise the dining room. And tables and chairs (as well as most other furniture) don't block movement, so you can fill a room with them if you want. You don't need a table/chair for every dwarf; just start with a few and expand later. (They can eat without a table, they'll just grumble a bit.)

Thank you for your help. I have just a last couple of questions. I died (goblins jumped down a pond I drained and forgot to wall up and slaughtered my civies.) so I started a new game in a nice zone and it rains putrid slime all the time. any idea why and if its just flavor or has worse effects than rain?

Have you embarked in an evil biome? If so, it's an evil rain, which apart from unhappy thoughts may also cause a random syndrome. You should avoid it, but nevertheless it shouldn't be as serious as forgotten beasts syndromes.

[masonmason]

You can resize a room with the + and - keys. As far as I know room quality doesn't matter in a dorm, so if you want to start smoothing, prioritise the dining room. And tables and chairs (as well as most other furniture) don't block movement, so you can fill a room with them if you want. You don't need a table/chair for every dwarf; just start with a few and expand later. (They can eat without a table, they'll just grumble a bit.)

Thank you for your help. I have just a last couple of questions. I died (goblins jumped down a pond I drained and forgot to wall up and slaughtered my civies.) so I started a new game in a nice zone and it rains putrid slime all the time. any idea why and if its just flavor or has worse effects than rain?

Have you embarked in an evil biome? If so, it's an evil rain, which apart from unhappy thoughts may also cause a random syndrome. You should avoid it, but nevertheless it shouldn't be as serious as forgotten beasts syndromes.

Nope its a good biome with unicorns

[Lord Snow]

Last i played, i got so annoyed with the excessive immigrations that i build an atomsmasher and had everyone smashed upon arrival, if they did not provide an immediate benefit for the fort.

I want to build an Outpost or a Fort, not a thriving city full of children, beggars etc.

[quarague]

Take a look through the init.txt and d_init.txt files, among lots of other interesting/ useful things that are child options, you can put a maximum number on both the total amount of children and the percentage of children of your overall population. I think putting either of them to zero should give you a childless fort. You can adjust room size with the + and - keys, the room boundary respects rock, walls and doors, so you can have complicated shaped rooms as long as there is a wall around it with doors at the entrance points. Different rooms can overlap, the room value will than be computed by sharing things in the overlap.

[Blue_Dwarf]

You can resize a room with the + and - keys. As far as I know room quality doesn't matter in a dorm, so if you want to start smoothing, prioritise the dining room. And tables and chairs (as well as most other furniture) don't block movement, so you can fill a room with them if you want. You don't need a table/chair for every dwarf; just start with a few and expand later. (They can eat without a table, they'll just grumble a bit.)

Thank you for your help. I have just a last couple of questions. I died (goblins jumped down a pond I drained and forgot to wall up and slaughtered my civies.) so I started a new game in a nice zone and it rains putrid slime all the time. any idea why and if its just flavor or has worse effects than rain?

Have you embarked in an evil biome? If so, it's an evil rain, which apart from unhappy thoughts may also cause a random syndrome. You should avoid it, but nevertheless it shouldn't be as serious as forgotten beasts syndromes.

Nope its a good biome with unicorns

Check whether you embarked on a spot with both evil and good biomes. The putrid slime should only fall in evil parts of your embark, while the rest will have normal rain. Evil biomes also sometimes have dead or moving grass and trees, while good biomes are blue and cheerful and full of sunberries, and I'm now talking like an elf.

[greycat]

Is it okay if bedrooms overlap a wall?

Yeah, I do that all the time.

[Spectre Incarnate]

Nope its a good biome with unicorns

And here I thought unicorns were evil... >_>

Good biome doesn't necessarily mean nice, happy biome, especially if it's "Joyous Wilds" which means it has high savage creatures. Unicorns are mean to dwarves and you can't tame them. Think of good and evil biomes as more opposite ends of the extreme. Both can be crazy and having both in the same site is even crazier! lol Did you check all the biome F1,F2,F3..etc keys when choosing a site?

[Dwarfe]

magma waterfall built out of cave crocodile soap

Soap is a magma safe material, noted.

[wlmartin]

My first migrant wave held two dwarves which was a painful twist of fate. The second wave contained three adults and SEVEN children. Im not sure what to do with the children at this point as it takes them 4-8 years to be useful and not resource sucking little beasts and my fort is already having a difficult time caring for its current population. I needed more workers damn it. Any ideas.

I may be wrong but I know you can set the proportion of adults/children in the config - don't know if it applies to migrants or just new borns but turn that down and that could help