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[Yg-Dosst]

I'm not exactly new to the game, but I'm still absolutely terrible at it and I've gone through about over half a dozen forts all ending in the same boring un-fun way:

Start Game
Set up farming
Set up craft stations
Set up bed rooms
20 Immigrants arrive, all of useless professions
Attempt to up more bed rooms
25 Useless Immigrants and an Alpaca arrive
Struggle to maintain all of these immigrants
Fail at trying to make this many doors and beds for bedrooms
30 even more useless Immigrants show up
A random dwarf declares himself the King of England
All production stops besides food/booze as dwarves suddenly stop listening to me now that there's a noble
I lose almost literally all control over the game
4 dwarfs get possessed (I have never gotten a different strange mood) all craving Alpaca wool
The only Alpaca I've ever had is gone, probably dead from stray dogs.
All 4 possessed dwarves go insane (none beserking) and starve to death
It takes a literally month for the dwarves to stop complaining of miasma and drag the bodies to the corpse dumping pile
Bedroom demand still ever increasing as supply drops even further
King of England declares he desires 2,578 Alpaca Wool Left Socks
40 more mostly useless Immigrants arrive, with a second King of England.
Dwarves stop listening to me even more
Almost all production on bedrooms ceases entirely
Whole fortress thirsts to death after two years of nearing 300 dwarves lazing about the infinitely expanding matrix of unfinished bedrooms
Literally no invasions/colossi/forgotten beasts have happened in that time

It's been months since I've played Dwarf Fortress and I've uninstalled and reinstalled the newer version of the game, thinking that it might be legitimately bugged because of how painfully boring and repetitive my forts are.
Every single time I can't do anything or get anywhere as I get swarmed by immigrants that are good for nothing besides being a possession liability until a noble shows up and I'm left silently pressing spacebar for a year, waiting for the game to end for me, as my dwarves cease all activity.
How do I prevent this? I have/had the lazy newb pack and considered setting my population limit low to keep large amounts of immigrants, and thus nobles from showing up or declaring themselves Mayor or greater, but it doesn't seem to work.
The only other option I can think of is starting off by immediately setting up a way to drown "undesirables"

As is I don't even get a chance to learn how metalworking, trade, and military works because the mere existence of a ruling class takes my ability to play the game from me.
So TL;DR: How do I keep my fort at pseudo-communist Expedition Leader levels so the dorfs will solely obey their omniscient overseer until he learns how to play this damned game beyond endlessly making bedrooms?

[Urist McShire]

Well, your nobles don't really do anything besides demand that they have a bedroom and office of a certain quality and occasionally tell you to build things, usually numbering between 1-3 of the item they like.

But anyways, in order to keep you population low, what you want to do is go into your d_init.txt file in the C:\...dwarf fortress\data\init folder and scroll down until you reach the line [POPULATION_CAP:X] and [STRICT_POPULATION_CAP:X]. The Population Cap number determines around when immigrants will stop coming to your fortress (think of it as a soft cap), while the Strict Population Cap determines when your dwarves stop getting pregnant and having children (a hard cap). Your fortress should rarely ever exceed the hard cap except in certain situations. So if you're still busy learning the ropes on everything, try setting your soft cap to about 30 and your hard to 50. It'll prevent quite a bit of !FUN! from occurring, but it'll be worth it.

Another easy thing to do is to make individual bedrooms for your dwarves a lower priority. You can set up a few dorm rooms first with a whole bunch of beds in them and your dwarves will plop down on the nearest unoccupied bed, only suffering a small negative thought from not having a proper room, which can easily be offset by working, eating good food, eating in a good dining room, admiring statues, and whatnot.

[Yg-Dosst]

Re-reading over how population cap works, It just now occurred to me that my previous population issues were thanks to problems with the liaison, or masses of immigrants appearing before he showed up since my immigrants were far surpassing my population cap. I was consistently getting groups of like 28 or more.
I don't remember seeing the Hard Population cap in the Lazy Newb Pack the last time I played but it's in the new one. Will the Hard cap stop immigrants from coming even if the liaison hasn't reported back that I don't want any more people?
I know that if you somehow get the King to show up he and his guards will be able to breach the hard cap.

If anything this at least means I can manage my people until I can figure out how to get them all killed in more interesting ways.
At least goblins will kill them instead of overpopulation, which at least lets me read combat logs for enjoyment.
Can I later increase the hard cap when I'm ready for more dwarves?

[Urist McShire]

The hard cap should stop immigrant waves even if the liaison doesn't report back, but I'd still recommend a gap between hard and soft by ~15-20 dorfs.

[Pirate Santa]

Population cap will stop immigrants, hard population cap will stop immigrants and babies, but nothing stops the arrival of the monarch. Both caps can be changed at any time but you usually need to shut the game down and then reopen after.

You really shouldn't be having trouble receiving unwanted nobles. You have no control over getting a mayor, but they can be replaced if you don't like their choice, and are easy to look after, I give them a 5x5 room with wooden furniture and a couple statues to bump up the missing quality and they're fine.
Barons have to be accepted by you before they can be appointed, you can reject becoming a barony with no consequence, the liaison will just keep offering it each year.
The monarch has a bunch of requirements detailed here. Easiest way to avoid him is keep your population under 140 and/or don't donate to the caravan.
All other other nobles must be appointed by you and can removed at any time if they annoy you, and most don't need anything. Manager and Bookkeeper just need a chair marked as their office and they'll be fine, but its best to give them a table for when they have meals in their office.
If you don't appoint a Sheriff/Captain of the Guard/Hammerer you can ignore noble mandates and they can't do anything other than chuck a tantrum.

Also if Moods are really becoming an issue you can always turn them off, especially easy if you're using the LNP. Just click the "Artifacts" button on the right so its set to No.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Bearskie]

Wait, so why did your dwarves stop making booze/food?

[mobucks]

First of all, 11/10 on that OP. Par excellence.

You need to have farming rolling completely before you decide to dig all those bedrooms.

Actually, the main problem I think you're having is putting too much importance on getting bedrooms up.

I stick beds in a hallway, PACKED together for at least 3 migrant waves. Dont use dormitory, resize them individually to 1x1 so each has their own. They love it.

They love sitting too. Make tables/chairs and a dining room.

You need to consider the needs of the dwarves and try to work on covering them all asap.

Individual bedrooms should be cut out last IMO.

Finally, if you don't want a King/Queen that early, make sure you embark a civ with a healthy population. *<-- this last one happens a lot more in this version which must be a bitch for new players.

[taptap]

Seems your problems are farming setup, inefficient labour and hauling arrangements and most of all not using the population cap. Set the cap at 20 or 30 or 50 and roll.

[Wheeljack]

As several have already said, set up a dormitory or two first. I don't get to personal bedrooms until two years in most times. Another thing to consider, is too specialize certain jobs. Farmers should only farm, so you can ensure the fields are tended to. Pick a few of them to do brewing or cooking, but other than that let them do that work exclusively. I always embark with one dedicated farmer and add a second or third from my first immigration wave. I have yet to have to worry about food or booze. If you start falling behind, add more farmers from your useless crowd of freeloaders. Once you have a lot of dwarves specialize further and make dedicated cooks and brewers. That should help your food problems.

As for moods, I usually embark with certain mood items I might need. Green glass, leather, extra cloth, and the like. That way if I get unlucky with a picky, creative dwarf, then have some stuff to play with.

[Uggh]

As far as I know, liaison reporting requirement has been abolished in one of the 40.xx versions. Limits take effect immediately after restarting the fort

[Reelya]

You're doing immigrants wrong. Treat them as a blank slate. Ignore their "profession" and train them up in whatever you need. A novice lye maker won't be a novice lye maker in a couple of months, he'll be whatever you tell him to be. Draft more unskilled (or "useless") dwarves as miners. You can speed up bedrooms this way, by turning more immigrants into the labors needed to carve them out and make furniture. You have "useless" dwarves who need bedrooms? Why not use the immigrant labor to build the bedrooms faster?

There is no "useless" dwarf. Them having one skill doesn't affect their ability to do any other skill. You might think that a Legendary Lye Maker is more of a "waste" than a Peasant, but both will become equally proficient mechanics, miners or masons. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how professions work in DF: it's not "class based" and every dwarf can learn any skill equally well in a short amount of time. It's just a bonus if they have a skill you need, and no loss if they have a skill you don't. The "profession" is just a title based on whatever their highest skill is, it doesn't constrain what jobs they can do at all. I assign skills as needed, not based on pre-existing profession, then I set the dwarf's custom profession name to what I want, not the default. e.g. Lye-Maker = instant novice "Miner" that way.

What I do, is every immigrant gets stone detailing/mason/mechanic/hauling/woodcutting/caring for sick and a few other skills turned on (everything else turned OFF no matter what skills they have), and I set them to a custom profession "Hauler", though you could use your own term. These are my grunts and they do all the unskilled or risky jobs, plus construction work, except for mining. Can't have enough of these. If I need to make another specialist, I look through the list of Haulers for ones that have a few points in the relevant skill and "promote" one of them to a specialized role, turning off every labor except their new speciality.

Also, just do communal bedrooms. They work fine most of the time. You should be swimming in food and drinks, it's not hard. Have two dedicated farmers from the start, get them up to legendary, and train up a third just in case later. Keep other people brewing, and have kitchens making lavish meals from mixed ingredients, including booze. This makes a lot of food.

All production stops besides food/booze as dwarves suddenly stop listening to me now that there's a noble

You're misinterpreting some other fuck up that you're doing. How exactly do they stop listening to you? You can manually set labors on all dwarves, but you have to make sure enough jobs are available through ordering stuff on workshops, and you have to make sure dwarves aren't inundated with unimportant jobs. Dwarves are always doing something. You can see in the jobs screen what each dwarf is doing. There's probably a lot of junk being generated, and dwarves are spending too much time hauling the junk. Turning off hauling on important dwarves is the fix.

The trick to sorting that is to have specialists, who only have selected workshop labors each turned on (and hauling OFF), and a Grunt caste who have the hauling labors turned on. This makes sure your high-skill dwarves aren't wasting time hauling. Haulers also have a higher chance of death, so this helps prevent important dwarves dying outside during sieges. By turning off hauling on your most critical dwarves you ensure that they spend all their time mining, making blocks or whatever else, which keeps production flowing. Those "useless" dwarves you talked about are actually important because they're the ones you turn into dedicated low-value haulers, which frees up your creative dwarves from mundane labors.

Your other possibility is that you ran out of food. Starving dwarves can't work, they spend their time hunting for rats and other vermin to eat. The fix here is to create bigger farm plots, plant a lot of plump helmets, and make sure your farmers don't have random labors like hauling turned on. Also make sure you're brewing enough so that seeds are generated, and that there is enough space to put the crops.

[TheKaspa]

Another suggestion for managing big numbers: Dwarf Therapist
Very useful to mass remove hauling and to choose ideal candidates for specialization

[Naryar]

Set up a reasonable migrant limit, like 60-70 ?

[Sadrice]

For a very long time I found large population forts pretty much unmanageable, and would have your same problem with the bedrooms.  Don't worry so much about the bedrooms, they can sleep on the ground if need be (though they won't like it).  Also, don't worry so much about other furniture and bedroom size.  A bed in a niche in the wall is plenty, and easy to mass produce.  Once you get that under control, you can consider adding other furniture (they like cabinets and chests, and statues are always good for boosting room value).

I second the motion to use the pop cap.  It's not just an LNP feature, by the way, it's built into the game, though it's in one of the init files.  Anyways, turn it down to 50 or so to have a better time, and raise it when you feel like you want a bigger work force.

I strongly agree with disabling hauling on important dwarves.  It's annoying to have production delays because your craftsdwarves are hauling ore in the mines, and it's even more annoying when they're the first poor sap to discover the giant cave spider (happened to my best brewer last night, I don't always follow my own advice).

It's important to get food and booze stabilized before worrying about frivolities like bedrooms.  I actually don't care for farming, I got a little bored of it years ago (though I've been mucking around with the new surface crops).  For a new player, herbalism is easier, and in 40.x, ridiculously productive in forested areas.  A single herbalist can feed and booze a very large fort.  Make a few stepladders, set some large gather zones, and you will get several hundred units of fruit during summer  and fall, and ground plants provide a steady supply of edibles year round.  Buy lots of food from caravans, and you will never need to worry about producing any of your own, especially if you supplement the booze with gathered fruit.

I also very strongly agree that you should give dwarf therapist a try.  It makes managing dwarves much much easier, especially for large populations. 

[Miuramir]

I'm not exactly new to the game, but I'm still absolutely terrible at it and I've gone through about over half a dozen forts all ending in the same boring un-fun way:

Start Game
Set up farming
Set up craft stations
Set up bed rooms
20 Immigrants arrive, all of useless professions
Attempt to up more bed rooms

While others have noted that you don't *need* bedrooms at the early stages of a fort, let's look at what you might do.  You've just gotten 20 more dwarves, and based on your previous experience you'll get more dwarves again in several months.  So, let's assign some relevant jobs to the newcomers; just off of the top of my head, how about (and all of these are in addition to whatever your original 7 were doing already):
2 miners
7 haulers: 2 general-purpose (all hauling enabled), 2 specifically stone, 2 specifically wood, 1 specifically item
1 "door-maker" (either mason or carpenter depending on what you want to make them from)
1 "furniture-maker" (tables, chairs, misc; either mason or carpenter depending on what you want to make them from)
1 "bed-maker" (carpenter)
2 wood-cutters
1 weaponsmith, if you don't already have one (to make some spare picks and axes)
1 backup brewer (with their own workshop for redundancy)
1 backup cook (with their own workshop for redundancy)
1 backup farmer (with a second small farm for redundancy)

That takes up 18 of your new dwarves, and should be pretty close to what you need to dramatically build out your living quarters (barracks, bedrooms, dining rooms, etc.) in *far* less time than it takes for another set to show up.  Dwarves are the engines of your fortress; to put it in Civilization / Master of Magic terms, they *are* the "hammers" or "shields" that you use to make things.  If you're short on raw materials, assign another miner or so for exploration, and/or some dwarves to smelting and other back-end tasks; if you're in a hostile environment, start training some as early military, or set up a workshop flow for traps; and so on. 

Again, this is not a prescription; you've been given a huge boost in productivity, use it to be productive.  DF is intended to be a "learn by failing" game, to some degree; like classic Roguelikes.  In Angband, if you find your high-score list starting to be dominated by deaths to poison, learn to not go below 2000' without a source of Resist Poison.  In DF, if you find you keep getting large migrant waves, use the first one to build out your residential and service infrastructure. 

Changing the pop-cap numbers may be useful as training wheels, or to force smaller games due to preferences or hardware limitations.  If you don't want even a mayor at first, set (for instance) soft at 35 and hard at 45 until you feel you've got things initially organized, then perhaps take it up to around soft 65, hard 75 and stabilize things there until you're ready for more complex interactions.  There's no reason not to adjust the pop cap during a fort's lifetime to match your intentions, inclinations, resources, and/or ability at that particular point.