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[Sisyphean]

so ive recently started playing DF and after watching numerous tutorials and playing a couple of forts i fell like im getting the hang of it.

i have in my most recent fort encountered a huge problem (im sorry its not fun in this case) in the form of immigration. my first immigration wave was 6 dwarves and they all fitted in quite well shortly after i got another immigration wave of 9 dwarves which all fitted in quite well. then for about 6 months i recieved no immigrants. in that time i built up a growing farming brewing and animal husbandry industry a small iron factory which was just starting to produce iron armor and weapons for what would be my first army and a couple of low value stone artifacts.

i figured i was doing quite well for my 3rd fort pruducing a small surplus of all the basics and getting ready to build a proper millitary. however my next migration just after the autumn caravan was 97 dwarves of which 16 were children. for me that was just too much my food and alchohol stockpiles ran out in 2 months and my farming industry is still nowhere near able to produce what i need just to feed and water them. pretty much all of them are unskilled or with 13 being furnace operators.

im pretty sure this fortress is lost because by the time i can produce enough food for them they will have starved or gone mad from sobriety and im really tempted to abandon the fort to ruin so i can come back and start again.

my question is how can i prevent these kinds of cripling immigration waves? can i turn back immigrants when they come if theres too many?

[forsaken1111]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Immigration

Scroll down to Limiting/preventing immigration

[Sisyphean]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Immigration

Scroll down to Limiting/preventing immigration

yea id already read that but i was hoping there was a way of limiting the wave size as opposed to the pop cap. i do want a big fortress but i lack the skill at the game to take a 600% increase in population.

[forsaken1111]

When you're ready for more people, increase the cap. It should bring new migrants the next time it checks. It may take 2 years or so for the next group to arrive since they do have a travel time.

[Sisyphean]

When you're ready for more people, increase the cap. It should bring new migrants the next time it checks. It may take 2 years or so for the next group to arrive since they do have a travel time.

thanks thats a good idea

[bigcalm]

The number of immigrants is tied to fortress wealth as well.  You should try to avoid creating anything particularly valuable early on - whilst you can't avoid artifacts directly, try not to create any lavish meals - these are particularly valuable and will encourage large migrations.  Similarly, being quick to churn out gold or platinum goods will mean a large population influx.

[Eldin00]

Since others have addressed limiting migration, here's some tips for dealing with the large migration you already have gotten (or any you might get in the future).

1- Herbalism. Depending on your biome/current season, you can very possibly satisfy all of your short-term food needs by enabling the herbalism labor on several of your migrants and either setting up some plant gathering zones (assuming a not too old version of .40.xx) or designate large areas of the map for plant gathering. Depending on the available plants where you are, you might be able to supplement your booze stockpiles in this way as well.

2- secure a water source. Your dwarves might not be happy about drinking only water, but it will keep them alive until your booze production can catch up.

3- temporarily enable cooking on any seeds or plants which are edible cooked but not raw which you have plenty of, or for crops you don't intend to grow. You may have quite a bit of 'edible cooked' material sitting about that could be quickly converted into emergency food reserves. Just be careful not to deplete your seed reserves too far.

4- if 1 and 3 still don't get you enough food, you can put some migrants to work fishing/fish cleaning, or slaughter some animals that you could live without. Don't kill your last breeding pair of any animal you want to continue raising, but everything else is fair game in an emergency.

4- Put some of your useless migrants to work making beds/tables/chairs and digging out a dormitory and dining hall to accommodate your new surplus population.

[Sisyphean]

snip

thankyou thats really usefull. i will have to try it out. as for the food though i think if they survive it will purely be off the land for some reason i have no plump helmet spawn left (strange because i embarked with 30 bought 20 and have only grown a few small batches (theives perhaps? or would i have got a message about that?)

thankfully i have a brook to keep them watered and i guess i could learn how to fish to keep them fed.

it does seem a bit absurd though that so many immigrants would come in 1 wave my fortress was not particularly weathy id only just started to produce iron bars and my cook hadnt made a single meal :/ maybe it was all the walls id been smoothing out?

does anyone know if there is a way to mod it so migrations cant exceed say 100% of current pop without having to tweak pop cap between each migration?

[Pirate Santa]

snip

for some reason i have no plump helmet spawn left (strange because i embarked with 30 bought 20 and have only grown a few small batches (theives perhaps? or would i have got a message about that?)

Unless you're storing them outside any thief should be spotted before they can get to anything valuable. Everyone/everything that enters my fort has to pass through a room full of wardogs for this reason. You probably just planted them all without realising. The good news is eating a plump helmet leaves behind a seed while brewing leaves behind two seeds. Cooking plump helmets gives no seeds.

A healthy fishing industry will produce plenty of food, just be wary if your river freezes.

[Eldin00]

it does seem a bit absurd though that so many immigrants would come in 1 wave my fortress was not particularly weathy id only just started to produce iron bars and my cook hadnt made a single meal :/ maybe it was all the walls id been smoothing out?

does anyone know if there is a way to mod it so migrations cant exceed say 100% of current pop without having to tweak pop cap between each migration?

Large 3rd migrant waves are a common occurrence, though usually not of the magnitude you got this time around. There isn't currently any way to mod migrant waves to be based on a % of your current population. As to fortress wealth, yes, smoothing walls increases wealth, and the metal industry can build wealth pretty quickly, even if you're only making bars. Also, in my experience, it seems like at least part of how wealth attracts migrants is based on wealth/population, so that given the same total wealth, a low pop fortress will attract more migrants than one with a higher population. (I don't actually know the formula used and haven't done any real research, just my gut feeling after playing a lot of forts, so could be totally wrong.)

[utunnels]

97 dwarves

Wow, that is unusual.

 

[Pirate Santa]

97 dwarves

Wow, that is unusual.

 

Wiki's immigration page says largest reported wave is 77. New record?

[nomoetoe]

KILL ALL THE IMMIGRANTS. done.