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[NW_Kohaku]

*goddammit*

Quit arguing with everybody who enjoys the game differently than you do. This has already been pointed out.

Why is this topic so polarizing?
[Stuff about how you play]
And if you say one word about how I'm playing wrong, I swear...

I could honestly say the same to you... Why is this suddenly a personal affront?

I'm talking about the problem of giant migrant waves devaluing dwarf value and imbalancing the game's challenge, you're making it "how dare you say my fort is wrong!"

[Loud Whispers]

To those of you complaining about being overwhelmed by large numbers of dorfs for the inability to distinguish them, personally.  Your forts are too safe.  I guarantee if your population is being regularily culled by !!FUN!! you will be getting to know those who make a habit of surviving. 

That is exactly the problem.

The giant migrant waves have the direct effect of encouraging pointless suicide charges or mass-"unfortunate accidents", because it's the only way to weed out the useful from the useless. 

DF would be a much better game if you had to actually work to attract your migrants, because it would make you far more invested in the outcomes of battles, since you're actually risking something, instead of seeing the slaughter of your dwarves as a good way to whittle down your surplus.

That would also have a nice balancing effect on sieges. Sieges being a yearly tradition ensures high mortality rates, but as of recent versions due to sieges actually having to march to your Fortress the time now varies. Occasional sieges would carry all the weight of yearly sieges if the lesser casualties they inflicted were of greater impact to your population.

[Mushroo]

By the way, I usually do (o)rders, only farmers (h)arvest, to work around the "all children are legendary planters" issue.

Who says it's a bad thing?  Trains stats, (agility, endurance, strength, and kinesthetic sense - all useful for soldiers or nearly any craft,) and it's not a moodable skill.

I may have mis spoken by calling it an "issue" (people sure are touchy!). That is a good point you bring up about stat training.

I like to use a small number of dedicated, legendary planters/harvesters in my forts ("only farmers harvest") because stack size is an important fortress goal for me. I prefer to have my stockpiles full of "dwarven wine [25]" as opposed to "dwarven wine [5]" barrels. Harvesting large plant stacks just has such a nice ripple effect of efficiency through various industries: food, drink, clothing, barrel/pot making, hauling... Basically I derive great pleasure from making compact, efficient forts with smaller farm plots and stockpiles.

For similar reasons, I am probably one of the few players who actually uses and recommends potash.

A minor secondary reason why I choose "only farmers harvest" is because it is easier for me to spot all the teenagers at a glance on the "u" screen if they show up at the bottom of the list as Peasants, not mixed in with the Farmers. (I don't typically use Dwarf Therapist.)

[k33n]

More dwarfs is objectively better. Faster construction, faster wealth generation, ability to cover all industries, and a large military with a dynamic composition.

Gimmie moa.

[Niddhoger]

HARVESTING plants has NO effect on stack size, yet still gives a little EXP.  At first you disable "all harvest" to concentrate EXP on your farmers to pump stack size.  Later, you allow "all harvest" to give kids something to do.  Also... you do know that large stack sizes can't be brewed into barrels, right? I forget the cutoff, but I think its 6.  You won't be seeing "Dwarven Wine [45]" at all.  This is the main reason I just don't bother with potash.  The other reason is that food is simply far too easy to come by as it is.  I mostly just grow textiles and dyes.  "Hunting" with my military squads and herbalist stripping trees and shrubs give me all the food/booze I typically use.  Multi-hauling can allow herbalists to bring home 100+ units of plants a week or so... outpacing farms easily.  Now if only toady would actually fix garden vegetables (can't even harvest anything with pods!), yet alone actually make hte different plants MATTER...

To the actual discussion at hand,  I usually start to feel overwhelmed around 80 or so.  Trying to find jobs for all of them is mostly just busywork... creating more miners to strip-mine more layers of stone to keep your 10 stone crafters busy.  You then stud the stone crafts with bone and junk metal (*sigh* zinc without copper, lead, etc) to buy out entire caravans.  The best part about this, though, is that more wealth=more migrants.  It becomes a vicious cycle of busywork massively ramping wealth that attracts more migrants that need to be assigned more busywork... And that is how you get migrant waves of 60+  So not only do I keep wealth down to discourage mega migrant waves, but it keeps mega goblin waves at bay until your defenses are truly mature.  I see 20-30-idlers and try really hard not to freak out and build 10+ more craft shops or extra textile lines.

Another reason I tend to have several idlers is that I rarely give dorfs more than one labour.  I then try to get at least 2 dorfs legendary in every skill (to minimize a dorf being on break at hte wrong time).  Even skills that don't have quality usually increase via speed.  So out of those 30 idlers, you'll have a master mechanic, a legendary weaponsmith, a master potter, at least 2 animal trainers... all not so much "idling" but "on standby" for when I need them.  I find if I give them 5+ labours each, then they might be all trying to make crafts when I want masterwork stone tables in hte dining room or a couple more mechanisms -stat- to get a bridge up. 

Another thing to do is just throw everyone into a military squad... but I'll be honest.  I -really- hate dealing with the uniform interface.  This is especially true when I want bone (which is considered metal armor, wtf?) armors on my new recruits (that can't handle actual metal).  However... I don't want dog bone helms and toad greaves with cat gauntlets and turkey and rhino leather tunic and boots. MY OCD WILL NOT LET YOU MIX ANIMALS! This guy gets the dog armor... this guy gets the toad armor... this guy gets cave croc... However, when I try to assign them specific pieces they never seem to bother picking them up.  If I just leave it "metal" they raid the junk armor pile waiting to be melted down.  This alone is why I typically build trap-master style fortresses that would rather drown, freeze, cast obsidian, run lead filled minecarts over, drop into pits, drop into pits filled with zombies/FBs/Titans, fling socks at, lead down repeating steel spike hallways... etc than deal with the damned military interface X.X

I would most definitely love smaller migrant waves.  Maybe something like "the higher of 10% of your population or 3."  You really shouldn't jump from 7 to 200 in a couple of years.  I also prefer the idea of actively courting migrants.  This could be tied to an agreement with the outpost liason as well- you could ask for no/minimal migration or to open up the flood gate.  Perhaps the liason could even broker deals to get your fort to accept refuge groups if you are finally ready for a large wave.  "The dastardly goblins lead by their demon master just overran a fort! These poor countrymen of yours need a new home! What can we offer you to take them in? Well... If you send me a skilled Doctor/Weaponsmith from the mountainhome I might be inclined to take them...." The migrant might also snub your fort and deter migrants for it not being prosperous enough (produced wealth, displayed wealth, too many nekid dorfs, no hospital, no tavern, etc).  On that last note, there could be beautification/public works/comforts you could provide to attract migration.  The more of these you build (statue gardens, zoos that track animal diversity, tavern, legendary dining haul, multiple temples, high quality bedrooms, etc) the more migration you attract as your fortress actually becomes a desirable place to emigrate to.  Biome could also influence this, with rough biomes making it harder to drum up migration interest.  How can you possibly get 60 dorfs to move to a horrifying frozen glacier 100 tiles away from the nearest town, but surrounded by goblin fortress and undead towers? It better have gold-plated latinum bedrooms with roc feather matresses and heated toilet seats... Anyways, the point is to make migration more dynamic and under player control.  If you only want anemic growth, then you build minimal comforts and tell the liason to steer people away.  Otherwise you pimp out your tavern/temples/dining rooms, build gold-brick roads all over the place, engrave -all- the surfaces, peasants get diamond encrusted beds, and everyone gets masterwork roasts and double servings of sun berry wine. 

I'm starting to -really- get off topic now, so I'll hush XD

[Mushroo]

HARVESTING plants has NO effect on stack size, yet still gives a little EXP.  At first you disable "all harvest" to concentrate EXP on your farmers to pump stack size.  Later, you allow "all harvest" to give kids something to do.  Also... you do know that large stack sizes can't be brewed into barrels, right? I forget the cutoff, but I think its 6.  You won't be seeing "Dwarven Wine [45]" at all.

D'oh, I did not know about that glitch/limitation! So much wasted effort! What about large pots?

Alcohol industry aside, I do like the enormous quarry bush and syrup roasts that are possible with potash and legendary growers. It's kind of a mini-game for me to make the most valuable prepared meals for trade; one stack of them can buy the entire caravan! I also like the idea of being able to make 18 socks from one pig tail seed, so "dwarfy".

[Eldin00]

Currently, DF automatically splits stacks larger than 6 at the still into a stack of 6 and a stack of whatever is left (to prevent spillage from brewing more booze than will fit in a barrel).  The limit of 6 is hardcoded, so even though pots could hold more booze from brewing a larger stack, you never actually get to brew a larger stack. Hopefully at some point in the future, splitting of stacks at workshops will be generalized and take the capacity of the container being used into account.

[Niddhoger]

I just wish there was a "quartermaster" profession that could split/unsplit stacks for you to help tidy up inventory space.  We could set brewable plants to be stacked in units of 6, and have him combine bone bolts into stacks of 25... *sigh* if only. 

[ImagoDeo]

It took me a while to settle on a good cap. Soft of 80, hard of 120, child cap of 20/50. My fortress currently has 85 dwarves, about 15-18 of which are children. I mostly cap it for FPS reasons, but massive migration waves really do give me a headache. My current fort jumped from 22 dwarves to 45 dwarves in one wave, and I hadn't finished any kind of good bedroom system yet because of a total lack of trees at my volcano embark. I chopped the first three trees and didn't get any more growing until four or five years in, so I had to trade for all the wood I consumed.

Generally, 80 dwarves is enough to sustain a good-sized military force of 10-20 and also have enough dwarves for all the other various tasks around a fort that need completion. I have relatively few specialized dwarves. Most are general workers with hauling, mechanics, architecture, masonry, and all farming enabled. Any dwarf that distinguishes himself or herself somehow gets to specialize, such as the single solitary animal trainer who showed up and who now oversees sixty cave crocodiles, two jabberers, five voracious cave crawlers, and a herd of 30-40 rutherers. I don't generally get to know my dwarves except for the military, since I keep it small and I want to recruit dwarves who won't lose their cool under the stress of combat.

Some people have the time, or intentionally take the time, to micromanage absolutely everything, down to the ingredients in their dwarves' meals and the type of stone they use for particular constructions, but I don't care that much about the details. I guess that's the key to handling more than 20 dwarves successfully: stop caring about every detail and let fun happen.

[Goatmaan]

In my "sub 5 fps quest" thread I was
Trying to see how many dwarfs it'd take to get
Below 5 fps steady, and the CHILD CAP of
5/50 (5 kids or 50% of pop) totally broke my migrant
waves!!! Even tho I raised it EVERY SEASON by 5 kids, ALL WAVES
after 6 or 7 years were less than 10!!
Usually 3 or 4 traders were the wave, that's it.
I had SO MANY traders guh!
Between low migration waves and 10/15 fps
the quest was abandoned 25 years,505 dwarfs, wealth
Everywhere, at least 5 +5's for every labor but waves of 3,4,5 TRADERS got old!!
Retired fort.
New fort, cap 1100(1500 hard) child cap 200/50%
Waves are good now, and the bonus?
I get 1,2,3 of my old forts 110 legendary military per wave

[Tyyr]

I personally like larger forts. Right now because I'm switching between computers I have to limit my fort to 80 dwarves but when I run on my desk top exclusively I like to cap out around 150 dwarves. That said I wish migrant waves were spaced out more and smaller. Right now it devalues children and babies completely as it's easier to dispose of them (Sacrificed to Armok) and use their pop cap for useful adults. Smaller migrant waves farther apart could make babies and children more viable. Also it's frustrating to see the population of my fort more than double. It can create all sorts of issues. A much more manageable migration wave size would solve a lot of that. Maybe they only arrive once a year and you get ten tops.

[NJW2000]

I think the system for controlling the maximum is good, as many pepole don't have time to play a fort long enough to work with dynasties, or even grow kids into adults.

[fractalman]

If you refuse to use Dwarf Therapist, you can make management much simpler at the cost of efficiency: simply assign most labors to all of your dwarves, and then make sure that you have fewer workshop jobs on repeat than you have dwarves. 

-basically, it's easier to keep track of what's been assigned to stationary workshops than it is to keep track of what's been assigned to mobile dwarves.  You do, however, need to do a tiny bit of mathematics:

As an example, say you have 20 dwarves.  Assume that half of them will be either hauling, sleeping, eating, or drinking on average.  This leaves you ten dwarves worth of labor to assign to actual work: if you have one mechanisms job on repeat, one brew job on repeat, one cook meals on repeat, one (make barrels/bed/chair/table/door) on repeat, and one "make cage" on repeat, this leaves you 2 dwarves worth of spare labor for farming and mining (along with the occasional woodcutting job.)

Just be sure you let your dwarves idle every now and then-that's how you know they've gotten nice and caught up with their hauling jobs.

[taptap]

My current fort was 24, later 32 dwarves most of its existence. Then I allowed more to accomodate births, now I am at 48 (8 or so still children). The fort is about 50 years old, my captured GCS died of old age 20 years ago. Every death is investigated.

I deactivated the dwarven caravan in the files a decade ago. Goblins didn't show up (I reduced siege requirements I believe), elves and humans declared war (due to losing caravans to the bad rain outside?), but didn't show up either. I credit them, I find sieges boring anyway (only a few dwarves are without military training and the main result from a siege would be a ton of hauling jobs, I had this in other forts).

With about 40 adult dwarves I start to be overwhelmed, I can cover all fortress needs with 20 or so. With 40 I do specialised haulers and stuff. I amuse myself by investigating game mechanics and dwarf logic and fighting against fps death.

[Pearofclubs]

I only find large numbers of dwarves to be stressful when they all show up at once. Or, like my current fort, when they show up on the wrong side of the ocean and dehydrate to death.

 Cause now I've still only got seven dwarves at the end of the first year, and my masons have to keep making memorial slabs to avoid dealing with ghosts.

But in general, yeah. They're annoying when you get more than 15 at once, or when over half of em are kids. I mean, really?  You brought your kids?
Dwarf Fortresses: !!FUN!! For the whole family!