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[Noglet]

Yes yes, the red wounded dwarfs heal eventually in my limited experience of such injuries. I usually have a dwarf whose only job is to feed and water the sick. But I'm like that.

Generally, I'm so pleased to read this thread! I'd started to wonder if I was the only player not to behave like a nazi camp commander towards all my dwarfs. Be interested to know if players that tend their inujured dwarfs are also players who do not massacre immigrants, butcher indiscriminately, maintain huge standing armies, and all the rest of the nazi tactics that seem to dominate the fortress playing kultchur?

[CogDissident]

I don't massacre my dwarves, but I do have a huge standing army, about 1/3rd of my population is in the miliary. This happened after my fort of 160 got taken down to 70 in a single year.. (three raids, each with 60 goblins on beak dogs, and 15 trolls). Fortunately, everyone now has fullplate and steel weapons, so the death rate has gone down from 1 dwarf for 1 goblin, to 1 dwarf for 10 goblins.

[Mad Jackal]

quote:Originally posted by Noglet:
<STRONG>Yes yes, the red wounded dwarfs heal eventually in my limited experience of such injuries. I usually have a dwarf whose only job is to feed and water the sick. But I'm like that.

Generally, I'm so pleased to read this thread! I'd started to wonder if I was the only player not to behave like a nazi camp commander towards all my dwarfs. Be interested to know if players that tend their inujured dwarfs are also players who do not massacre immigrants, butcher indiscriminately, maintain huge standing armies, and all the rest of the nazi tactics that seem to dominate the fortress playing kultchur?</STRONG>

I am glad to hear this as well.

Granted I'm still very new to the game and learning things every time I play, that I keep starting over with each new download.  And have yet to make it to year 3 (or above 35 dwarves) so I've not had any dwarves live through an attack. But I'm not interested in lots of the tactics and solutions people have posted about population management or health care..... I'm going to try a "hospital" with a dedicated healer type as well.

[Pacho]

I tend to keep my army at 20% of my population, but I do have to drown the enormous amount of immigrants I keep getting (~ 50 at times).  Everytime I get sieged two of my swordsmen stand in the entrance and massacre the crowd of goblins/trolls that feel like going inside.  It's the archers that kill my troops =[

Good to know that red wounds eventually heal.  Oh, Toady said in some other thread that neck wounds will never heal since they are considered spinal wounds.  That guy with the neck wound that keeps passing out; he won't get better even if he does rest.

[Zurai]

I don't murder fey mood dwarves or wounded dwarves (though I do station a guard outside the workshop if the fey mood dwarf stops gathering materials), but I do unfortunately feel compelled to thin out the crowds of immigrants. Eventually, if you work it right, you can get to a point that you only get a single migration (if that) of dwarves yearly, but I refuse to let the game force me to play at a pace I do not enjoy, so I periodically - once a year or so - cull out all the useless extra jewellers and mechanics and peasants. They either get recruited into the military (if I've lost military dwarves or need more fortress/royal guards) or get sent to ... "fertilize the fields".

[Noglet]

It's tough stuff, immigration. But I just won't use a concentration camp, or send new dwarfs out to 'hunt'. I'd feel like I'd lost, if you can understand that! And I like to win.

I generally manage to find enough work for them, gathering plants and hauling rock; optimising work schedules around sleep patterns can reveal there is more work to do, more often, than you might think. Even for jewellers (well, maybe not for jewellers). I have a huge party room also, for dwarfs to kick back and enjoy themselves in, which keeps them out of the way. Why shouldn't they be happy, inconsequential consumers, rather than =dead=? Once food production has reached its exponential rate, there's no problem producing food enough to feed as many dwarfs as the world can breed, only storing and distributing it! But population has become =absurd= in my latest fortress, it's true. I'm wondering about an army. I've relied on traps in the past, so fighting dwarfs are irrelevant, usually, and a couple of giant squads of dwarfs with a mass charge military philosophy. But maybe my dwarfs could benefit, uh, morally from a little 'contact' with, uh, 'other species'.

It's good to be good to dwarfs. I love it when they get married and so on, or are just =ecstatic= all the time. Spiritual enrichment. An undwarfish concept, perhaps. Maybe Toady could code an undwarfish activities commitee? Or dwarf political parties, or, or, or(e)...

Is the best thing about this game all the stuff it =hasn't= got in it, but which you can =feel= when you play?

[Zurai]

The problem is that if you don't clamp down hard on it, the game will quite happily send you 100 dwarves in immigration in a single year (I've had it happen - spring was 33, summer was 24, and fall was over 50). That's just too much expansion for me to have fun with - if I hadn't removed a good 60 of those dwarves, it would have more than doubled my fortress size (which is much more than double the required infrastructure) in one single game year.

[Pacho]

I prefer chasming my extra dwarves instead of just drowning them.  I hate to have rooms in my fortress full of the trash they bring with them.

It's not like I don't have the materials and dwarfpower to make my own trash =P

[Jandrews]

quote:Originally posted by Zurai:
[QB]The problem is that if you don't clamp down hard on it, the game will quite happily send you 100 dwarves in immigration in a single year (I've had it happen - spring was 33, summer was 24, and fall was over 50).

I've never gotten more than one wave per year of immigrants (though I do carve out lot of room for newcomers and usually have a huge surplus of booze and meat).  On cold maps, I seem to mostly get immigrants in the spring. In warmer maps, I get immigration to occur in the fall on a consistant basis.  Granted, these waves are normally 35-45 dwarves each...

How is it possible to get more than one wave of immigrants?

[Devastator]

Jesus, 100..  In my current game, I've went from 8 dwarves to 49 after a second wave in the summer.  It isn't that hard to keep up with, but another 60 would probably be too much..

[Skyrage]

The thing is - you CAN technically support way more dwarves, but then you have to be ready for extreme room-making and intense productions. There IS space to handle all these dwarves, it's the dedication that's the pain, but on the other hand - think about it - the more dwarves you have, the faster work will be completed - well, if you have enough workshops when it comes to producing goods anyway.

Only drawback is wood of course for beds since you will probably be forced to deforest pretty much your whole map, but if you have a big towercap (or whatever those cave-trees are called) field then it shouldn't be such a huge issue.

Food is never a problem since one small farm-plot can sustain a hellish lot of dwarves if optimized. Only thing is that you can't have it centralized anymore but have to have several foodproducing and foodstoring areas to prevent dwarves from having to run around so much...well, some will still do that but the odds will be smaller.

Most crafts are never a problem since stone is over-abundant.

Equipping military dwarves can be a bit of a pain - specially without a magma furnace since you are then forced to either rely on coal if you can find it or wood for the massive fuel requirements. Sure, you could go for a cheaper militia that has crappy weapons and armor but they will obviously be more of a suicide mob than anything else.

[Zurai]

quote:Originally posted by Jandrews:
<STRONG>How is it possible to get more than one wave of immigrants?</STRONG>

Buy out the dwarf caravan a couple years in a row (Immigration is based off how productive you appear to the dwarven caravan - that's why if they die, immigration is lessened the next year). It takes 3-4 years of completely ignoring the caravan to revert the immigration to manageable levels, though.

[Zurai]

quote:Originally posted by Skyrage:
<STRONG>The thing is - you CAN technically support way more dwarves...</STRONG>

I never said I couldn't support them. I said it wasn't fun for me. I enjoy slow, steady expansion. Doubling the size of my fort in a single year just makes things way too hectic and stressful for me. I play games to relieve stress, not add it.

[Rondol]

Total agreement here. I would be 100% happy with increasing my dwarf population by a mere 2-3 each year. Or not even that -- an immigration rate of 0 for a few years wouldn't bother me at all, actually.

[Noglet]

But then, that would be a different game, wouldn't it? Immigration is one of the most uniquely interesting challenges of DF, in my view. It could be made less seemingly arbitrary, I agree. World development could have an effect on numbers of immigrants; refugees from abandoned forts and wars, reputation of the fort could have an effect. To be able to equip armies or colonising parties to go off into the world -- with reciprocal effects on the originating fort -- would be an interesting way of taking some population pressure off at the top levels (or lowest depths). Be interesting to have immigrants of other races, too: that would really bring out the kommondant in the Dwarf ExterminationCamp playing set!

And I do like the idea of Dwarf politics, the more I think about it... internicine wars -inside- the fortress between competing groups. That might help keep the dwarf population down a tad. Hmm?

I still argue that Dwarf-drowing represents losing at the game in some deeply significant way, but I possibly take this game a little too seriously.