Migration Skill ScalingIn a recent fort where, for reasons related to a project, I did no digging and created very little other than wooden blocks, constructed walls and bridges and a batch of training axes to trade to the first caravan, I found myself with a handful of legendary migrants (artifact creators) coming to my fort in the first year. By any reasonable standard, my fortress was a miserable, hot mudhole with little protection from the rain and a terrible infestation of overgrown insects. It struck me as odd that any accomplished or noteworthy dwarf would want to live in such a place.
When the game selects dwarves for migration, it should try to account for the relative status of a player's fortress compared to the skill of the migrant dwarf. Highly skilled dwarves would logically be well off in their current homes and have high expectations for any place they consider migrating to and thus refuse any player fortress that they consider below them. An exception would be dwarves with a high Excitement Seeking personality value, who care less about the status of their home and more about the promise of adventure an up and coming fortress can provide.
Migrants and ArtifactsWhen a dwarf creates an artifact, they either claim it as a family heirloom or offer it to the fortress it was created in. When an artifact creator migrates, the status of their artifact should be checked. If it was claimed as a family heirloom and has not been stolen or otherwise lost, the dwarf should carry it with him when he migrates. Related to the above, attracting artifact-carrying migrants should be difficult to attract and rare. Likewise, an artifact creator who is expelled from a fortress should take their artifact with them when they leave. These are incredibly valuable possessions and a dwarf should not part with them lightly.
Migrant ManagementThe player has some control limited over migration by changing settings in d_init, but there should be in-game means to influence migration waves. Through ingame menus, the player should have means to set
- Maximum fortress population
- Maximum immigrant wave size
- Requested migrant skills (increasing the chance of receiving a migrant with any of the requested skills)
- Forbidden migrant skills (eliminating any potential migrants with forbidden skills)
- Minimum and maximum allowed skill levels for migrants (allowing the player to eliminate unskilled or overly skilled migrants)
Imposing regulations on migration could potentially have impact on the resulting migration waves. More restrictions = fewer potential migrants = smaller waves and slower growth. Managing migration could be done as a function of the Manager noble. Changes to migration regulations could also be made to require word to reach the player's civilization before the take effect, either through the caravan returning home or by sending one of your own dwarves as a messenger.
Author
Topic: Migration Mechanics and Management (Read 701 times)