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[Schmaven]

I'm trying to figure out what's going on with some crashes.  The crash frequency is currently about 1x a week.  It's too random and unpredictable currently to make a report at this point.  I've never let a fort get above 250 dwarves until this one, so I'm strongly suspecting that is a major factor.  But it was my previous understanding that the only downside to large populations was FPS loss. 

It may take me some time, but I'm going to try reducing the population of both dwarves (252)(274) and pets (99)(112) by a significant amount and see if things improve.  I have 31 caged trolls that will be used to see which peasants are the best at unarmed combat.  It's unfortunate because having 250+ dwarves makes trade depot hauling, massive wall building, and other labor intensive projects quite quick to do in parallel, while still allowing for some good down time to de-stress. 

Has anybody seen instability based on large populations before?

Edit: Migrants arrived, further boosting the numbers...

[Quietust]

I'm trying to figure out what's going on with some crashes.  The crash frequency is currently about 1x a week.  It's too random and unpredictable currently to make a report at this point.  I've never let a fort get above 250 dwarves until this one, so I'm strongly suspecting that is a major factor.  But it was my previous understanding that the only downside to large populations was FPS loss. 

Are you using any third-party utilities such as DFHack or Dwarf Therapist? If so, it's possible your crashes are being caused by one of them, rather than by a bug in the game itself.

Other than that, I've never heard of high dwarf populations causing instability.

[Schmaven]

I'm trying to figure out what's going on with some crashes.  The crash frequency is currently about 1x a week.  It's too random and unpredictable currently to make a report at this point.  I've never let a fort get above 250 dwarves until this one, so I'm strongly suspecting that is a major factor.  But it was my previous understanding that the only downside to large populations was FPS loss. 

Are you using any third-party utilities such as DFHack or Dwarf Therapist? If so, it's possible your crashes are being caused by one of them, rather than by a bug in the game itself.

Other than that, I've never heard of high dwarf populations causing instability.

I am using DFHack and Dwarf Therapist.  It's easy for me to not use Dwarf Therapist, but I believe the tileset I'm using depends on DFHack, so that would be a much more involved test for me to run.  I'm not entirely sure how to load up my current save into a pure vanilla DF mode. 

Are DFHack or Dwarf Therapist subject to problems with large numbers of Dwarves?  I've noticed large embarks can cause instability, with a limit of around 6x6 for me before crashes are guaranteed.  In this particular fort, I've dug quite possibly more than I've ever dug out before (in part because of having so many dwarves), so I'm thinking maybe pathfinding multiplied by the large amount of dwarves could be the issue?  Though again, I've always assumed that would only slow the game down, not crash it.  I've just done a few months (1 week at a time saving each week) with no crashes, while not using Dwarf Therapist at all.  So that could be it.  I'll try and relax the save frequency and see if it continues to be alright.

[PatrikLundell]

I'd suspect the tileset, as there's been a fair bit of instability around TwbT, not restricted only to the very common embark crashes.

High pop counts ought to lead to slowdowns, and if you're short of memory you might run into issues there, although virtual memory should kick in (assuming you're using the 64 bit version: the 32 bit one runs out of addressable memory [happened to me with a 6*6 embark, quite a few years ago when there wasn't any 64 bit version] when there's too much to handle).