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[TCHJ3K]

OK, so I've kind of got the hang of how things work, and have actually had a couple of forts which weren't total disasters. But there are a few things I still can't get my head around...

1) How the **** am I supposed to deal with the rush of immigrants every season? My latest attempt at a new fort, I got 22 (!) immigrants in the first wave, and by the time I'd just about gotten them under control and set their jobs up so everything was ticking along nicely, another huge mob of them appeared... Maybe it's tied in to how much you export, as I'm churning out rock crafts by the binful to try and get shot of some of my massive stone surplus, but there's just too many of them turning up uninvited and then moaning that there aren't enough bedrooms/tables/chairs/etc...

2) How are you supposed to train your military up with weapons? Whenever I equip them with anything other than their bare hands, they have a nasty habit of almost killing each other in sparring... Is this an unpleasant side effect of letting them all train up to legendary wrestlers first (mainly because I never have any weapons at that point)?

3) What's a sensible size of food and drink store to maintain? Even with one 5x5 plot, a couple of farmers, and one guy brewing drinks, I seem to be churning out food faster than my guys can eat it, and then I keep running out of barrels, and then my food stores rapidly get overwhelmed and there's stuff left lying all over the place... And it doesn't help when a bunch of immigrants turn up, decide they want to be rangers, and keep running back to my fort with armfuls of dead wildlife...

Good game, but it's pretty overwhelming, and the jump from 7 litle guys to 30+ in one season keeps messing up all my carefully-laid plans for what I want to be happening...

[Kanddak]

1. With magma.
(See also this recent thread: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31236.0 )

2. Give them good armor before giving them weapons. Being legendary wrestlers should actually reduce injuries, because they'll be better at dodging.

3. Cook excess food and sell roasts to caravans; they're ridiculously valuable. Turn off prepared food on your regular food stockpiles, and make a separate stockpile for prepared food only that doesn't allow barrels, because only one huge stack of roasts will usually go into a particular barrel anyway.

[Footkerchief]

2. Give them good armor before giving them weapons. Being legendary wrestlers should actually reduce injuries, because they'll be better at dodging.

The issue is that becoming a legendary wrestler also makes them insanely strong.  When you switch them over to a weapon they've never used, they will occasionally mess up a sparring blow and make a real attack instead.  If they were weak, their sparring partner could probably shrug it off, but their strength makes the attacks lethal.  So it's even more important to make sure that everyone has decent armor and shields.

For #1, you can cap population in init.txt, but it won't take effect immediately.

For #3, a 5x5 plot is basically enough to sustain a 200-dwarf fortress.  You don't need a farm plot that big.  Downscale to 3x3 or something.

[jplur]

1) How the **** am I supposed to deal with the rush of immigrants every season? My latest attempt at a new fort, I got 22 (!) immigrants in the first wave

2) How are you supposed to train your military up with weapons? Whenever I equip them with anything other than their bare hands, they have a nasty habit of almost killing each other in sparring...

I think you may have answered your own question.

Too bad the sparring won't actually kill them that often.

Everyone has their own approach but I like to kill my immigrants before they get too many friends.

And the weapon training, I stock up on elf wood weapons or make silver ones.  Train them on these then switch to real ones when they are ready.

(just set recruits to unarmed, forbid the weapons you don't want them to use, then reinstate their weapon prefs.)

[Angellus]

1. Either hold your cursor next to them as they appear and give them suitable tasks, (in my case nearly 80-90% becomes castle guard, turning legendary wrestlers in half a year or sooner.) or kill them in ways that you find to your liking.

Possibilities:
- Atom Smasher
- Recuit -> Drowning Chamber
- Recuit -> Magma Chamber (cleans up everything also!)
- Recuit -> Deathcliff (Put hatches (?) on a high z-level and transport all immigrants there, pull the lever.)
- Recuit -> Spike Chamber
- All dwarves inside order -> activate spike defenses (Works brilliantly, exept it does take some of your own dwarves in the process (woodcutters, hunters and such as they return to base))
- Flood the world (Do NOT forget a hatch on the entrance to your fort, or you will lose more then you wish; This method also helps you against sieges or Traders/Liasons)

2. Just give them shield for the first half year or so, so that they have a nice shield rating, then plate-armor them all and spar with weak weapons. (wood or something, you can get it from the elves.)

3. I normally make one maxed out farming plot and set 2-3 farmers to that, done.

[Untelligent]

Dwarf Manager helps manage the immigrants. Here's how I do it:


-When the immigrants start coming, assign each one a generic custom title (farmer, mason, woodworker, etc.) according to how you tend to group your jobs, and what jobs you need more of done. Even if they already have a title you want to give them, give them the custom title anyway, it'll make it easier to manage later.

-After all the immigrants are on your map, use DM to set their jobs accordingly.


Also, you don't have to keep those soap makers and cheese makers as soap makers and cheese makers. If you're low on mechanics or whatever, make the useless guys mechanics. Hell, make the useful guys mechanics if you have too many of them.