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[koofle]

I have migrant issues.  When I first started playing DF, I panicked with the first wave and abandoned.  Nowadays, I can just about manage and steer the first wave of 20 migrants into being productive dorfs.  Then another 10 or so come along in the following season and cause me more panic about giving them jobs.  Then I save and quit.  Micromanaging 7 dwarfs is very easy, but I'm having trouble adjusting to a less micromanagable fortress.

What advice can you give about career advising migrant dwarfs?  I really don't want to cap my population, I like the challenge, but there are just so many idle dwarfs that I don't know what to do with.

[Michaelsoftman]

Assuming your fort isn't on the brink of destruction, idle Dwarves are a good thing, as they gain skills and stats, find lovers, have kids, etc.

With a population of 100 Dwarves, I usually have about 70+ idle at any time, unless I have some big project going on.

As for migrants, take any Dwarves with jobs you have no use for (lye maker) and turn them into whatever you have a lack of, perhaps Farmers?  You'll need more Farmers to keep up with a growing fortress.

I usually take Peasants and draft them into the military, or make them Hunters first.

[ElChad]

If really want to make use of randoms. Put them to the farms (if you ever decide to make huge farms). They'll be of some use there.

[cjet79]

I Like to have organized stockpiles of everything, I'm weird like that.  So I always find at least a hauling job for my dwarves to be doing.

If you want to have them doing busy work then I suggest clear-mining large areas, then setting a 1 square "dump".  Have your dwarves dump the huge amount of stone into that one place (put all your stone work places next to it, or just anywhere that has easy access to most places in your fort).  Then fill up that space with stockpiles.  Also give your dwarves construction type designation...i usually have about 15 stoneworkers for a fortress of 100 and nearly constantly have some project running, though lately I have been running out of ideas.
If you want more food then give them the plant gathering and plant processing designations.  Its then very easy to designate large sections for them to collect plants, plus the plants grow back faster then trees so you can keep them busy at this for a long time.

Once you get too many dwarves who are legendary at busy work then you just draft them into the military and they become champions pretty quickly.
I've been running my fort this way for 15 years pop cap of 130.  Works pretty well =)

[Caz]

Use them as volunteers for your magma death trap, of course.

[Albedo]

I have migrant issues.  When I first started playing DF, I panicked with the first wave and abandoned...

...Micromanaging 7 dwarfs is very easy, but I'm having trouble adjusting to a less micromanagable fortress.

What advice can you give about career advising migrant dwarfs?...

Frankly, I don't think your problem is migrants, it's micromanaging.  And I should know, because I do it too.  Way. 

The starting game is very different from the later game.  At first it can be about micromanaging, but later it has to be about "policy" - you set groups or teams up within an industry, and let them work it out themselves.  If it's not balanced, then you tweak the whole, but you don't worry if a few dwarfs show up as idle for a while - if for a few days, then something is out of balance.

There's no way that 7 dorfs - or even 20 - can run a fortress.  A hole in the ground, sure.  But if you want to move the next level, you have to get a machine going, and a machine works as a whole, not as individual parts.  And if you want to take a swing at any sort of serious project, you need a serious machine.

Decide what industries you want to make work - metal, food, glass, cloth - and set it up in a serious way. Even for the secondary/support industries, by the time you're up toward 50 you can use dedicated specialists (or multi-specialists) - a furnace operator, a leatherworker, a butcher/tanner.  Apprentice masons/mechanics who do the things your primary artisans shouldn't waste time doing. You need several legendary miners.  And then there's the whole military process, which takes some management.

The support stuff should more or less take care of itself and be producing surplus - if not, add another apprentice or hauler or three to that category (food, stone, wood, whatever.)  Like cjet said, there's always hauling - and if not, you aren't producing enough.

If you want to micromanage while this is going on, micromanage your project, or your one chosen main industry, or your military - only.  And/or train up a chosen replacement for your leader should anything "untoward" befall them.  Let the rest of the machine support that, and give you time to devote to just that one aspect, as you please.

There's a similar thread here, with more:
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=34331.0

[Phazer]

put your idle dwarves in the military (not all of em) and let them train and do some equipment for them. that should take up some time.

[TheToeBighter98]

Two words: Hauling stone.

[Keilden]

Magma.

[kefkakrazy]

The real key is, as previous posters have stated, to set it up so that everything feeds into the whole, with as little interruption as possible. Lately, I tend to assign certain jobs to specialists-things that ALWAYS need doing or which really need quality boosts. Metalsmiths are all specialists and I tend to have only one or two that do any given metal job-I don't like wasting metal on crap no-quality goblets. Kitchen staff-cooks and brewers-get a fairly limited assignment because there's always work there. Otherwise, I have a fairly large labor pool-I actually use Dwarf Manager to rename most immigrants into Laborers or Immigrants. An Immigrant is a migrant with skills either not needed or not useful-cheese makers, for example, or Weaponsmith Number 6, might be eligible. I tend to draw from Immigrants first when I need something-soldiers, specialists, etc.

Laborers are no-talent migrants who don't get made into Immigrants. They have a set of jobs which all laborers do-laborers do masonry (all my mason workshops are profiled such that unskilled masons don't work there), so laborers spend a lot of time on towers and things. They do tanning, fish cleaning (if I actually fished, which I don't in this fortress), and so on. Things where skill has no effect but time-if one laborer takes three times as long as a skilled specialist tanner, wup-de-do, because I have four times as many laborers as a sane fortress would ever have tanners. Laborers also do other jobs, just to pass the time-they're all siege operators, and I've got a couple legendaries there.

It's really up to you, but I've found Dwarf Manager to be not only helpful but borderline essential for effectively micromanaging the labors of a mature (80+ dwarf) fortress.

[Marko]

Dwarf Manager is your friend.

I have a few specialists for making good quality food, alcohol, metal, wood, clothing, and one lucky dwarf that gets to do all the butchering, tanning, leather working, and bone carving! The rest, haulers and masons for making epic projects!

[Katsuun]

If you build alot above ground, like I tend to, Masons can occupy a good chunk of your idle dwarves. Just use workshop profiles to keep them from working on your furniture.

You could also make them engravers and mass-smooth your fortress, but this tends to run into trouble when you try to actually engrave things, as it will be hard to keep your inexpereinced smoothers from trying to engrave.

[Lesconrads]

Hmh... I have 150 dorfs and have like 20 idlers... being nobles and kids.
I don't know what you are doing... i ALLWAYS could get some work for them dwarfs.

I think you don't do enough - seriously. Why have 1 glass furnace when you could have 4 leg. glassmakers pump out high quality stuff on your magma-furnaces? You need at least 4 or 5 other furnaces to "produce" all the needed sand. This gets your fortress work for 5 Peasants in sand collecting, 4 glassmakers and at least 2 furniture-haulers. If you produce raw glass, you can also support 2 gem-cutters, or gem cutting training-facilities being enough for one gem-setter to put glass on EVERYTHING you see. Now those need food and booze, you need reserve-haulers so all together you have work for at least 20 people from that glass-industry.
Second is military. If you don't like traps, for they are WAY overpowered, you need a decent army. Train those mofos madly, and they are fun. How many, you ask? I like at least 30 to 40 people training and in arms at a time.
Make - high - quality - crafts. This involves specific stone, thus needing many dedicated stone-haulers.
Make a running animal/meat-industry. This can get you vast amounts of labour.

I think you simply need, as stated above, to change your playstyle from managing every dorf by himself (zomg i need more haulers, so I turn off this craftdwarf and maybe the woodcutter etcetc) to general categories.
Elaborate constructions also need gigantic labour forces, being masons, haulers (stone, food, gold (^^)) and a defence squad.

[ThtblovesDF]

Just make them into miltary. Military will create its own demands = more jobs.

[azazel]

On my last fortress (currently looking for a new site), I had a massive cloth industry going - I had too many cave spiders, so my entire production floor was covered in webs; which isn't really a problem until the dwarves start getting bit and/or things start burning (which they didn't - can webs burn?). Anyway, I had 10 or so dwarves continually collecting webs, and only doing that. Of course, with all that thread, someone needed to make it into cloth, and so on. My weavers were very, very busy... and they couldn't even make a dent in the webs, either. The production floor (metal industry) was too far away from where the dwarves with cats roamed, so I couldn't cull the cave spiders.

Oh well, I eventually got bored of the site and decided to start a new one. With a megaproject that - hopefully - will be worth showing.