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[lastofthelight]

So, a question. I can keep a small group of dwarves alive pretty much forever, 3, 4, 5 years. But when I don't turn off immigration, and I get like 20 dwarves during the first immigration wave...I have no idea what to do with them other then abandon my fortress and turn off immigration....which sadly, sometimes results in 3 or 4 pages of dwarves coming to reclaim it, meaning I have to abandon the site forever. I can't use 3 more stonecrafters, because I don't have enough bins to hold all that stuff. I can't use 2 more metalcrafters, or 2 gardeners or four clothiers (or one clothier)....or really 20 anything. What in the heck do you people do with these annoying hordes?

[3]

I know just how you feel.
Usually, I'll take two or three dwarfs from each wave and make them furnaceers/burners/butchers/tanners/woodcutters, and cull the rest in some amusing fashion. If you're not keen on redesigning your fort around an overly-complex sacrifice-maker, you can just make a simple suicide booth (three-tile room, door, lever, spike, work it out), draft a useless dwarf into the military, put him in the room, lock the door, and get him to pull the lever.

If you're in an area with a chasm/pit, or one that's savage and/or evil, you can just let tell the useless dwarfs to hunt and they'll do the deed themselves.

[Demonic Spoon]

Eh, I just let them hang around in my statue gardens and socialize. I usually have about a hundred dwarves slacking off and living in luxury off the labours of about 20 elite skilled ones. But at least I can dump all that excess stone so much fater now. THe only problem is when the economy sets in and they start complaining about the lack of work. Damn dwarves, never happy. They get to relax 24/7 in legendary statue rooms complete with mist, eat masterwork meals and drink sunshine and then complain about it... So then I sacrifice al my socialites to the magma pipe 

[tmountain]

Lately I've been drafting hordes of slackers trying to build a nice military. In combination with the Orc mod, the problem of overpopulation will pretty much take care of itself. Build a nice big barracks with a lot of beds and keep them occupied with wrestling. Before long, you'll have a few squads of badasses ready to die for the common good.

Instead of using dwarf manager or something sophisticated like that, I just assign dwarves with no job to do whatever is needed at the moment (or use the job manager). I have about 40 dwarves right now, and the number of idlers is usually less than ten. Just make sure you have enough farming and brewing going on to keep them fed and full of drink and then attend to any specific complaints as they arise. Alternatively, you can just lock up moody dwarves in a holding cell until they die and then quickly shuttle them out to the nearest graveyard.

[Quietust]

THe only problem is when the economy sets in and they start complaining about the lack of work.

Fortunately, they stop doing that once they become legendary at anything. Pump operating is a great way to get dwarves legendary since it requires no supervision (unless you want them to stop the instant they're legendary, so that a strange mood will snap them to their new profession), though it does tend to result in a lot of spam ("Urist McGymnast cancels Operate pump: Exhausted").

[orbcontrolled]

Speaking of Dwarf Manager, you are using it right? Because I don't think I could ever handle more than 7 dwarves without it.

Remember, the skill the dwarf comes with does not mean they have to do that job, merely that they already have some skill at it. A fish dissector can do masonry, and in a week or so he will be better at it than he ever was at dissecting.

I usually use my immigrants to create large constructions, and to haul out the stone that my 8 legendary miners produce. This is a full time job, and even with +120 dwarfs there is always a shortage of labor.

Try turning all your excess migrants into masons, then build a giant multi-level wall around part of your outdoors. Not only will it give your dwarves a safe outdoor place even during sieges, but it will consume vast amounts of stone, especially if you put in floors.

Right now I'm solving my overabundance of stone by having 80+ dwarves building a giant rock tower to store it all in, and then they will spend another few years hauling stone into it. If they ever finish with that, I can build another one next to it! I have 8 legendary miners, so there is no shortage of material. See megaprojects for more creative ideas.

Stone detailing can also keep a lot of dwarves busy for a while.

If all else fails of course, you could always set up 4 stone piles that "Take" from each other in a circle, causing dwarves to haul eternally.

Finally, if that fails, put them all on excercise bikes.

[nil]

This kind of question comes up a lot, but I've never really understood it.  Seems simple to me--have any dwarves with useful skills do those, while the rest go either to the military or to something like stone detailing or masonry that's easy to train and at least moderately useful.  Dwarves with a mood-friendly skill that isn't needed all the time (like smiths and bowyers) get sent to the farms.  Spread your hauling out (taking it away completely from the busiest dwarves) so everyone has something to haul when they don't have more useful tasks,

[Rowanas]

Yep, military all the way. A few get turned into something useful to build up my fort, the rest fuel my legions of goblin fodder highly skilled guardsdwarves.

[Scarpa]

The first couple immigration waves I usually have jobs for. Getting all the different industries up and running efficiently will use 40+ dwarves easy. After that I put new immigrants into military, or hauling or masonry/engraving.

By about 150 dwarves I generally have a corp of 15-20 mason/architects, a couple dozen military dwarves and about 50 haulers. The rest are specialists.

[Elliott_Thinas]

It's all about specialization and getting into really every area of industry. When you have one dyer, one thresher, one clothier and so on you can really spread out your dwarves. Try to get one dwarf for every job class and double and triple up on necessaries like miners, farmers, fishermen, and masons for a megaproject. I generally have around 10 legendary miners on my mature forts.

[Lordinquisitor]

Simple-

1. Dwarves with usefull skills become premium members of my fort.
2. Male dwarves without usefull skills become soldiers.
3. Female dwarves without usefull skills become slaves.

Dwarf manager makes everything that easy-

[XSI]

Migrants are so nice.

Useful dwarves get into the fort to live as you normally would.

20 useless peasants/soap makers, welcome to the fort, you're just in time to start work on the ridiculously dangerous and overly complicated megaproject with a 90% fatality rate under the workers.

If they pick up useful skills while building, they get the useful dwarf treatment after the project is done.

Alternatively, cannonfodder soldiers.

[(name here)]

Just turn all your excess dwarves into farmers.

That has no negitive side effects whatsoever.

[Demonic Spoon]

Yes it does, it decreases plant stack size.

[3]

Also, unskilled farmers equals wasted seeds.