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Around 20

16 (11.4%)

Around 40

41 (29.3%)

Around 80

29 (20.7%)

I don't lower the population cap.

54 (38.6%)

Total Members Voted: 140

[Niveras]

Oops, quoted myself when I meant to modify the last post. Not sure how to delete this one...

[deadlycairn]

I am obsessive in DF - I cannot stand ANY idlers - this makes for an extremely efficient fortress, but my CPU limits my FPS - more than 50 dwarves and things are too horrible to bear.

[Grax]

About 30.
They're already mooding, and don't eat FPS yet.

[Granite26]

I am obsessive in DF - I cannot stand ANY idlers

I've never had problems with the haulers having stuff to do, even if it's just fill the stockpiles near the workers...

(Oh, and I've recently taken to assigning haulers 'workout' shifts on the pumps, to make up for the lack of strength gain hauling statues...)

[Protactinium]

To me, I don't limit the number of dwarves in my fortress, largely because I view my population size and how well I can support it (with resources) as a measurement of the success of my fort. Like how in SimCity, one builds their city (usually) to try to just make a sustainable city as large as possible (I have never been able to stay in the black with that game; I'm always taking out loans to pay off other loan debts...), I play Dwarf Fortress to make the most supreme mountainhome of all dwarf mountainhomes. Having a large population makes some of the fun of the game to me an endurance run to see how many dwarves I can manage without tantrum spirals and deaths.

Although, obviously, when I get too many dwarves for my FPS to support, I have no choice but to abandon ship.

[Lemunde]

Yeah, I think it largely depends on what your goals are.  My goals are to give the few dwarves I have the most extravagant accommodations possible.  That's difficult to do with a large population because you run out of room very quickly.  With 30 dwarves it's quite possible to have a moderate sized room for every dwarf, possibly even a dining room for every dwarf, all furnished with high quality platinum furniture.  Of course lately I've been just giving my founders quality accommodations and sticking everyone else in a barracks.

[Granite26]

Yeah, I think it largely depends on what your goals are.  My goals are to give the few dwarves I have the most extravagant accommodations possible.  That's difficult to do with a large population because you run out of room very quickly.  With 30 dwarves it's quite possible to have a moderate sized room for every dwarf, possibly even a dining room for every dwarf, all furnished with high quality platinum furniture.  Of course lately I've been just giving my founders quality accommodations and sticking everyone else in a barracks.

huh?

with fifteen levels, you can give each dwarf the better part of a map square, even with 200 dwarves?

[2xMachina]

And a personal dining room for each? Wow... Isn't it better to just make 1 extremely large and extravagant dining room?

I'm planning a real nice dining room for them (kinda like a mega project, except quite simple. Just a very high fountain/water fall in the center, made from glass only.) Gems, if I can find it...

My rooms are mostly 3x3's (5x5 actually, if you count walls. Double walls, so I can engrave all room walls). Modded living pod design, so 21x21 per level, houses 16 (except lobby, which houses 12). Just 10 lvls or so does the trick, if you place a separate complex for nobles and their guards. (Also, marriages).

[Kogan Loloklam]

I try to prevent immigration alltogether for most of my forts. I let the dwarves go wild with children. My last fort had 63 dwarves. Only 20 of them were adults. I then make nice rooms for them and generally try to get them living in the lap of luxury.

It makes a big difference in how you treat your dwarves when that goblin crossbow group scoring one grevious injury cuts 1/20th of your population for game decades.

[Savok]

I don't like <50 fps for long, so I try to keep dwarves under sixty or seventy.

I haven't had much of a problem with children ever, though... Snatchers FTW!

[tefalo]

I haven't edited the pop limit, but I haven't been able to make good fortresses that survive either. :P
Until now, that is. I have 178 dwarves and get 47-51 fps, which is pretty okay.

[Taritus]

I set mine at 7, but I typically end up with 7 -14 dwarves because of the first wave of immigrants.

[kiffer.geo]

I don't set a limit ... But on my current fortress I'm getting about 15fps... I had 180 dwarfs and was thinking of limiting it at that just to stop the king from turning up.... Luckily I didn't need to do that because a slight over sight killed 20 or so dwarfs... So I was under controll again... Then for a few years no migrants would dare to come... Now I'm back at 180ish and I've cleared up most of the problems that let all those dwarfs die.

Actually if I look at the halls of the dead there must be 60 coffins in use... Hmmm maybe more guys are dieing than I thought.

I'm not deliberatly killing anyone though... They just seem to have reached a sort of equilibrium ... Deaths = births + migrants
Must be all the magma pump failures... Although walling themselves into corners and starving to death seems to be a popular way to go too...

[RandomNumberGenerator]

I like planning out my fort, which takes a while. The last thing I want ot see happen is get a load of 30 immigrants when I'm half done with expanding to fit the last 30. So, I tend to increment it like so:

30
50
70
80
100

[Shima]

I keep mine set to around 30, although migrants will fill up 40-50 slots.