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[Teiwaz]

In my current fort (14 years old) I've been restricting population growth via INI setting, as I usually find what kills forts for me is getting overwhelmed by immigration and having to spend all my time digging new apartment blocks intead of working on crazy projects.

My fort is quite mature at this point, and I'm working on preparing for a king and enhancing my exterior defenses as the Gobins are getting troublesome. It's taking a while... and I think the cause is that of my fortress population of 155 dwarves includes 57(!) children.

Does anyone have any good way of dealing with this? It's like a catsplosion of beardless little dwarflings. Obviously, I can't deal with them in the same manner as kittens (butchery and magma) without causing a tantrum spiral. I'm okay with waiting out the current gen, but my dwarves - particularly my military and my nobles - keep popping out kids like mad. Short of !!Kitten Tallow Condom||s for all, what options do I have?

[anyar]

Draft your overbreeding parents. The children should follow their mothers, and provide a nice meatshield for your regular military.

[Teiwaz]

Unfortunately, the worst offenders are either already in the military ("Training," makes babies.) Or are nobility, and can't be drafted. (One of my Champions has 7 children, another has 9 children, yet another has 10, and my Duchess Consort has 5! These four dwarves account for more than half of the kids in my fort.)

[dwarfguy2]

magma. drown all objectors in magma.

[Teiwaz]

One of my Champion Hammerdwarves just gave birth WHILE fighting off a siege.

[anyar]

Unfortunately, the worst offenders are either already in the military ("Training," makes babies.) Or are nobility, and can't be drafted. (One of my Champions has 7 children, another has 9 children, yet another has 10, and my Duchess Consort has 5! These four dwarves account for more than half of the kids in my fort.)

This is why I don't allow female dwarves into my military. I would just undraft as many non-mothers as possible though, and let the rest get killed off/get their children killed.

[NTheGreat]

You could try making your meeting areas and barracks bigger, or making more of them for your dwarfs to distribute themselves around. Dwarfs have a hard time getting to know one another, and thus start breeding like cats, if they're opposite ends of a 30 tile wide room.

[kaypy]

I hate to point out the simple and obvious while you are figuring out your elaborate schemes, but you do know there is a BABY_CHILD_CAP init setting to restrict children, right?

[Sphalerite]

In my fortresses I don't recruit female dwarves, and I keep everyone really really busy.  They don't have time to have kids.  This lasts until the nobles show up and start popping out children like mad.

[Teiwaz]

I hate to point out the simple and obvious while you are figuring out your elaborate schemes, but you do know there is a BABY_CHILD_CAP init setting to restrict children, right?

D'oh! Yes, I did know about it, but it completely slipped my mind all the times I went intot he ini to se tthe genreal population cap. Thanks!

[Freeklace]

Unfortunately, the worst offenders are either already in the military ("Training," makes babies.) Or are nobility, and can't be drafted. (One of my Champions has 7 children, another has 9 children, yet another has 10, and my Duchess Consort has 5! These four dwarves account for more than half of the kids in my fort.)

Ah yes... "Wrestling"

[freeze]

I've taken to pop capping but also reducing the number of children allowed. 5-10 kids running around is like nothing if you're used to 50.

[Jualin]

I posted this as a solution to pets, but with a few modifications it works well for children as well. Just change the job settings on the lever so that only the child can use it and make another lever some other accessible place so that your dwarves can conveniently trigger the spike traps when the target is in place.

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The door just before the lever is impassible to pets. All the traps shown are spiked traps attached to the lever. Restrict the work profile for the lever to the owner of the pet. Queue an activate job on the lever. The dwarf should make it through both doors without his animal. The animal should be on one of the spike traps.

Occasionally the pet might make it through both doors. In this unfortunate circumstance, repeated attempts should eventually reward you with success. Be careful to lock both door when the process begins and for a while after it ends: the design has been known to have a delay between when the lever is pulled and when the spikes go up. This delay could result in a dwarf losing something should they rush through the spike traps to somewhere else.

Be aware that a single spike trap activation is often insufficient for the intended purpose. As such, you may want to set the lever activation on repeat.

[Grendus]

Children follow their parents. Assign the lever to their parent, set it on repeat, then lock them in. When the child tries to go stand by their parent, they get skewered. You bastard.

[Funk]

pit them in groups of 3-5 till thay all are Champions then let them out.