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[JT]

In this day and age, free really is free.  People can travel anywhere in the country and buy a house there, and will do whatever they please.

But in the day and age of Dwarf Fortress, free isn't free.  Dwarves are subject to the whims and laws of their superiors -- they eke out a living and travel if they think they can get a better life somewhere else.  Sometimes these people aren't actually wanted.

Enter the ability to turn away immigrants.  By this, I don't mean a population cap, but rather an explicit instruction which you activate within the game while reviewing a new immigrant (anyone with a flashing X).  Don't like the skill set of an immigrant?  Move to the [p]rofile screen and hit "[D]eny immigration" (shift+d, for safety), and boom, the new immigrant is flagged for being deported.

Turning an immigrant away can be useful in those cases where you have decided you have a comfortable population but still might consider accepting a skilled (or even unskilled) immigrant here or there.  For instance, I tend to find that I'm getting as many as four, five, or even six mechanics, and can put at most two mechanics to good use.  The others get reassigned as farmers instead.  I would rather turn away these mechanics than have to bother with reassigning them.  It'd be much faster, and even though I'd have to use a Shift+D every time, it's still faster than going into their labour preferences and changing every one of them into something they're not.

There are some rules surrounding denying immigrants:

1) Turning away an immigrant creates a bad reputation, which reduces immigrants in subsequent immigrations.  It also damages trade relations with your parent civilisation.

2) You require a soldier to turn away immigrants.  The soldier receives a "Deny Immigration" task and approaches the immigrant.  Upon reaching the immigrant, both stand adjacent to one another for a few seconds, inversely proportional to the soldier's best weapon skill -- a dabbling soldier requires about 600 frames to turn away an immigrant, while a legendary soldier requires just 10 frames.  After this time has passed, the dwarf in question becomes a migrant again and leaves the fortress by the best route.

3) Immigrants who see an immigrant get turned away get strong unhappy thoughts.  Immigrants whose spouses are turned away become Very Unhappy right away and stand a good chance of becoming melancholic or berserk on fairly short order if they're not also deported.

4) Nobles can mandate that all immigrants must be accepted, thereby imprisoning any soldier who attempts a Deny Immigrant task.

[Xeirxes]

This seems like a good idea. A lot of players really have trouble handling large amounts of immigrants.

[Another]

5) You can tie activation of the ability to turn away immigrants to one of the currently useless nobles making him less useless.

[axus]

Sounds good to me, though you might generalize it to being able to exile any dwarf.  It would also make a good alternative punishment to death if the crime doesn't warrant it.

[schnobs]

I like this idea very much. The only issue I have with it that it's only available to an already reasonably developed fortress.

How about some sort of immigration liason who's always with the caravan? Some slider like with other trade agreements, where you can ask the traders to discourage possible immigrants?

"Look, you may think we're rich but frankly about all of it is in the hand of this artisan who had a mood during summer. We're still wearing the clothes we came in and there's not even a proper dining room..."

[LordBucket]

I know this is a common problem, but personally I can't relate, and the present situation seems basically reasonable to me. The incoming flow of immigrants isn't something that a real fortress would have a great deal of control over, and unfortunately, while it would be much easier to accomodate two or three at a time, irregular, large groups seem more like "how it would really be."

But that having been said, personally, I'd like it if the existing flow of immigrants:

1) Came with supplies: If twenty dwarves spend a month trekking across the lands to reach your fortress, wouldn't it be reasonable for them to have brought some food with them for the trip? Not only is this completely reasonable, if immigrants arrived with enough food to feed themselves for a couple months, wouldn't this completely eliminate the frustrations of new players who have difficulty feeding them?

2) Had skills commensurate with the reputation of the fortress: Why is that my five-year, mega-nifty super-fortress is only getting novice Joe-Nobodies? Wouldn't a great fortress be more likely to attract more accomplished dwarves? Also, why is is that inevitably a third of my immigrants all have useless skills? Hunting? Jeweling? Shouldn't the skills of immigrants be somewhat related to the sort of professions that the caravans report a fortress is renowned for? Why am I getting jewelers at a fortress with no gems?

3) Had more dwarves with NO skills. I'm always short on soldiers, but drafting people with trade skills into the military annoys them. It would be nice to get more peasants.

Bucket Man

[Xotes]

This IS a good idea. I can just see it go something like this. "Hey you! Yeah, you! Git outta here! We don't need no stinkin jewelers in this place!" And LordBucket, everyone gets bad thoughts when drafted in. Same goes for guys who have no trade skills and are kicked out. At least, I think that's how it goes.

[ March 26, 2007: Message edited by: Xotes ]

[JT]

quote:Originally posted by Another:
<STRONG>5) You can tie activation of the ability to turn away immigrants to one of the currently useless nobles making him less useless.</STRONG>

I don't like this addendum because it renders it impossible to get rid of immigrants when you have a small fortress.  When you have a large fortress, you're usually well established enough that more immigrants don't matter.

 

quote:Originally posted by schnobs:
<STRONG>The only issue I have with it that it's only available to an already reasonably developed fortress.</STRONG>

Not really!  I'm always of the opinion that someone should always maintain either A) a standing military or B) a series of trained militia who can be drafted at a moment's notice.  I always bring along a trapper right from the beginning of the game who serves as militia when something goes from bad to worse.

Linking it directly to the military provides a couple benefits: if you want to get rid of lots of dwarves, you'll need lots of soldiers.  Because you can't outright kill them, you have to have a strong enough showing to only accept the ones you want.  Otherwise, the others will "hop the fence", so to speak -- your border patrols aren't strong enough.

quote:Originally posted by axus:
<STRONG>Sounds good to me, though you might generalize it to being able to exile any dwarf.</STRONG>

I was considering allowing exile in general, but I was relying on the fact that you only have a certain amount of time to turn away immigrants... if you can exile anyone at any time for any reason, it eliminates this aspect (at least partially) and doesn't give people a reason to maintain a strong body of forces to ensure they have only those people they want.

Basically, you get a choice: you can maintain a military and selectively choose only those dwarves you want, or you can ignore the military and declare your fort as a utopia that's open to all.  Both are equally valid ways to play, but only one of them is possible right now short of using drowning rooms. =)

[ March 27, 2007: Message edited by: JT ]

[schnobs]

quote:Originally posted by LordBucket:
<STRONG> I'd like it if the existing flow of immigrants:

1) Came with supplies

2) Had skills commensurate with the reputation of the fortress</STRONG>

1) would be nice. Not enough to last them for months, though. But a single meal held in the hand of every immigrant would go a long way and bridge the gap between their arrival and the first harvest.

2) Yes! Yes! Yes! Although this begs the question where they're coming from. Would *your* skilled artisans ever leave? Then again, who cares where they come from as long as they arrive.

However, managing a band of newcomers always is tedious work. Novice this, novice that, usually you don't need either so you have to turn of their labor and activiate what you need and (the most annoying part) remember that this "miner" actually is a mechanic until he finally turns red. Custom job names help, but don't totally alleviate the problem.

Even if there's no skilled immigrants, I'd still prefer them all being peasants over the current mix and mash: It would save me much thought and interface-haggling, and bringing some skill up to novice level isn't too difficult either. I'd happily trade the ease of managment for the slight loss in productivity.

[RPB]

quote:Originally posted by LordBucket:
<STRONG> 3) Had more dwarves with NO skills. I'm always short on soldiers, but drafting people with trade skills into the military annoys them. It would be nice to get more peasants.</STRONG>

The annoyance isn't related to the skills a dwarf has, it's related to the skills they DON'T have. A dwarf with no military skills gets annoyed when you draft them, and a dwarf with no peacetime skills gets annoyed when you discharge them. So the peasants get just as annoyed when you draft them on arrival (and if you ever turn them back into peasants they get annoyed a second time).

I'd still appreciate a few more peasants though. Usually I get 5-6 peasants per big spring migration and 2-3 per autumn migration and this is usually about enough to fill necessary job assignments (letting the skilled workers usually go to work at their own jobs) but sometimes a migration comes up short on peasants and a couple extra wouldn't hurt.

[Black Hound]

On the rules for denying immigrants - if the penalties for turning them away are actually just as bad or even worse than assembling the ones you don't like under a big drawbridge and mashing them into paste (which also won't waste your soldiers' time with 'Deny Immigrant' tasks), what's the point?

There should just be a screen every time a migrant party arrives; you can choose to select only certain dwarves to enter the map at all, or just turn the whole group away. You should also be able to put out calls for dwarves with particular skills to come join your fortress.

[RPB]

There may be some point in the future when smashing things with a drawbridge is no longer the solution to everything.

[Baro]

I don't want to live in a world where any problem can't be solved by putting it under a draw bridge.

[JT]

quote:Originally posted by Black Hound:
<STRONG>On the rules for denying immigrants - if the penalties for turning them away are actually just as bad or even worse than assembling the ones you don't like under a big drawbridge and mashing them into paste (which also won't waste your soldiers' time with 'Deny Immigrant' tasks), what's the point?</STRONG>

The ability to exercise your power and independence, primarily, and the ability to conserve food and prevent people from being forced into poverty when you don't have any jobs they can perform, secondarily.

Mashing immigrants (and any other dwarf) under drawbridges should certainly have severe consequences... but that's a separate issue. ;-)

[Black Hound]

quote:The ability to exercise your power and independence, primarily, and the ability to conserve food and prevent people from being forced into poverty when you don't have any jobs they can perform, secondarily.

I still like my idea better. It still allows you to control immigration without callously murdering any of those little bearded fellas. Besides, soldiers waste enough time on their own without having to use them to get rid of useless immigrants.

quote:Mashing immigrants (and any other dwarf) under drawbridges should certainly have severe consequences... but that's a separate issue. ;-)

Of course, you shouldn't be able to mash anything under a drawbridge anyway. But why should it have 'consequences?' This isn't exactly the age of enlightenment - this is a world where people have to live in constant fear of being ambushed and eaten by minotaurs, dragons, the undead, goblins, antmen, magma men, troglodytes, tigers, lions, and who knows what else. At any moment, an innocent lumberjack might be heartlessly shot down by some elf hippie for plying his trade. A miner might crack open a rock wall only to be melted in a sudden deluge of molten rock, or eaten by a tentacle demon. A craftsdwarf might be possessed by an unseen force and go berserk when his peers can't find him the raw red diamond he demands for his artifact, beating his wife to death with his bare hands and biting a soldier's arm off before being cut down. Worst of all, a thriving dwarven mountainhall might be reduced to nothing more than a vast tomb by a determined assault from the arch-nemesis of all good and decent things - the elephant.