Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Heliomance]

My dwarf population is currently 233, including many many babies. in the interests of keeping my FPS under control, I'd really quite like to stop any more babies being born. How do I do this? my popcap is 200, but the dwarves are gleefully ignoring that in their lust.

[TKGP]

My dwarf population is currently 233, including many many babies. in the interests of keeping my FPS under control, I'd really quite like to stop any more babies being born. How do I do this? my popcap is 200, but the dwarves are gleefully ignoring that in their lust.

You can set both absolute and relative baby caps in the init. Babies already present won't disappear or anything, and any pregnant dorfs will still give birth, but no new ones will become pregnant.

[Lemunde]

I generally use a child cap of 5.  Having children is a nice enough feature but it can get out of hand.

[jayseesee]

Tell the dwarf males to envision their spouses as Hillary Clinton doing yoga.
Breeding problem solved.

[Derakon]

As a general rule, dwarves that work all the time don't have sex.

That said, your fortress almost certainly has more than enough idle nobles to keep popping out peasant babies.

[Heliomance]

I generally use a child cap of 5.  Having children is a nice enough feature but it can get out of hand.

It's out of hand. I have 45 babies and 39 children.

[OddProphet]

Try building a statuary outside the fortress.  When the kiddies go out to play, lock the door.  Muahahahahaha.

Bonus points if they die in the siege.

[Itnetlolor]

Simple answer:

http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-1135-child-b-q

And make sure the parents watch as well. They need to know what happens if they breed too often.

[darthbob88]

I generally use a child cap of 5.  Having children is a nice enough feature but it can get out of hand.

It's out of hand. I have 45 babies and 39 children.

Seconded. At one point in my last fortress, the outfit was half children; 100 children out of 200 dwarfs.

[Innominate]

Simple answer:

http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-1135-child-b-q

And make sure the parents watch as well. They need to know what happens if they breed too often.

Wait for serial breeders to have dozens of children. Lock parents in room A, children in room B. Flood room B with magma.

Optional: unlock door to room A for an instant tantrum spiral.

[Murphy]

What's your problem with children, people? They do no harm to a fortress, why kill them? Sure they need to eat and drink, but a mature fortress is probably flooding with food anyway.

EDIT: Ok, I see, there's a FPS problem, but then you can just set the cap to 0.
I have no qualms over atrocities committed in this game, but I also think that if you can't afford to care for your own dwarves, you're not hardcore enough

[Dorf3000]

What's your problem with children, people? They do no harm to a fortress, why kill them? Sure they need to eat and drink, but a mature fortress is probably flooding with food anyway.

Endless parties taking your productive dwarves out of service.  Upset parents when they inevitably get speared/shot/wrestled to death or kidnapped.  Cluttering up the legendary dining room or statue garden or whatever with their presence.  Becoming useless peasants that you have to train from scratch, creating yet more -useless stone junk- that has to be chasmed or crushed
If they could be made into apprentices and learn something useful before they mature, they might be tolerated a bit more.  Even peasant immigrants are better, because you can put them in the military without worrying that they have too many friends that will tantrum if they die.

[Murphy]

Ah, but the children who actually manage to mature are by no means useless. They're excellent recruits, since surviving 12 years in Armok's world has hardened them to be ridiculously strong and tough. Their speed also makes them work faster, if you choose to assign them craft labors. And they're probably legendary growers too.

As for parties... how in the world is having children connected to having parties? Because they're idlers and thus can start parties? But there's always an idler to start a party anyway.

Upset parents may be a problem, but this effect is little compared to that in a mature fortress everybody is everybody's friend anyway (unless you take special measures to prevent that, but then you could as well take measures to prevent breeding).

By the way, is it just me, or do the parents not receive an unhappy thought when their child is kidnapped? If the child dies, then yes, but kidnapping seems to have no effect, as far as I notice.

[tastypaste]

I saw someone post an automated child culling machine in a different thread. I'm not sure how it worked specifically. Something to do with pressure plates set to go off when children passed over it. Basically it just killed dwarf children and left everything else alone. He built it in his main hallway to be sure to get them all.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7963-lashedsubtle

The child-culling machine is on level 15 in the hallways leading to the room full of plump helmets.

[Jacob/Lee]

Don't kill the children, or else you will lose most of your females as they get overcome by grief that their 5 sons and 6 daughters dying.