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[RantingRodent]

I'm considering setting a low pop limit in the init file for most of my fortress construction. In vanilla DF, would this generally make the game easier (lack of nobles, no need to expand food industry, etc)? Or harder  (I refuse to rely heavily on traps, so military pressure is likely to be high). I would prefer to have a dedicated corps of legendaries doing the job I need with some stat-boosted haulers supporting them, and a small, well trained military than a sprawling fortress full of dabbling incompetants.

I was considering a pop limit around 30 dwarves during construction.

Mainly I want to do this because I've noticed that when you're focused on construction and expansion, rather than generating wealth, the additional bodies end up idling or engaged exclusively in supporting each other's needs. Oh, and slowly torturing the FPS to death as well. I'd rather get my fortress built and prepared with a "work crew" and then open the floodgates once the fortress is ready.

Any thoughts?

[NW_Kohaku]

Depends on how low.  30 should not be much of a problem. 

You can pretty much slaughter entire armies with the sheer force of your dwarves own awesome if they are legendary.  Make that dwarf a marksdwarf, so that they can shoot bolts at the first elite marksman that attacks (the only threat to them), and they can finish up by clubbing everything to death with their steel crossbow.

You probably won't be able to make the full industry tree with just 25 or so working dwarves, but you will be able to handle self-sustainability.

You might actually want to set the limit to 7, and rely upon your initial dwarves giving birth to all future dwarves, like a reclusive mountain clan.

[RantingRodent]

Won't the limit stop pregnancies?

[Diablous]

Won't the limit stop pregnancies?

Isn't there a seperate limit for that?

[Golgath]

Won't the limit stop pregnancies?

The population cap doesn't effect that.  There's a separate entry in the init file for managing births.

[RantingRodent]

I've always misunderstood that then. So there is no hard limit to the number of dwarves you can have, just the number of immigrants? Interesting.

[NW_Kohaku]

I've always misunderstood that then. So there is no hard limit to the number of dwarves you can have, just the number of immigrants? Interesting.

You COULD set the maximum number of children to 0. 

Still, no, there are people who have talked about having forts with 500 and maybe even 700 dwarves in it.

You will probably want to mess with maximum relative births as you play, though.  In a mature fortress, 10:1 adults to children is a fairly high ratio, but if you start with just seven, you'll probably want 3-4 children growing up.

You probably would also be best off just flat-out walling yourself off from the entire world, no trade whatsoever, if you are going to work with just 7 dwarves for the 12 years it takes their children to reach maturity.

In fact, you might want to go searching for a site with an underground river, so that you get underground water sources, underground trees, and otherwise never have to see the surface.

[Calhoun]

Long time Lurker, First time Poster.

In my latest fort I've set the population cap to 25, (and currently have 32 dwarves) and things run like a well oiled machine. When i have to dump large amounts of stone, things slow down heavily, but other than that, dwarves do double(or triple) duties and a small squad with around 20 war dogs keep the fortress safe from ambushers. (Though, I'm using Dig Deeper, so when the orc's show up i close the main gate, and open fire on them with my Balista.

I'm really liking this, because eventually i will have a large population (from birth's) but i won't have to manage huge migration waves every year.

I've got most industries going steadily, other than the leather industry. I've got my Accomplished Glassmaker putting out raw green glass.(When he hit's legendary he'll be doing clear glass) My Gem Cutter is about at the same level, and EVERYTHING is decorated with glass. I grow pig tails with my plump helmet's and produce lot's of bags (for sand), and decorate them, (for trade). I just found a large vein of lignite, so i'm about to start steel production. I still output a lot of rock trade goods, and also decorate things with bones. (from the ambushers/Orc's)

[RantingRodent]

I think I may still set the initial number higher than 7. While the idea of a generational biodome is cool, I don't have quite enough play time available to me to really see that through in any reasonable amount of time.

Calhoun: I was hoping it would go something like that, basically what I was hoping for. Thanks for the confirmation!

[Nobbins]

I think I may still set the initial number higher than 7.

Wait. What. How do you even do that? =[

[NW_Kohaku]

I think he means immigration limit.

[Lemunde]

Almost all of my forts have been low population.  The only real drawback of maintaining a low population is you don't get the so-called "fun" features that come with 100+ populations.  There's also the problem with the limit not always working.  I once set it at 20 and ended up with close to 50.  A chamber of attrition can take care of the excess though.

30 is pretty ideal.  I also set the child cap to around 5.  It helps if you choose to specialize in one or two industries instead of going for all of them. 

For your military all you really need is about 4.  Doesn't matter much what weapons they use since it won't take them long to reach legendary status either way.  Marksdwarves are a good choice if you don't have much metal.

[DFPongo]

I set mine to 20 just to have some chance to manage it with my meager mind and steep learning curve. The last migration wave took me to 26.
It is certainly easier for me. But I doubt I am doing even mediocre at it.

[Calhoun]

I set mine to 20 just to have some chance to manage it with my meager mind and steep learning curve. The last migration wave took me to 26.
It is certainly easier for me. But I doubt I am doing even mediocre at it.

Well it depends, The challenge is to just have your starting seven and build from there.
To keep a small population of around 20-30 is kind of just a play style.

If you're not very good at DF you might want to look at Captain Duck's video tutorial series.
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=28477.0

When i first started playing (about 3 month's ago) I went through the Wiki tutorial, and once i got comfortable with the controls and the basics just kind of explored from there, that said, the wiki has so much information, and i still use it. Once you understand how each industry flows it get's a lot easier. Plus the Vanilla game is pretty forgiving (Goblin siege's take forever to get). So you get a long time to build up before you really have to worry about enemies.

[NW_Kohaku]

I didn't watch any tutorials to learn...  Actually, I kind of hate tutorials.

Basically, I just looked up the suggested starting builds page... then linked to something from there, then something from there, etc.  I wound up wiki-crawling for about three days until I'd read pretty much every article.

Then I embarked.

The only major mistakes I've made were not realizing that a tree-farm greenhouse needs soil on the tile BELOW it, a couple cave-ins, and some really astounding errors that had entirely to do with suicidal dwarves who refuse to obey orders to stay inside during a seige.