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[Repulsion]

  So, I hate hate hate useless migrants. At first I was tempted to use the magma approach, but I realized something. That would kill most if not all of the migrants, and I kinda want to keep that extra miner, mason, ranger, or etc. So, I devised a plan...
  A room over a chasm (Not preferred), bottomless pit (Not preferred), magma pipe/pool (Okayish), or Underground lake (Preferred). The room's floors would be made of hatches, and there would be a tiny alcove with a lever in it. The lever would lock the door. There would be two other levers outside the room somewhere, one to unlock the door, and one to make the floorhatches disappear...
  The plan is to set up everything, and then with the lever that locks the door, set its profile to only accept the unwanted migrant, and then order to pull the lever. The jolly old dwarf would go and pull the lever, locking itself inside. Then, the lever to open the hatches would be pulled. The dwarf would either: Fall to its death (Bottomless pit or Chasm), which would be boring, burn to death (Magma pool/pipe), which would be okay, but kinda fast and not very amusing, or fall into the water of the underground lake and start drowning while all the snake/olm/etc. men would rip the dwarf to pieces, which would be very amusing indeed...
  Then you would order the hatch lever to be pulled to close the hatches, pull the lever to unlock the door, and send in another migrant, if needed.

Variations could include multiple levers, each for a certain dwarf, which would make multi-deaths plausible...
 
  So people, tell me of your ways to get rid of migrants, which can be like this, which only gets rid of one, or possibly more at a time, or gets rid of them all at once.

[NW_Kohaku]

Quick question:  Which migrants are "useless"?

How is any one given dwarf with only a couple ranks in a skill functionally more useful than a dwarf with no ranks in any skill whatsoever?

Honestly, I have stopped even considering what jobs dwarves supposedly have when they come to my fortress, and assign labors based solely upon their preferences for materials and what jobs I have left open at the moment.

Ultimately, I can always use more haulers and not-really-skill users, like wood burners, millers, potash makers, and the like.

[Repulsion]

  Well, I get a lot of soapmakers and milkers and the like, which use operations I rarely do, and if I even plan on doing them in a fort, the early soapmakers and milkers and everyone like that don't have their workshops set up, most likely. So I get rid of them. More of their kind will always come later. I prefer using peasants as trainees instead of soapmakers, milkers, and their kind, because they seem to always be in good supply, and if they aren't I can easily use the soapmakers, etc. In my first migrant wave, I usually draft three of the peasants if there are that many, and if there are more I set them up with jobs I think I need more of, or jobs that I don't have anyone doing currently. There will always be at least one person in a wave I want to get rid of.
  For example, I had a fort that I wanted an extra mason with, and that's all I needed. I then got a pretty small migrant wave with a few masons and a lot of peasants. Well, I had my extra masons that are already passed dabbling and novice, and I didn't need anything extra, so I got rid of the peasants.

[NW_Kohaku]

I'm really not seeing this... why are soapmakers any different from a peasant?  Why is even an armorsmith preferable?

What piddling skills they start with makes no difference, the only thing you don't directly mold are preferences.  If someone starts with a preference for green glass, then I don't care what skills they have, they're best suited for working with green glass, and they will do training on green glass until they hit legendary glassmaker or gem setter.

Part of the challenge of the game is ensuring that no single one of your dwarves ever dies, and that they all get meaningful work, even if you have to expand your tree farms or regular farms and set up a new set of farmer's workshops, looms, dyer's workshops, and clothier's workshops to do so.

Anything less is just failing in your duties as a dwarven overseer/deity for reasons of sheer laziness.

[bombcar]

Anyone who doesn't immediately appear useful hauls stone.

Or enters the military.

Anyway, if migrants are pissing you off, just tune the population size in the init file.

[Grimlocke]

I tend to like getting metalsmiths and soldiers, metalsmiths for the fey moods and soldiers for free equipement. (I dont use the dabbling smith peasant approach, too exploity and tedious)

The rest I just draft or give get masonry or farming along with hauling. Or an accident in the magma trap. Though im a bit more careful with that last one since a !!migrant!! survived and nearly set my fort on fire.

[gopa4]

You could just draft the unwanted dwarves then station all of them into your death chamber, thus killing all of them in one go. On the other hand, I don't see why you would want them to die, I usually just turn all of my unwanted dwarves into either haulers, masons, miners, or military. I tend to be doing a lot of mason work so I always need more masons. Plus I'm still searching for my HFS and underground river, so always need more miners.

[Gladius_Lucix]

I've thought of something that I have yet to implement in a fort.
Build a bunch of 3x3 (or bigger, if all the stuff doesn't fit. I haven't checked) with the following:

• bed
• chair
• table
• screw pump
• food stockpile fillable from above

As the unwanted migrants arrive, draft them, station them in a room, and lock the door. Turn on pump operator, and set the pump to be pumped manually. Preferably, have this near the entrance to the fortress, so they can get in and out without meeting too many other dwarves. Then, when you need cannon fodder to hold off the megabeast/siege while your champions finish drinking, draft some, unlock their door, and send them off. If they survive, then do with them as you wish.

Oh, and custom profession "Redshirt"

[Imp]

I'm really not seeing this... why are soapmakers any different from a peasant?  Why is even an armorsmith preferable?

What piddling skills they start with makes no difference, the only thing you don't directly mold are preferences.  If someone starts with a preference for green glass, then I don't care what skills they have, they're best suited for working with green glass, and they will do training on green glass until they hit legendary glassmaker or gem setter.

Part of the challenge of the game is ensuring that no single one of your dwarves ever dies, and that they all get meaningful work, even if you have to expand your tree farms or regular farms and set up a new set of farmer's workshops, looms, dyer's workshops, and clothier's workshops to do so.

Anything less is just failing in your duties as a dwarven overseer/deity for reasons of sheer laziness.

Were I a dwarf, I'd want to live, and if needed die, in one of your forts.  For you, I'd do my dwarfy best until all that made me dwarf had been totally ground away.

[bombcar]

I've thought of something that I have yet to implement in a fort.

This would be good; the biggest danger some people encounter from migrants is the tantrum spiral that can result from them all having no jobs and knowing everyone too well.

Maybe tons of two-dwarf barracks along the entrance hall; all the extra dwarves assigned to them and off-duty wresting and training.

The moment a siege happens, pull the lever, they all come tumbling out!

[NW_Kohaku]

Were I a dwarf, I'd want to live, and if needed die, in one of your forts.  For you, I'd do my dwarfy best until all that made me dwarf had been totally ground away.

As much as I appreciate the sentiment, I think Retro beats me by a mile, since he has all 190 of his dwarves married, and they all have no less than grand bedrooms. 

All I can say in response is that my fortress is very space-efficient (although I will definitely start making better rooms for my dwarves in the future, and simply shut off the economy), and that I have a very nice zoo/statue garden/dining hall/waterfall room.

[Argonnek]

If you really want to kill many immigrants with little effort, you should have them train with weapons and no armor. When my fortress isn't ready for migrants, I just have them spar with obsidian swords -the higher quality the better- until there are only one or two left. Before Kohaku reprimands me: I am not a benevolent deity

[Ieb]

There's many ways to remove peasants and unwanted dorfs.

There's the easy ways, drown them all in water/MAGMA.

There's the amusing ways, like trap corridors and dust traps.

Then there's the "oh god what" ways.

I did the third option once with a fort. Found a nice site, with a good set of metals, magma and even an UG pool to make a farm-site with. But it took a lot of time to set it all up. Time that would be interrupted by migrants showing up in waves of 10 to 20. So there was but one thing to do.

Every migrant wave had to pass a test.

This test was done on top of a small platform, set up as barracks. The migrants were drafted and had to fight for their right to enter. Below the platform was a 14-level drop to the main dining hall, with the splatter zone safely behind cut gem windows.

At times I felt merciful, and I allowed last two survivors to enter. Sometimes only one. One time, the second guy had other plans and tossed the other survivor down.

Of course this had a downside, I couldn't pick what dwarves triumphed. But with enough time even the lowliest Lye Maker could be turned into a proficient weaponsmith, or armorer.

At least all the engravings were good. Falling dwarves and such. Later on I built a few other spots. One with water, other with magma. After testing, the water was decent, although the dwarves which fell in still randomly strangled all the UG pool creatures I had tossed in to death. Very unfortunate. The magma worked well though.

Although thinking back, if I ever do that system again, the magma-zone will be only a few z-levels deep, and with about 2/7 magma. Because if you're going to do a horrible death trap, you might as well make it one where a dorf would survive with a few broken bones, if it wasn't for the magma up to their knees.

[Ravenplucker]

I have a chamber beneath by dining room where I send undesirable immigrants to starve to death.

I like to think it makes my dwarves more loyal.

[Kagus]

This all seems to terribly overcomplicated...  You could quite easily just set up a barracks with a sword (or other weapons of your choice) stockpile outside your fortress. 


When a wave comes, draft everyone and start them off sparring.  Desirable immigrants get swords.

Others don't.