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[XenoZergie]

Long post incoming, consider yourself forewarned.  Actual suggestion is at the bottom if you want to skip ahead.

Here are two previous threads on this topic, including one I made myself:

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=52834.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=52966.15

I am also submitting a bug report via the tracker if what some people are hypothesizing in the second thread is correct (i.e. that HFS is contributing to size/wealth counts of your fortress).

Simply put, migrants both unbalance the game and have unbalanced skills (the two are related to some degree).

First of all, the massive waves of migrants in the new version can either become extremely overwhelming if the rest of your fort isn't rapidly churning out beds and booze, OR they immediately trivialize any HFS by giving you enough dwarves to simply smother whatever lurks below.

This is compounded by the amazing skill levels that some migrants now arrive with.  I've now seen a High Master of everything from Masonry to Fish Cleaning.  Even if they don't arrive with military skills, their uberdwarven stats make them incredibly well suited as soldiers despite training wonkiness*. 

Furthermore, migrants often arrive with a random shotgun assortment of unrelated skills.  The same High Master Mason might also be a Skilled Cheese Maker and an Adequate Wood Burner.  Given the specialization required in a high population fort (a state you very quickly reach with the massive size of each migrant wave!) the skills unrelated to the main one are still as useless as Lye Making has always been.

Therefore, I propose the following changes:

1.  Reduce the amount of migrants in each wave.  If this is, in fact, bugged due to HFS, then this should eventually resolve itself.

2.  Rework the maximum level of skill a migrant can arrive with, possibly by tying it to created wealth of your fort - you need to have a fancy fort to attract fancy migrants!  Again, this may resolve itself like 1.

3.  Rework the skills a migrant arrives with so that they will tend more often (a little bit of randomness is still good) to all fall within a given profession. 

* http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=52999.0 as well as post 556 in this thread http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=51953.555

[Safe-Keeper]

In an earlier thread, we put forth the idea of an init option that basically worked the same way the child/babies tag worked. One value for max wave size, another for max percentage of your population. So 6:12 meant no waves greater than at most six people, and no wave greater than at most 12% of your fortress population.

To make matters even more irritating, 2010 seems to partly or fully ignore the population cap setting in your init.con file. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong somehow, but I set my pop cap to 12 in another fortress and got a migrant wave after hitting 12 dwarves. Set it to 7 in my current fort and got two migrants.

[Squirrelloid]

In an earlier thread, we put forth the idea of an init option that basically worked the same way the child/babies tag worked. One value for max wave size, another for max percentage of your population. So 6:12 meant no waves greater than at most six people, and no wave greater than at most 12% of your fortress population.

To make matters even more irritating, 2010 seems to partly or fully ignore the population cap setting in your init.con file. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong somehow, but I set my pop cap to 12 in another fortress and got a migrant wave after hitting 12 dwarves. Set it to 7 in my current fort and got two migrants.

Setting the population cap below ~30 has always failed to work, afaict

[ZeroGravitas]

Population cap successfully worked for me in my most recent fort. You have to remember that the cap doesn't do anything AT ALL until after the caravan comes the first time. I set population cap to 5. I got 2 waves of immigrants, population 16. Caravan came. Never had another migrant wave after that.

[Safe-Keeper]

Ah, thanks to both of you. Sorry for the derail.

[DoctorZuber]

the current (somewhat insane) immigrant system is a stopgap solution to a problem with reclaim. Whatever it is now is pretty much guaranteed to change, eventually.

[Vulkanis]

Also one extra issue you mentioned was the migrants having this shotgun spread of skills where for example a mason could also be a fish cleaner which is quite confusing in the middle of large fortress where you need a potash maker and you have one but he is titled wood burner instead, is it possible that we could change the titles of these dwarves or better yet just recieve peasents and nobles (as needed) by messing with some options and data?

[Caesar]

I'm not getting lots and lots of migrants. I just now got two of 'em in my first season. They're not really skilled.

Of course, I barely produced anything, but I did open up my caverns.

[Nikov]

I like the new boosted skills and the assorted skills. Sometimes they're all in one, sometimes they're specialist. Once migrants arrive I sort through each new fort arrival and specialize his work orders according to my need. High Master Soaper and Skilled Miner? Welcome to mining. I prefer shotgunned skills better anyway. It improves the chance they have something I need even if they won't have everything in their professional field.

[katroclopse]

Response, in no specific order:   
    I always felt that immigrants had shotgun skills because they were coming from random places--as opposed to fully fledged working and happy fortresses--.  In this manner, they would not be so easily put into a profession based on their top skills. 
    So, being a master strand extractor as well as a master cheese maker may have been good for the dwarf in his past life experience, but now you have to decide how he will be integrated into a structured society.  This at the very least is more interesting/fun than having every dwarf arrive with a compatible set of skills for any one profession you might have.

     As for the maximum level of a skill, well, that would go back to why would someone would immigrate.  It could be that the master hunter you just received in fact shot the sheriff in the previous fort he lived in, and thus, is on the lamp to your fort for a new beginning in a little known place. 
     While fort value may have an impact on the increased arrival of highly skilled dwarves, I believe it would also have an equal or greater impact on the arrival of low-skilled dwarves--looking to make it big with as little work as possible--.  So I would say that a cap on skill isn't necessarily needed unless you just want to have a harder fort.  If someone does arrive with super skills, there is always the option to have them march into a locked closet or some equally lethal equivalent.

     In regards to the number of migrants who arrive, I think that this would have to come down to a relationship between how hostile the lands are around other large dwarf populations and how much value/hostile-ness is at your fort. 
     So if your fort is rather well guarded, or just has a low death rate in comparison to other forts, high migration rates would be logical; value should also be accounted for, primarily when the local hostility is mirrored around the world and migration would be for either for a fresh start or profit. 
     All that said, it seems odd that migrants would start going to the embark location--ignorant of the site's attributes--before the first caravan would.  It would be logical if they started out after the first caravan, but not as much as before. 
     Perhaps the value assessment system is bugged with the inclusion of all the cavern walls of native gold--and etc.--, but perhaps fort value should not be the initial influencing factor at all. 
     There is the option of ordering the new migrants off to a suicide mission if you truly dislike their arrival numbers.

     I do agree that some work could be done to the migration system--especially with the fort value effects and possible bug--, but there is likely some already planned for the future versions.
   

[Martin]

I think people are missing the better approach to migrants - tie them to the liaison as you do trade now.

Basically, request what you need in very rough terms - lots of low skilled or a few higher skilled. Tie the amount of influence to your export amount - the more you export, the more you can invest in lots of haulers or more experienced migrants.

Now, I'm not suggesting a direct 'dump points into a grand master armorsmith' and poof he shows up, rather, you tell the liaison what you are in need of and something maybe it that ballpark shows up, and maybe not for some time. But at least you can tell the liaison 'don't have more than x dwarves' or 'can you encourage as many as y dwarves' to show up. Maybe tie it to the negotiator, etc. skills of your leader as well.

[bowdown2q]

I like the idea of negotiating with the Mountainhome liaison.  It's having your Mayor/whatever ask the caravan to advertise for you!

"Welcome to the lovely fortress of Bearmurder the Immortal Axe of Lavababies! Let me show you around; look at our wonderful *Ash Bed*s and -Plump Helmet Roast-s!  There's even space for more Dwarves!"
and then either
"But we're filling up fast; whoever wants a space had better hurry!" and you'd get a wave of like 50 migrants
or
"Also, there's magma in the booze stores." and you'd get 4 very unlucky fellows.

Tying your advertising to your negotiate skill makes sense; the better you are at negotiating, the more precise you can be about your migrants.  "I'm looking for a few good men" would be a nice option when you're near max population.

Heh. You could even establish a Dwarven INS. With a noble called "Chief Immigration Officer" who lets you approve prospecting migrants, or turn them away at the door.  Even issue Green Cards for 1 or 2 seasons' work or trade.  Mandates like "Increase Population" or "Maintain a Population below X."  Maybe even accept non-Dwarfs, like the occasional Human or even Elf (treehugging hippies tho they are), and that could improve your trade relations with those races.

Or, you know, cause hate crimes. Whatever.

A Nationalism system could work too as another thought - "Urist McDorfDorf Loves the Fatherland more than his new home."  You could even have nationalist rebellions!  ... Alright that might be a bit much, but it would be interesting to see a group of Dwarfs from some city bring in their own culture - a certain taste for a type of craft or color or whatnot.  And your Immigration Officer would mandate that you convert the local culture to your own before things get out of hand; If you don't the locals get a bad thought ("Damn foreigners...").  Banners or engravings of the King/Queen or the Royal Seal put on clothing or objects would make Dwarves who see them like your culture more.

Sort-of-related, it might be nice to be able to influence fertility rates in your fort; state-commissioned fertility symbols on booze barrels might lead to some interesting things in the storeroom...meh, I'll go start a new thread for it in the morning, lol.  It would be cool if you had a single noble as say... Chief Census Taker, who would be responsible for reporting random statistics of your population, and would interact with the INS office to issue mandates about population control or whatnot.

[Silverionmox]

Unrelated skills are much more interesting (consider them hobbies of the dwarf, or a previous profession, or maybe he helped the spouse in her business, it's a family tradition, etc.). When a high master woodworker shows up, I'm not going to let him as a high master carpenter/bowyer run outside among the goblins to cut trees anyway.

[Pilsu]

Highly skilled immigrants completely trivialize the industries. You need to have to set them up yourself or the game becomes halfway pointless.

Either way, it'd be preferable if along with the fix to the current situation, we'd get migrants moved into the raws. Some people want no cheese makers, some people want it to be coupled with cooking at the very least, some want peasants and some like the shotgun method.

[DoctorZuber]

I think people are missing the better approach to migrants - tie them to the liaison as you do trade now.

Basically, request what you need in very rough terms - lots of low skilled or a few higher skilled. Tie the amount of influence to your export amount - the more you export, the more you can invest in lots of haulers or more experienced migrants.

Now, I'm not suggesting a direct 'dump points into a grand master armorsmith' and poof he shows up, rather, you tell the liaison what you are in need of and something maybe it that ballpark shows up, and maybe not for some time. But at least you can tell the liaison 'don't have more than x dwarves' or 'can you encourage as many as y dwarves' to show up. Maybe tie it to the negotiator, etc. skills of your leader as well.

not to be rude but . . . another big huge irritating menu that pops up every time a caravan drops by? nooooo!!!!!!