Print

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

[King DZA]

I've never had migrants come right before a siege, so most of my migrants make their way into the fort at a calm and leisurely pace. Even if they did come right before a siege, I doubt it would happen enough times to become a serious, unmanageable problem. Unless you were intentionally keeping them locked out, in which case it would be easier to simply limit the pop. cap if you don't want them.

[Buttery_Mess]

I've never had migrants come right before a siege

It happens all the time to me. I thought ambushes were supposed to arrive during migrations?

[King DZA]

I've had a siege arrive at roughly the same time as a dwarven caravan, but even that was only once in the seven years the fort has been running. Ambushes seem to turn up pretty randomly(for me, at least).

[SirHoneyBadger]

My migrants tend to come in "calm and leisurely" waves of 30+ at a time, and usually right when I've finally *just* managed to set up decent shelter and reliable food sources for my original 7.

I'm lucky if I get 2 years before I've got hordes of them. And that's while taking every opportunity to reduce the produced and exported wealth of my Fortress (which really doesn't add a whole lot to the game experience...)

I can handle maybe 3-5 of such waves, but I don't especially want to. I'm looking hard into modding options, but this appears to be an area which is very difficult, if not impossible, to mod. And I've definitely gotten migrants *during* seiges. Which is a lot of fun for the goblins, but just exacerbates the managerial/logistical problem for me. And right now, the game's controls are just not sufficient to deal with serious managerial/logistical problems.

So, I can either let them in, making my Fortress extremely vulnerable, or I can starve them/let the goblins kill them, ultimately making another, just as difficult to deal with, problem, in the form of ghosts.

Another point: I love the ghost idea, and I'm ok with the consequences, to a point, but I really don't think I like the idea of ghosts springing up from migrants. I feel that ghosts should happen only after atleast a few years in the Fortress. I mean, doesn't it make sense that ghosts be tied only to places where they feel at home, or have some kind of sentimental attachment to?

If they have a kid or a spouse alive in the Fortress, or they made an artifact, or something similar, sure, but not because they randomly wandered into a goblin seige. 

I *love* DF. I bought this computer and had it spec'ed out, with Dwarf Fortress specifically in mind, and the game runs great, except for the migrants.

The horrible horrible migrants.

If anyone can help me to find a real, tested, solution to this problem, through current modding options, that doesn't reduce the game's pure goodness in the process, I am all for that. I just haven't been able to figure it out on my own.

[Aquillion]

To me, the randomness of the new migrants is one of the most fun additions to the game, especially in terms of its simplicity vs. how much it added for me.  Here's what I love about it:

Basically, random migrants serve the purpose that random loot does in other games.  It gives you reasons to vary and adapt your strategy.  It gives you something to look forward to and anticipate.  Sometimes you get a dwarf who's really awesome in many different things, and have to decide how to use them!  Sometimes you get a dwarf with a weird specialization -- will you try and use it, or train them from the beginning in something else?  Etc.  It constantly confronts the player with interesting decisions, which, to me, is good because it expands Dwarf Fortresses' gameplay.  And since it's random, it's another feature that helps keep things from becoming repetitive -- it rewards players who think on their feet and adapt their strategy to suit the migrants they get.

Sure, occasional uber-migrants can help a lot, but I think that that randomness is part of the fun -- you don't always get the uber-migrant you need!  When you do, it feels great any will affect the future of that fort, but the fact that it's luck-based helps ensure that every game will go differently.

(It also reminds me of the random items in Dungeon Crawl, which would work similarly -- since that was another game where you could change the direction and the way you're playing based on what items you find.  Sometimes you'd find exactly the spellbook or weapon you need.  Sometimes you'd find something that doesn't quite fit your current strategy -- would you adapt to it?  That's part of what makes games like this fun for me, constantly adapting my strategy to new things.)

[SirHoneyBadger]

I don't have a problem with random migrants, as a general concept. I just think the extremely high rate at which they show up is, as the thread suggests, rather ridiculous.

A maximum of 1-3 a year would be manageable, and it would also make whomever shows up both more valuable, and individually more interesting.

[Raddish]

I agree with the migrants comign to fast and too skilled.

Something else I have thought up is people leaving the Fort for various reasons, like maybe they are not happy or have not made any friends. 

Or possibly your legendary mason being called away to another location in the kingdom to build something so you have to do without him until he gets back.

[SirHoneyBadger]

The skill thing is another good point. I'd personally like to have, say, 99% of migrants arrive as young, unskilled, peasants.

For one thing, this allows me, as the player, to immediately decide what role I want them to play in the Fortress. I don't have to fool around with trying to decide what the most optimal use of their bizarre beekeeping/surgery skillset will be. I can just assign them to a task, and forget about them.

And it makes sense that they'd be the ones with the least to lose, and also the most likely to want to move out on their own, away from the security of the Mountainhome.

The few that do arrive with decent skills could have a better than average chance of having lots and lots of skills, making these rare dwarfs who are willing to leave the Mountainhome past adulthood, quite valuable, and potentially a subject of player curiosity (what's Philosopher/Animal Handler Urist McBook's story?), and that could make migrations, themselves, more desireable and Fun. 

While you could occasionally have the good fortune of getting a supremely skilled doctor (and his fey mooded sister?) etc, with vampires on the near horizon, it'd be pretty cool to have the thought in the back of your mind that this extremely useful guy who happens to have all these skills and talents, just might be a fiend in dwarf's clothing.

I also really don't feel that children should ever arrive as migrants. Dwarfs may be a little crazy, and not exactly the best parents in a really bad parent convention, but I think, with their low birth rates, they'd either stay in the Mountainhome until the child reached their 12th year, or they'd wait to have kids until they were in a calm, secure area, if only for the benefit of the parents, themselves.

Dwarfs don't strike me as the most sexually active or romantically inclined of species, anyway, and it really feels to me like they'd be practical about this--more practical than most humans, anyway.

This would in turn help make children more special and valuable (not a bad thing), since you'd only ever get them from your own dwarfs reproducing. 

[SixOfSpades]

While I agree with the majority of opinions posted here, I have to say that the negative evaluations of current gameplay are sounding like the kinds of criticisms you'd expect to hear leveled at a finished product, not a free download that's not even in the beta stages yet. While we can clearly see that migrants are unrealistic, with skillsets that are either purely arbitrary ("Ah, let's make him Adequate in everything Farm-related") or obviously random ("Talented Animal Caretaker, Proficient Strand Extractor, Adept Glazer, oh yes, I can see how THOSE skills would work together"), I think we can all agree that Toady and ThreeToe have already got the message, and the migrant problem is something that obviously will be changed in future releases. The best use of this space would be offering constructive criticism and suggestions.

My wish list, starting with the most obvious:
1) Meetings with the liason should include a step where you can set a slider on how desirable you find each of the various professions, and also a vague indicator of how many settlers you expect your fortress will be able to accomodate over the coming year.
2) Migrants should not arrive a map with an already-developed skillset that cannot be used at the location in question--why would a Skilled Fishery Worker travel to a desert outpost?
3) In general, the skill level of migrants should correspond roughly to the age of the settlement, with (relatively) young, (relatively) impetuous dwarves on fire to pioneer a new future, and more skilled practitioners of their art arriving only after there's a firm economic base to support both them and their industry in the manner to which they've become accustomed. Now, while one could make a case for artisans stuck playing second fiddle in the big city might want to emigrate to the sticks to become the big fish in a small pond, these should be the exception rather than the rule.
4) When migrants arrive in large groups (more than 10 or so), there should be a reason, and a story behind it.
     "Goblins sacked our village, our fighters could do little more than buy us time to escape." -- the party is civilians and children, with little more than the clothes on their backs.
     "The king heard about the goblin attacks in the area, and sent us to help protect the refugees you're sheltering. It would be gracious of you to send some additional tribute this year." -- the party is all (decently equipped) warriors, perhaps including someone with the elusive Military Tactics skill.
     "The land is struck with drought, our streams are but a trickle!" -- you just got some surplus Fisherdwarves.
     "The liason reported that even though you've unearthed plenty of gems, you have no jeweler as of yet. We've come to establish another base for our guild." -- say hello to a couple of jewelers and maybe a metalcrafter.
These groups may arrive with a de-facto leader of their own, who may do little more than tell your mayor why they've come . . . or they may come with enough friends to make a plausible case to become mayor themselves come next election.
5) With the exception of the settlers you've "ordered" through the liason, migrant arrivals should not be predictable. None of this, "oh, it's getting late in the season, time to carve out more bedrooms."

[SuicideJunkie]

The horrible horrible migrants.

If anyone can help me to find a real, tested, solution to this problem, through current modding options, that doesn't reduce the game's pure goodness in the process, I am all for that. I just haven't been able to figure it out on my own.

See: Tips and/or advice for evicting dwarves

[SirHoneyBadger]

The horrible horrible migrants.

If anyone can help me to find a real, tested, solution to this problem, through current modding options, that doesn't reduce the game's pure goodness in the process, I am all for that. I just haven't been able to figure it out on my own.

See: Tips and/or advice for evicting dwarves

Some good ideas there, but still not a real solution.