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[C4lv1n]

So I'm about to embark (lolz) on an epic journey to the land of 31.12. The problem is, I'm very bad at assigning jobs to dwarves, and picking a good population cap. So I ask you, Forum, how do you assign tasks to dwarves. IE: How many on each job (Carpentry, mining, hauling, etc.) and how many overall? (assuming you don't have access to magma.)

I don't need super rigid numbers, I just want a general idea of what most people do, so I have something to work from.

EDIT: I should probably add a bit more info...

• No sand
• Lots of trees
• North area of embark is mountains
• Bringing 20 war dogs, 1 male cat, 5 cows
• Also 25 steel bars, and 100 of each lead and copper
• It's called Uthgurak (Demonanus) What. The. Hell.

[Patchy]

Well I got an old comp, so fps is a constant issue for me. I set a 30 dwarf pop cap which usually nets somewhere between 40 and 60 dwarves max. As far as industry numbers go, usually 2 to 3 on most of them. 1 or 2 of which is full time highly skilled, and an extra to be trained as backups in case "fun" happens. I find its usually enough to get the essentials of every fortress goin and maybe 1 or 2 other industries while leaving enough dwarves for hauling and military duty.

[C4lv1n]

Well I got an old comp, so fps is a constant issue for me. I set a 30 dwarf pop cap which usually nets somewhere between 40 and 60 dwarves max. As far as industry numbers go, usually 2 to 3 on most of them. 1 or 2 of which is full time highly skilled, and an extra to be trained as backups in case "fun" happens. I find its usually enough to get the essentials of every fortress goin and maybe 1 or 2 other industries while leaving enough dwarves for hauling and military duty.

That's close to what I do, usually don't have backups for fun though , but that reminds me of something, my PC is pretty good, and usually hovers around 70 fps with about 200 dorfs, though it's been a while since I've gotten it that high.

[Vercingetorix]

Aside from rock crafts/mugs/instruments/toys on repeat, I usually am pretty heavily weighted towards farming and metalsmithing; I either try to embark on a volcano or a site with lots of trees for charcoal, so my forges and smelters can work non-stop.  Glass is also a key industry, since it eats up a large production chain for clear glass and keeps dwarves working.

By and large, I can eliminate idlers entirely at populations up to 100; above that, I do keep some idle because you never know when you'll need them to help with the aftermath of a siege or other disaster.  The drawback is I end up with a lot of finished goods that have no market because the caravans literally can't bring enough worthwhile goods to eat them up.

[Particleman]

Several miners (I embark with 3 and usually don't go over 5)

2 or 3 planters

1 carpenter

1 woodcutter

1 brewer

1 stonecrafter

1 to 3 cooks, depending on how much perishable stuff I need cooked before it spoils

1 blacksmith

1 weaponsmith

1 armorsmith

1 engraver

1 jeweler (both gem cutting and setting)

1 mechanic

1 to 5 masons making blocks, depending on how much I'm building at the moment

5 to 8 furnace operators, one dedicated to melting stuff and the others smelting ores or making steel or something

10 soldiers, because that's the most that can be in one squad and I haven't needed any more than that yet

If I'm at a site with fish, I add a fisherdwarf. Once he starts getting up in skill levels I add a full-time fish cleaner as well.

Once I've got a secure entry to the caverns set up, I also have 1 to 3 dwarves doing nothing but collecting webs.

Everybody else gets the custom profession "Peasant" (sometimes I call them serfs or plebians or laborers, but it's the same thing.) They have hauling labors enabled, along with stuff like masonry (so they can construct walls and floors), butchery (since I rarey butcher huge things like whales or elephants), mechanics (so they can construct traps), and so on.

[leftycook]

At my custom max population of eighty dwarves, i usually have

3-6 miners
10 furnace operators
1-3 wood-related dwarves ( burning, chopping, bedmaking etc)
any immigrant with a farming tag gets plant gathering and planting added to them and added to my farmers legion to keep the fortress fed
about half my active population in the masonry line of work ( i build large aboveground forts purely to give my dwarves something to do)
five metalsmiths/weaponsmiths
two squads of ten millitia

and thats roughly my setup, not counting children, nobles, fortress guard etc

[slink]

I've lately been embarking with 7 peasants, 7 picks, and 1 axe (plus other supplies).  As soon as the site appears, I pause the game and set all of them to miner, mason, carpenter, mechanic, architect, plant gatherer, and planter.  Then I have them all start digging.

Once the layout is in place for the irrigated underground farming area, I designate a mason workshop and a mechanic workshop.  I ask for a floodgate, a door, and three mechanisms.  With these installed I carry out the irrigation of the underground farming area.

After choosing an area for aboveground farming, I set one to wood-cutter and clear any trees necessary for that.  I also designate an area for plant harvesting at this time, in order to get samples of aboveground fruits.  I make sure to have one stockpile for plants only so that the fruit doesn't rot on the ground after it is harvested.

Once the farming areas are prepared, I designate all the plots.  They appear very quickly with seven working on the job.  When that is complete, I remove planter from their job list.  That one who was set to wood-cutting is set back to mining (the game won't allow both simultaneously).

This is followed by more digging, transferring of supplies to stockpiles, disassembly of the wagon, and the building of walls around the entrance.  By then the first little trickle of migrants has arrived and I can begin farming and other tasks with Dwarves individually dedicated to same.  Carpenter and plant gatherer are removed from the original seven as soon as possible.

At the end of the migrations on my current fortress, I have the following 78 adults (limit was set to 75).

=
7 miners who also build constructions and build/service traps.
1 mason with an assigned mason workshop
1 mechanic with an assigned mechanic workshop
1 engraver
=
2 carpenters
1 woodcrafter
1 cross-bow maker
1 seige engineer
1 dyer
1 weaver
1 clothier
1 leatherworker
1 bone-carver
1 gem-cutter
2 gem-setters
4 stonecrafters
1 strand extractor
1 glassmaker
1 spare crafting guy who isn't assigned to anything now because someone else became legendary from an artifact
=
1 planter
1 miller
2 threshers
3 cooks
3 brewers
1 milker
1 cheesemaker
1 butcher
1 tanner
1 animal trainer
2 fishers
2 fish cleaners
2 hunters
1 wood-cutter
1 wood-burner (who also operates my incinerator)
1 lye-maker
1 potash maker
1 soap-maker
=
1 armorer
1 weaponsmith
2 furnace operators
1 blacksmith
1 metalcrafter
=
5 medical (one of each specialty)
=
3 government (captain of the guard, book-keeper, and manager)
=
8 military (including the commander)
=

[thijser]

usually I have a cap at 180 to 120 (varries a bit) and fps between 10 and 20.
Now the way I spread this is usually project based. I decide that I want to make a lot of armor I make 5 new armorsmiths and 5 new smelters combined with 5 new forges. I do this even for my food supplies the moment I run out I make a new group of farmers. The exception is miners who I assign as a new group every 3rd accident. (On average that's one and a half season with my way of designing.)

[Levi]

I usually assign 1 dwarf(sometimes 2) to most of the tasks such as
- Carpentry
- Masonry
- Trinket Crafting
- Brewing
- Cooking
- Etc...

Then I create a Peon class (using DwarfTherapist) that does all the hauling, architecture and odd jobs.  I assign everybody who isn't doing anything useful and isn't in the military to this peon class.  I find this the easiest and pretty effective way to manage things(probably not for optimum efficiency though).

The only downside(upside?) is that you constantly have to find big tasks for them to do so they aren't idle.  Like building towers or cleaning up every rock in your fortress.

[Hyndis]

10 miners/masons/engravers/architects

5 forge lords

3-4 jewelers

5-10 craftsdwarves

5 engineers/doctors

150+ commoners/spear catchers (farmers + smelter working + military)

[saru]

This is a great subject. I always get bored with the slow FPSs as my fortresses go into late game, so I've never had, for instance, a really strong metal industry. I think next time around I will assign a greater percentage to smeltering.

I currently have a population around 100, and I think I might actually cap it, since I can't see gaining much useful from more dwarves standing around. Maybe double up on crafting, but I'm already sending away caravans empty of their metal, cloth, and leather, with thousands of dwarfbucks in offerings, and 50% profit, but am still designating new stock piles to store all the extra crap I'm making.
My oldest general goods stock pile has about 4x31 bins in it, all full, along with the other 27 rows of the stockpile.


I try to keep around 20–30% in the military. This, and the percentage of my population assigned to haul and idle goes up as the population goes up, because the need for things like crafters doesn't grow linearly with population.

I have five dwarves that sit idle with nothing enabled but the medical skills. Before I hit 80 or so they hauled too, and just got pulled off that in the rare case of injury. So far though my dwarves have mostly returned from battle either uninjured or dead, so they don't do much.

I always start out with 2 miners, and then add a couple more once I'm over 30 population or so, up to around 5, but in my current game I'm experimenting with only two legendary ones. It's working alright, which is kind of funny, because now with burrows we actually have the ability to make sure it's the beginners that're mining tree farms and storage rooms, and the masters that are extracting ore and gems.

As my population grow and I get the main structures all carved out, and farming finally stabilizes, I get more and more producers going full time. Though my mason and stone crafter are going from early on. I never bring a trained stone crafter, but almost always turn someone from my second military wave into one.

I aim to have two stone crafters, one or two bone, and one each leatherworker and clothier churning out trade goods and new clothes (for satisfying acquisitions).
I add one dyer, and right now the farming industry can't keep up with him.

I always get a map with sand because I love the glass industry. I do feel kinda cheap making terrariums as cages, so I'm hoping for cage strength calculations soon.
So I have four right now, and may add a couple more as time goes on.

I don't start with jewelry until I've got a stable-ish glass industry to help train them, and generally go one each, but sometimes add a second setter to keep up with the cutter.
If you have no glass industry constantly making gems, you may want to combine jewelry onto one dwarf.

I have two workshop assigned masons and two engravers. Normally I wouldn't even have the second mason, but he arrived with High Master in the skill.
I also have a couple masons not assigned workshops that do constructions around the house. Once I start building towers and above ground obsidian casting molds, I'll add more.

I only have one of each metal class. Any backups with the right skill are just doing something else in the meantime. I imagine I might add another metal crafter, and possibly another blacksmith if I decide to, say, give absolutely everyone metal furniture. I definitely only have one full time armorer and one full-time weaponsmith, training up towards legendary. Once I have a full set of masterwork armor, weapons, and traps, they can basically retire.
I do endeavor to avoid giving any extra moodable skills to migrants who have metal labors, so that a mood might give me a boost.

I have the custom label "tender" on about six dwarves right now. Each of these dwarves has all non-quality farming jobs assigned (milker, thresher, miller, etc), no other non-healthcare/cleaning labors. Considering making them my construction masons too.
I might separate out wood burner and asher, to supply my glass industry once my tree farms have matured. I'd also say to fertilize the farms, but I'm already producing more vegetation than I need.

I use the custom label "porter", on about 15–20% of my population.
Each dwarf with this labor has all hauling labors assigned, wood cutting and weaving. One (or more) loom(s) would be assigned to only porters, and another would be assigned to only my actual weaver. The first had "collect webs" active, the second the actual weaving jobs on repeat.
I do the same thing with glass furnaces (though of course, I don't need to turn on the glass labor for hauling sand bags).
The biggest aggravation with this methodology is that I can't use the manager for weaving or glass assignment, since if a "collect ..." job gets canceled, that can choke up production.
In 40d, they'd also be my masons, architects, and engravers, to get those stat ups that the exp would provide. If they seemed very social a couple would occasionally get year long vacations to chat about whatever, and get social exp.
They were also pump operators, and that still applies to my .31 forts.

[breadbocks]

Too long. Didn't read.

[Vercingetorix]

Also, a lot of times I avoid specialization with crafts and smithing unless the goods are crucial or scarce such as military equipment/adamantine, the philosophy being "what the hell, rock mugs are rock mugs"...after all, there's enough stone I can produce enough to train everyone up anyways.

[Eric Blank]

I usually cap my fort around 20-30, usually giving about 30-40 after immigrations, or ignore caps and just kill/lock out any unwanted immigrants.

I divide the work force into several basic categories, each category has ALL the listed labors enabled except in special circumstances;

Stoneworkers: mining, masonry, engraving, and architecture, no hauling labors so projects go faster
Woodsmen: carpentry, woodcutting, crossbow-making, and architecture. Keep hauling enabled since they are usually idle.
Metalsmiths: everything in the metalworking category, maybe wood burning if I feel the need.
Craftsmen, Engineers, and Jewelers: all in the crafting, mechanics, and jeweling categories, and alchemy/strand extraction
Doctors: Enable all health care. Everyone keeps feed and clean patients on as well, even the stoneworkers. They rarely see action since the hospital is usually empty.
and finally
Farmers, hunters and Fishers: Enable everything under farming, hunting, and fishing, excluding the specific hunting and fishing labors except for 1 or 2 individuals, rarely allow hunting
Nobles are given any jobs I can convince them to do, the dungeon master is always left to idle when not training some ugly beast.

With this setup, everything seems to get done very efficiently. I usually have 3-8 stoneworkers(depends on what I'm doing), 2-3 woodsmen, 4-5 metalsmiths, 2-3 doctors and equal numbers of craftsmen and farmers, with everyone but the stoneworkers spending most of their time idling and available for any tasks I may need.
The militia usually consists of all the woodsmen and the least skilled/loved miners as the first response squad in case of wildlife or thief intrusions, and another squad or two of solely farmers and craftsmen since they'll be the least missed in the event of an actual battle. (and are also the most likely to die outside of battle... Fun.)

My starting 7 are given titles like Head Stoneworker and so on, I consider them the leaders of each class of society. I always have a second miner instead of a doctor, who is called an Elite Stoneworker, along with any that become legendary in their respective crafts. The expedition leader is basically a grunt since he only starts with social skills, I usually set him to help mine out the beginnings of my fort/help the woodsman.
Migrants are usually accepted into a class based on what they come as, peasants and children are often named full-time warriors or else join the stoneworkers.

[saru]

Whoops. I forgot to mention that I keep around four planters that do nothing else, and sometimes have a fisher, a fish cleaner, a hunter, and a trapper.

Edit: And a cook and brewer or two. Wow. Sometimes I forget how complex this game is.