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[RPharazon]

In my recent games, I've set the [POP_CAP] value in the init.txt file to 35. It works fine for a year or two, and I'm all happy with 35-38 dwarves due to the trigger being soft.

But something happens, and the immigrant waves keep on going and going until it gets so slow that I have to abandon the fortress.

Any value below 30, in my experience, is equal to 200. I set it to 20 once, but the immigration waves completely ignored that value and the population went up to 80 before I abandoned it.

In all cases, I've set the value BEFORE creating a new world, so that's not the problem.

Is there no way to get my little Dwarf Outpost going?

[martinuzz]

Strange, The population cap does not count babies, children and nobles.
So you could get an immigrantion wave at 38 population when you've set the cap to 35

But going to 80 pop when you set the value to 20 is absurd.

On a side note - you can change the [POP_CAP] value ingame. It is not of any influence during world generation either.

[Exponent]

But of course you have to restart dwarfort.exe for the new settings to apply, as with any value in init.txt.  (Which may be obvious to all involved here.)

[Puzzlemaker]

The pop cap is calculated, if I remember correctly, at the end of the year, or something...  As in, it takes a year or two for the game to realize there is a pop cap.  Or something like that.  Rather annoying.

[RPharazon]

My latest foray into the [POP_CAP] values has failed once more.

I set it to 20, again, and it climbed above it and kept climbing until I abandoned the fortress, again.

I set it to 7, and immigrants came as if it was set to 200.

They seem to completely ignore values under 30 all of the time, and values from 30 to 80 about 50% of the time.

[martinuzz]

Ahhh... It is not [POP_CAP:20] but [POPULATION_CAP:20]

You must have subconsiously typed [POP_CAP] when editing the init.txt file and gotten used to it.

EDIT: The answer to your question was in the title of your thread.

[ June 05, 2008: Message edited by: martinuzz ]

[RPharazon]

Yeah, no it isn't.

I simply typed [POP_CAP] in this thread because it's easier and because I'm a lazy idiot and didn't want to go check the init.txt file.
Strangely enough, I think the DF Wiki agrees with me.

If you want, you can mentally replace all instances of [POP_CAP] with [POPULATION_CAP], but the point still stands. [POPULATION_CAP] is inherently broken.

[Styrre]

Same thing happens to me - set population cap to 30 to have some time to carve out a really nice place without having to accomodate immigrants all the time, but do the dwarves care?

[martinuzz]

Sorry for being so impolite to ask, but do you happen to code in a language that uses '=' instead of ':'?
(thinking of the subconsious thingy again)

[RPharazon]

I actually don't code.

The point still stands and the population cap is broken.
Hopefully Toady will have time to fix it in the next year or so. I'm fine with it being broken, but it just limits my fortress possibilities.

[Keizo]

I've given up on the population cap for the same reason, but I'm lucky, and am somehow still getting 60-70 fps at 125 dwarves+economy, so I never really cared. However it aught to be fixed.

[Melloth]

I read somewhere that the BABY_CHILD_CAP is broke too and if you set it to [BABY_CHILD_CAP 0:0] Immigration waves will grind to a halt
My only experience is that I start off with [BABY_CHILD_CAP 0:0] and hardly get any immigrants, but maybe it works midgame as well.
It's not the perfect solution, (heck, it's fixing a bug with a bug!) but hopefully will help you plug the dike for now and not drown in immigrants.  

[BurnedToast]

I think there is a minimum value on it, I had it at 7 and I got immigrants anyway but setting it to 10 worked fine and now I am holding steady at 13 dwarves for the last few years. I don't know what your problem is, but it works just fine for me (even if I would prefer a hard cap rather then a soft cap).

If I remember right, it might have to be 8 or higher (thus guaranteeing at least one wave of immigrants) because in the 2d version you always got a single smith with your anvil in the first summer. As I said though, 10 is working fine for me so saying anything lower then 30 does not work is just false.

[Solara]

I've had it set at 15 for several years with no problem.

[Ubersoldat]

I don't understand why you folks don't just kill all your immigrants. It's entertaining, gives something for your dwarves to do (create interesting death machinery), and solves the immigration problem, all in one!

The only downsides are that the immigrants will take up any coffins that you set for burial, and also they leave a bit of a mess when you drop them 10 z-levels or so.

EDIT: You could also use the 'USA' method and just build a big wall around your fort and let those stupid immigrants starve to death. They're not likely to jump the fence, either, since there's no climbing skill (yet).

[ June 05, 2008: Message edited by: Ubersoldat ]