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[Korva]

So I stuck with a fort long enough for the first time to hit and in fact exceed the population cap. Oddly enough I even got a migrant wave after that point, which bumped me from 209 from 216. I thought that wasn't possible? Playing with so many dwarves -- the most I had before that was around 120 -- sure speeds up hauling jobs or wall-construction, but on the other side it feels rather anonymous. I may cap my population at 100 or 80 (just enough for sieges) next time.

What pop cap does everyone else like to play with? Do you stick to the default of 200 or prefer a much lower number? And why?

Maybe I should play a little more recklessly, too, and give the little blighters more time to socialize instead of trying to keep everyone constantly busy. More friendships, more deaths, more fun?

[Zrk2]

I currently have ~230 dorfs. It's great for projects, but the idlers number is starting to climb on me. I may purge the peasants and children soon.

[Urist Imiknorris]

I prefer 50 dwarves because I have issues managing migrants. Once I've got housing done for more and an oversupply of food and booze, then I up the population cap.

[Malakai Makaisson]

I play with 60-80 dwarfs depending on how my FPS is doing.

[Girlinhat]

I'm at 50, which puts me at actual 60 because the cap is ignored.  That allows ambushes but not sieges.  In a year or two I'm gonna uncap towards 100, once I have lavish death traps bedrooms for my soon-to-arrive lye makers and milkers.

Alternatively, I may simply convert everyone into warriors, piss off everyone, and throw my soldiers into the waves of constant sieges.

[Bererez]

I like 100 because after 120-130 my fps takes a dump.

[slothen]

my cap is 100.  I have a few families with 4-5 kids each, and so my pop is about 125 with about 30 children.  I'm excited though because this is the longest I've had a fort and I expect some of the kids to start growing up soon.

[Vercingetorix]

I'm doing 80; it gives me solid FPS but still sufficient dwarves for a solid military and various threats approaching the fortress.

[Namfuak]

I leave it at 200.  My FPS during normal play rarely goes below 20, except a.  During sieges or b.  If I unlock HFS, in which case I could have only 50 dwarves all asleep and it would still drop below 10.

[Rex_Nex]

Pop cap of 100 for me. I would set it to as low as 50-75 if that didn't ruin sieges.

[Urist Imiknorris]

I modded goblins to siege earlier.

I also modded titans and megabeasts to attack at a population of twenty and ten thousand created wealth, but that's Just for Fun.

[Mickey Blue]

80-100, lets me make sure I'll get full content.

When I reach the point that they start to idle up too much I just keep putting them into squads for the military (work as cannon fodder until they are trained up). 

Since the newest version I've been doing pretty well as far as FPS goes (I keep the max set at sixty anyways, so it takes a while to dip down below that).

-MB

[shlorf]

150 currently + 10% children. Still seems to be too much so I'll settle for something around 100 on the next fort. I had a syndrome plague + tantrum spiral on this fort which put me from 164 to 24 dwarfs once (only soldiers and one civilian didn't go insane), but now I'm back to 112 or something and i noticed the big fps difference it makes. I don't do megaprojects (just normal projects), so the excess dwarfs mainly turn excess metal into weapons to give me more chances for artifact weapons.

[anqxyr]

200, but max population I ever actually had is around 100. I'm still somewhat new to the game, playing only 5 month, had only two sieges during this time and my longest fort was only 4 years old.
If you feel that you have too many dwarves, someone on this forums suggested best use ever for them. Drop them from 1-3 z-levels and train your medics on those who survive.

[Girlinhat]

Give them a good 5 drop.  Bone setting needs skill up too!