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[Kaizerpeaches]

As to what to do. I discovered Dwarf Fortress a few weeks ago and have had a great time learning the ropes, but each Fortress I start out usually ends with me abandoning it with little fanfare. The problem is I will have fun making a self-sustaining fort, trying to adapt and cope with different environmental challenges, but then maybe by the second year or so, the immigrants are driving me damn near nuts. I love micromanaging, don't get me wrong, but having to find things for 20 new dwarves to do is tedium beyond description. I've tried grand construction projects by enlisting all those new guys into a masonry army, or similar public work projects with other industries but it just ends up with those 20 dwarves sitting around once more after it's all done. It gets to the point of where I dread immigrant waves, and eventually they just have me toss the whole thing to the wind. Don't even get me started on those high master cheese makers. What're they going to do? Milk my cats? Expanding industries to give jobs to new migrants just ends in a ridiculous amount of wasted space, increased value of my fort, and -hoboy!- even more migrants next month!

To put plainly: Immigrant waves are ruining the game for me, any tips for dealing with them?

[Patchouli]

Military.

[Number4]

Turn immigrant cap lower in the raws. Or, military. Or, of course, magma is a valid solution as well....

[ZaDoktor]

In the init options you could lower your max population to something like just 7. You'll still get the first 2 migrant waves, but after that, you shouldn't have any more.

If you still want the dwarves but can't think of what to do with them, then I agree, military, or you could do something like make them station on a bridge and have it retract, making them fall a z level or 2 and get injured, so that you can train up your hospital staff.

[Komus]

Are you using custom professions in therapist?

[foop]

I have the same problem as you.  I usually set the population cap to something I can cope with in the init file.  I also tweak the child cap, to stop the fort filling up with booze-guzzling children.

This fort, however, I built a twisty-turny path of repeating spikes above a 10-z drop as the only way in.  Now my only problem is building enough coffins.

[Kaizerpeaches]

I'm not using any outside mods other than a graphics pack. Does Therapist make it considerably easier to manage a bunch of bums?

[Kaizerpeaches]

Changing the population cap in the init file has no effect on migrants in any of my games, I've tried this.

[FrisianDude]

Does Therapist make it considerably easier to manage a bunch of bums?

Does the pope shit in the woods? Hell yes Therapist makes managing the little idiots easier.

[Komus]

Haha problem solved.

Download Therapist Try Lazy Noob pack mate, don't be put off by the name, there's no shame in it 

[Ninja'd]

[ferok]

Install Fortress Defense.  You'll stop worrying about coping with the environment and start worrying about surviving.

[Chessrook44]

Or you could just let them idle.  Gives you a massive Hauling Force on demand, perfect for clearing your megaprojects of unsightly stone, or hauling the presents from Dwarven Christmas to the incinerators!

[Suihanki]

I used to be in the same boat as you as far as migrants are concerned, until I started using Dwarf Therapist more effeciently.

To elaborate on what some of the others have said, make custom professions. As soon as all of the migrants appear on screen, sort by migration wave, then see what they'd be good at (or good for, if they're unskilled), and quickly assign your custom professions to them. Then go back and sort by profession, and you can see exactly how many of what kind of dwarf you have.

After you make all of your custom professions, it only takes a few minutes to sort all of your new dwarfs. Very quick and painless.

[FrisianDude]

Therapist is also good to quickly find out how large the migrant group is which just popped up. Normally you'd have to wait for all 21 (if 'lucky') Dwarfs to enter the screen, but refresh Therapist after the first has arrived and you know the number.

[wrwr]

Migrants initially have no friends inside your population, so no one gets mad when they have an unfortunate accident on the way into the fortress. But as long as you can keep them fed (super easy in the new versions) and have a few spare beds in the barracks, let them idle in the dining room. They are still useful for mass hauling jobs.

The workforce assignment interface is really bad, looks like designed before 1990, it's so bad it keeps me from playing this game too far, because it turns the game into a boring micromanagement hell. Dwarf therapist is a noticeable improvement, at least puts everything into a few clear clickable tables, but it still is a cumbersome provisional solution. 90% of the job assignment work could be half-automated down to a few fast mouse clicks through a couple of simple optional rules (like: five dwarfs are needed for mining work, so the five best miners get chosen to do this job, and only this job). But as far as I know, the developer of this game isn't into interface design very much.