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[Tokeli]

Frankly, I don't like having to deal with 120 dwarves running around bogging up the hallways and my FPS, so.. I'm assuming people have figured it out before: What's the smallest number I can have while still maintaining a military to defend the fort, and some haulers to do the drudge work, along with the specialized dwarves?

[Particleman]

Absolute bare minimum? One.

[Sutremaine]

Depends how many specialised dwarves you have. Beekeepers will take care of their own tasks and hauling. Dyers require the work of several other industries to function. Anything that produces seeds or body parts will tie up a lot of haulers while the workshop is being used. I think 50-60 dwarves is enough to run a fort with skilled workers and military, so long as you don't try to do everything or have extremely long hauling distances.

I might be a wierd player in this respect, but I do one or two jobs at once and let the specialised dwarves who aren't currently doing anything work as haulers. There's never enough going on that a lack of hauling bodies is the bottleneck.

[Lexx]

I love making large dwarf metropolises. But 30-50 is doable to run and defend a decent fort if you specialize them.

[Qinetix]

One is somehow enough...

[Catastrophic lolcats]

I roll with 20 on my netbook. You really don't need a lot of dwarves if you keep 'em busy.
Military wise it's not too hard either. As long as you're more defensive then you should be right. You don't have to rely on traps completely but you may have to funnel enemies into defensive areas to give you that adavantage.

Not that nobels and seiges won't come at low pop levels. You'll have to lower all of these in the RAWs to the level you wish if you want these features.
In the case of golbins if you set it a low an early artifact could mean doom for your fortress.

20 seems to be the popcap min as well. You'll always get the first 2 migrant waves even if you got your popcap set to 0.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I think my ideal number is between fifty and eighty. You need around twenty five to thirty just to have a legendary dwarf in all the important professions, and then another twenty five or so military. Past that it's just how many haulers you want.

Edit: looking over my list, it looks like I'd set a minimum of 1 legendary dwarf in each of the following professions:

Architect
Weaver
Clothier
Dyer
Armorer
Weaponsmith
Metalsmith
Metalcrafter
Cook
Brewer
Grower
Carpenter
Leatherworker
Jeweler
Gem Cutter
Mechanic
Mason
Glassworker
Engraver
4x Crafter
Potter
Glazier

That's everything I can think of where the skill actually makes a difference, i.e., everything you want a legendary dwarf for. And it comes out to twenty-five dwarves, presuming one dwarf per skill. I may be missing one or two but some of these you may not need or want (i.e., glassmaker in a fort with no sand).

[Excedion]

Smallest ive done is about 40. But i usually go with 145 cap which gives me 200 odd dwarves by the time theyre done giving birth since it allows me to pretty much cover all industries

[Lancezh]

One is somehow enough...

Daddy ?

[Catastrophic lolcats]

<Sniped massive list>

If you're going to have a smaller fortress you're going to have to be specialised in only one industry.
Dyer, clothier, weaver, leatherworker, jewler, gem cutter, glassworking do very little for a fortress really.

A few crafters churning out stone crafts, a mechanic, mason, carpentor, weapon smith, armour smith, brewer and cook is all you really need to be really dedicated to their work.
These labours can even be combined if you don't have a large population/threat.

For the rest of the labours you can easily multi-train across dwarves since they rarely come up or when they do the amount of work needed to be dedicated to each task isn't major.
One can also give everyone mason and carpentry jobs and setting a profile up at the workshop to only let your "dedicated" dwarf make things there. This allowes all those bums idling to get up and start making walls and other such things.

As for the military 5+ highly trained marksdwarves can easily take down seiges if they have the defensive advantage. A narrow passage way across a pit fall with marksdwarves behind fortifications shooting anyone who tries to cross said passageway will demolish almost any threat ... even FBs.

[LordSlowpoke]

I'll go with one. Hell, if you get lucky, you can have a fortress with half a dwarf, provided he dosen't bleed out. Or a quarterdwarf if you know what you're doing.

[Mickey Blue]

I guess theoretically you could do it with less then a dozen so long as you got the right genders (do cousins mate in dwarf fortress?).

But yes, if you have enough to maintain your population then you can have a functional fortress with very few.  I have had plenty of successful, functional fortresses with twenty or so dwarfs, I generally aim for 80 on a normal game and my fort is completely functional well before I hit that cap (which means, you guessed it, the rest get to be fodde- military).

[Mushroo]

On my netbook I set a cap of 20 (which usually works out to about 22-25 after migrants).
It is a fun challenge for me to specialize in one or two industries with a small fortress.
For example a little fortress with grower/brewer/furnace operator/metalsmith and try to become the world's best brewery. Or grower/miller/weaver/dyer/clothier and sell bags of sugar, flour, dye. Or metalcrafter/jeweler making highly-decorated musical instruments. Etc.
With the default settings, a pop cap of 20 will not bring sieges or FB's, so a small military and some traps are fine.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

<Sniped massive list>

If you're going to have a smaller fortress you're going to have to be specialised in only one industry.
Dyer, clothier, weaver, leatherworker, jewler, gem cutter, glassworking do very little for a fortress really.

A few crafters churning out stone crafts, a mechanic, mason, carpentor, weapon smith, armour smith, brewer and cook is all you really need to be really dedicated to their work.
These labours can even be combined if you don't have a large population/threat.

Well, sure, but it all depends on your approach, and how much you're willing to give up in order to shrink your fort down.That list is just all the professions that produce goods that have skill-dependent quality levels, so you know what you're thinking about giving up..  A glazier & magma can almost completely replace a mason, for example. A stonecrafter isn't really necessary or even useful due to the obsidian sword bug (mechanisms are a better tradegood than anything a stonecrafter can turn out).

If you really want to get small you could probably do everything with about twenty craft-dwarves without sacrificing *too* much efficiency. After a certain point though, you're opening yourself up to long delays while you wait for your brewer to stop making mechanisms or whatever.
Similarly, yeah, you can get by with a small military carefully used, but then you're opening yourself up to freak accidents leaving you defenseless.
A better approach might be "how many dwarves can my fort handle". My computer seems to start bogging down around 70 to 80 dwarves; under fifty or so and the framerate never really drops at all. So fifty seems like a good mark to aim for.

[ImBocaire]

A glazer can't replace anyone. The only thing a glazer's useful for is glazing earthenware pots, which need a potter to be made (and you might have no clay, or you might have fire clay, either one of which makes a glazer totally nonessential). Not to mention if you're going to glaze an earthenware pot, you may as well save the log you're going to burn for the ash to make the glaze and just make a wooden barrel.

Now, a potter + fire clay + magma or a glassmaker + a sand tile + magma can totally replace a mason. Glassworkers can even take over from metalsmiths for everything but weapons and armor.