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[Batgirl1]

Apollo: That sounds like a cool idea.

I think it would give too much power to the player. This game is supposed to be challenging in my opinion.
Anyway i would like to see fort's population go up wayyyyy slower.
Every migrant should be a gift and you should be thankful for them, not think "oh welcome, you will make good cannon fodder"

So see, with the None/Partial/Full scenario, you could just start the game with Migrants flipped to Partial and you're good to go.  For a Hermit challenge player, it'd be None, and for the old-fashioned DF fan, it'd stay on Full.  Everyone wins.

Suppose we combine this with the ingame-handling suggestions; at start-up, you decide how many migrants (N/P/F) your fortress will get each wave -- this would be set up no later than the Embark screen, and you'd be unable to change it afterwards without resorting to cheating.  Once your fortress is up and running, however, you can start doing things like trading for extra migrants, or having your immigration office turn migrants away, or whatever ends up happening.  Though, that might be getting overly complicated...

The bottom line is, sometimes you feel like a Dwarf, sometimes you don't.

[TantrumTime]

Instead of adding a 'how many migrants?' setting, let the player see the population of the dwarf civs in the embark screen. Make the population of your civ effect how many migrants you get. There should still be a option to disable immigration altogether though.

[irmo]

So see, with the None/Partial/Full scenario, you could just start the game with Migrants flipped to Partial and you're good to go.  For a Hermit challenge player, it'd be None, and for the old-fashioned DF fan, it'd stay on Full.  Everyone wins.

One of the things Nethack got powerfully right was scolding the player for cheating. You could still do it, but you couldn't pretend you weren't doing it. In that spirit, I'd like these options to be named "Normal", "Cheating", and "More Cheating".

[Ryjer]

This is a great ideal. I also love the ideal of having an immigration officer that would allow you to dictate in game who/how many dwarves you allow in.

Often when I play I create scenarios in my head about the dwarves and the fortress. Sometimes that are an official group set out to establish a new official fortress. But sometimes I imagine they are disgruntal citizens/exiles breaking away from the mother fortress. Or the remants of a shattered army seperated from the Mountainhome and just trying to survive. These little mental scenarios are occasionally disrupted by the arrival of migrants and caravans.

Eventually I believe the plan is to have embark scenarios that you can select built into the game that would a change certain variable such as immigration rate and caravans and who knows whatelse. This would be a (i believe) relativly easy addition that would give us some of that fuctionality right away and something that Toady would probably need to code when the time for scenarios comes anyways.

As to how anyone can see this as cheating is beyond me. Its a game without set goals or rules, as long as im not exploiting a bug I can run my fortress anyway I see fit.

[ashton1993]

As long as im not Even if I'm exploiting a bug I can run my fortress anyway I see fit.

Runesmith + arena's = win

[Joakim]

I the idea of different scenarios for the immigrants.

There could be a rumor (true or not) that a certain skill is in great demand, or that a fortune can be made dorfs with the right skills. This can be influenced by your broker in trading agreements, as many suggests. So if you specifically request metalsmiths you can get some of those. If you are successful in combat (and especially raiding in the future) you will get more warrior dwarfs looking for employment and looting opportunities. Plus their families and pets.

Some might be more like normal immigrants, looking for a better life. They would be mainly peasants and lowly skilled dwarfs, as I'm assuming most highly skilled workers don't need to seek a better future somewhere else. They would come in fairly small numbers if you fortress have plenty of food and jobs for everyone.

Others could be refugees. These would be more similar to how immigration looks currently. Their skill levels vary wildly, have nothing to do with what you need other than by accident and they can potentially swamp your fortress in huge numbers, if the disaster was nearby. And of course they are wounded and unhappy, maybe even a traveling tantrum spiral. Refusing to help refugees will look very bad to the Mountainhome. On the plus side, they might emigrate after they have been fed, rested and their wounds taken care of.

Others still could be ordered to your fortress by the Mountainhome for some reason. Dunno what reason there could be though, maybe a garrison?

I'd like for them to more like groups than they are today, maybe even named groups like your starting dwarves. They would have an "expedition" leader that would meet with your mayor and you would have some options on what to do with them, like kick them out, welcome them or take care of them until they are ready to leave if they are refugees. Some groups, like mercenaries or the skilled armorsmith you requested, might request offerings to stay. These would become their private property.

[chuckthegr8]

Joakim, that is awesome.

Maybe it can also be related to what you trade. You sell alot of goblin equipment=soldiers who hate goblins comming over. You sell alot of prepared food and more cooks come.

What would really be fun is 1, a renovated relations system with the mountainhomes which can really change this and 2, other groups like Joakim says. However, instead of just migrant groups you can have migrants who give you the bird and talk about a better fortress downriver, and attempt to recruit your population. You can have rebel groups attempt to hole up in your fortress, you can have a Royal Army on an official campaign against the goblins camp out for a year or two. This sounds fun!

[omg_scout]

This idea is awesome!

[ApolloCVermouth]

I also like the idea of immigrants as distinctive groups with different motives that you choose whether to accommodate. This could be part of a set of richer interactions with mountainhomes such as preparing banquets for visiting nobles, providing winter quarters and food for a dwarven army-- that sort of thing.

Its worth noting that, while the game eventually supplies you with too many migrants, too few would be just as challenging. If you had to offer some incentive mountainhomes to send reinforcements, that might put the current overproduction of valuable goods to some reasonable use. Having to build a reserve of dwarves to replace losses would add another element to the game.

[ashton1993]

Hmm... thoose trade offerings would become very useful indeed if we had a more complex relations system with the capital, which reminds me: how would all this work when the king comes?

[zwei]

As long as I can change this option without restarting game...

[ashton1993]

Well if it came with an update then you'd have to restart anyway to get the new features, or am I misunderstanding?

[Joakim]

Maybe it can also be related to what you trade. You sell alot of goblin equipment=soldiers who hate goblins comming over. You sell alot of prepared food and more cooks come.

I'd say it should depend somewhat on trade but mostly on what visitors would see in the fortress. As part of a diplomacy and "world knowledge" overhaul the world should have an opinion about you, affected by what you tell them, what you sell them and what you show them. This includes them talking to happy dorfs, angry dorfs, quite content dorfs, etc.

Bandits could also go into the same framework of "immigrants groups". They could make demands like "let us take anything we want and we won't kill anyone". Imagine the situation if some noble's household troops (Royal Guard?) acted that way. "Give us all the food we want or we will seize it, in the name of Urist Socksnoble". They wouldn't kill everyone, but certainly subdue anyone who tried to stay between them and your booze supply.

[Dsarker]

What if you had both of them happening at the same time?

[ashton1993]

What if you had both of them happening at the same time?

You'd cleverly time it so they'd reach the stockpile at the same time and annihilate each other of course