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[Mercutian]

So I just finished building my 30th permanent residence and dwarves 92-133 just arrived in the 5th immigration wave. FFS how do I stop them!?  I cant feed and house all these a$$holes. Is there a freakin cheat or edit or something i can do to just stop these goddamned immigrants from eating all my damned food and stinking up my meeting hall?? I built a wall around my cave entrance and sealed the doors and somehow they find a way in.

What i really want to know is what am I doing thats contributing this much to their spawning? I havent even officially traded yet (after my initial request all my resources went to fending off the migrant hordes). Or maybe if I download something, some external editor like Dwarf The Rapist or something that would allow me to turn off migrants in game?

-EDIT- Issue has thus been addressed via forced starvation and baiting goblin ambushes. The repercussions of watching loved ones slowly waste away behind a wall of stout dwarven stone is being slowly reversed with tactical placement of statues and double portions of helmet stew. Id still like to hear soem more ideas of combating this scourge if anyone should stumble upon this thread, thanks for your time guys!

[Doctor Blood]

Do you have two entrances? I did the same thing. I built a wall around and they stayed outside. I do think they may jump from the cliffs to get in... I'm un-sure about that.

[Mercutian]

yea only one entrance and it was a channel entrance so no cliff jumping.

[Doctor Blood]

Try a Bridge. Make it so it raises right in front of the Fortresses Entrance. That was the second thing if the migrants breached my walls XD
It reminded me of Fallout 3. They were trapped outside while my dwarfs were safe in the walls of the Fortress.

[Mercutian]

yea im still learing this thing. If i move them outside the walls somehow and manage to keep them out will they starve to death? At this point ill take anything.

[Doctor Blood]

I've been playing for about three weeks. Starvation is what takes me if I'm in a Good Area with gentle monkey's and giant birds. My farms never produce and I have a problem getting muddy water XD. I am planning on capturing Badger Boars a little later and keeping them in Chamber's starving them until migrants i don't want get in, and I will have an area where two bridges will trap them and the Badgers will enjoy themselves. The problem would be getting them back in their Chambers XD

[NecroRebel]

Did you try changing the population cap? By default, it's at 200, so dwarves will keep coming until you have more than that when the dwarven caravan arrives (maybe leaves; it's unclear which). To edit it, find your dwarf fortress folder/data/init/d_init.txt, find the [POPULATION_CAP:200] line, and edit it downwards closer to where you can handle it. It won't stop migrants coming after the next autumn, but if you start a new fort it will let you limit your numbers to less than 20 or so.

Basically, as long as you're producing some wealth, dwarves will continue showing up until their numbers exceed the cap. It's very difficult to not produce wealth, so they just keep coming.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Keep in mind that it's not a hard cap. I play with a population cap of 107, and I've had at best 120 + children. As long as you're below the cap, the game can and will throw a migrant wave at you, and that wave can be as high as 20.

Running few plump helmet farm plots keeps you well fed enough quite easily. Since you're getting so many migrants, you should have no problem assigning two of them as full time farmers. Then build few 3x5 or 5x5 farms and set them to produce plump helmets all year round. Another two 3x5 plots with cave wheat/sweet pod/pig tails (but only one plant type per plot) and you should be able to produce enough to keep your brewers busy and prevent your fort from dehydrating.

Consider getting DwarfTherapist, as it makes managing your dwarves labour settings that much easier.

[daggaz]

First things first, are you aware that you only need the most minimal of spaces to make a complete bedroom?  A 1x4 space is more than enough, with the first space being the door, the second being the bed, the third and fourth being a chest and cabinet (optional as im not sure these are working for non-nobles anyhow, but they will add value to each room and thus your fortress nonetheless).  Your dwarf will have no qualms about climbing over/thru his furniture, and the door is nice so that you can lock him in if he gets pissy. 

With this in mind, train your miners up to legendary by digging out all the necessary rooms for a proto-fort, preferably putting as much as you can in a soil layer(s), as they get the fastest mining xp digging in soil.  I usually make a dormitory with 5 or so beds in the beginning, which is more than enough to hold your dwarves over in the meantime.  In the future, you can remodel this room into a barracks for your military.   Once they are legendary, carve out a massive pattern of 100+ 1x4 rooms down in a stone layer (layer 9 or below if you want to avoid woodcutting noise).  At legendary skills, this will take your miners all of 5 to ten minutes real time to accomplish.  Thats more than enough space for the first few waves of dwarves, and you can train your mason and carpenter up by spamming door and bed production to keep ahead of things.

When this floor gets near capacity, make a copy of it one floor down.  Three such floors is nearly always more than enough to hold all the migrants you will ever see before a) your computer crashes or b) your fort meets its timely demise.

And once you have all those migrants?  The worst thing is sorting them out, but definitely take the time to assign a committed workforce to different sectors.  Get a military.  Get some workshop dwarves and start up some industries.  Train a medical staff.  Get your farms and kitchens in order.  Another pair of miners isnt a terrible idea, and you can always relegate the remaining hordes to menial hauling labors.   

[Mercutian]

Thanks guys, all great ideas but im already ahead of you in some those noob respects and ahead of myself in others.

I know how rooms work. I was going for a slightly more aesthetic approach to this forts main levels with a spartan/utilitarian approach to the migrants/rock-backs/mountain jumpers. My fort can perfectly sustain 60 dwarves or so with food to spare with only about 10-15 nojobs at any time, I literally received 2 waves of 39-40 some odd dwarves.

I specifically chose an area with low tree output and ZERO soil, trading for wood works well though. (my own problem here)

I have an idea of how to water rock tile to make farms but ive yet to execute it, i guess ill get on that.

No idea how to do bridges/drawbridges/atom smashers yet.

Basically my plan at the moment is to create a meeting area outdoors inside a walled off area and ensure that ALL the people I want to keep are working. Then BAM! Arkham City that b*tch. Ill build the mass graves at first, work on expanding my burial chamber with its row upon row of 1x1 caskets. The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.


Thanks for the help guys!
Ill get on that editor though. 200 is just too much while 75+/- should be great to learn.

[Fishbulb]

Build a Welcome Room. With spikes. The survivors get to be citizens, and also give your medical dwarves valuable on-the-job training.

[Mercutian]

Build a Welcome Room. With spikes. The survivors get to be citizens, and also give your medical dwarves valuable on-the-job training.

Sounds excellent. Is there an official way to do this? i.e. actvity zone>welcome room type thing? or do i just create a funnel for them to go through?

[Fishbulb]

I do it this way:

Make a room with two doors, one that leads to the outside of your fort and one which leads to the inside. Keep the inside door locked all the time.

Line the floor of the room with upright spike traps, linked to a lever. Lower the spikes.

Put a meeting area in the room. Now put a burrow around that meeting area.

When immigrants arrive, assign them to that burrow. They'll file into the welcome room, cause that's where their meeting area is.

When they're all in, have somebody pull ze lever. As many times as necessary. Once you're sure you've filtered out all the elves-in-disguise, lower the spikes and unlock the inner door to allow the worthy new additions to your fort inside.

[proxn_punkd]

Dwarves don't even need real bedrooms right off the bat. They'll only get minor bad thoughts from sleeping in a public bed. I usually construct a bunch of beds in a couple of future-storerooms and let my dorfs snooze there until I have time to designate bedrooms for carving-- and I usually go with what daggaz said-- door, bed, chest, cabinet. Yes, non-nobles do stash belongings in them.

[Mushroo]

I don't typically build individual bedrooms until I start seeing Unhappy (flashing red) dwarfs. And hopefully that never happens. Until then it's communal dorms all the way.

A legendary dining hall is a much better "return on investment" in terms of happiness than 200 individual bedrooms. Or just stick animals in cages, cook some lavish meals, build a mist generator, etc...