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Dwarf Fortress => DF Bug Reports => Topic started by: Ltheb on December 09, 2007, 08:55:00 pm

Title: Problem with Migration
Post by: Ltheb on December 09, 2007, 08:55:00 pm
I checked the bug list to see if there was anything about this already, but I didn't see anything. In case OS specs matter, Windows Xp SP2.

Problem: After about the 2nd year of my fortress, after getting the 1st wave of migrants (for a total of 25 workers), no more have come. For 8 Years. There were 3 deaths that year, but no more. The Fortress is quite large, and doing great, but I haven't seen any new migrants in forever. Am I stuck with only 22 laborers forever? I do not want to abandon this fortress, and I have had successful other fortresses in the mean time. Also there has been no traders in a long time, and when there have been, they were only elven. I can get sieges though. (Goblins)

Notes: I started the fortress in 33b, and later took it to 33c, which was when I realized there was indeed a problem, and each update I tried converting it hoping to receive migrants within a year or two. Still no luck in 33e.
Also the fort is on the shore of a lake, and I am sure it had trade with the parent civ, elves, goblins, and humans. (regenerated the same world seed in a new DF folder and checked) The fortress liaison did come in the first year and trade agreements were made, but that was the last I saw of them.

Possible causes?: There were 3 deaths not too long after the first migration wave and not long after that I converted to 33c. Did some routine get corrupted during transition? (Like a skipped routine check or something)
Or it might something to do with my fort being on a lake, and only the eastern map edge (and part of the north & south map edge) are actually solid ground. Are the migrants wanting to arrive, but can't due to trying to arrive in water? Bad luck.

Is this a bug that can be fixed with a version change or is my fortress corrupt?

Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Nil Eyeglazed on December 09, 2007, 09:05:00 pm
This is a problem that seems associated with the transition from 33b to a newer version.  Not all people encounter it.  I expect Toady isn't too interested in fixing it.

I would recommend generating a new fortress.

Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Toady One on December 10, 2007, 12:53:00 am
Do you still have the save?  I can't think of anything off the top of my head that would just shut migration off in the transition from b to c, so it might be good for me to see what's going on.
Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Ratha on December 10, 2007, 03:32:00 am
I have a migration issue, but i dont think its related to the original poster. I set my population cap to be 10, and on my first immigration, 4 dwarves came, so my total dwarf population is 11. This is on a fresh install, version 33e.

Its possible that the reason for this is that the extra dwarf i received was a peasant, or possibly some default minimum immigration count. I was thinking it also could be related to injured dwarves, but my hunter was injured after the new people arrived according to the logs. Dwarf falling unconscious was the entry after immigrants arriving. I dont recall how long after though, he could have been injured for awhile before falling unconscious.

The 4 i got were:
Miner
Armorer
Weaver
Peasant

Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: avari on December 10, 2007, 06:32:00 am
quote:
Originally posted by Ratha:
[QB]I have a migration issue, but i dont think its related to the original poster. I set my population cap to be 10, and on my first immigration, 4 dwarves came, so my total dwarf population is 11. This is on a fresh install, version 33e.

My understanding is that the population cap number is not the actual absolute maximum population, but that the way it works is that after the value has been reached or surpassed, no new immigration waves occur. I could be wrong though.

Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Wolfius on December 10, 2007, 07:04:00 am
Not sure if it's changed, but pop cap used to just turn off new immigration waves, after the cap was reached, tho there was sometimes a delay upwards of a year befor the cut-off kicked in.

Nobles and their companions are not inhibited by a pop cap, however - they'll come regardless, if you meet their needs.

Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: martinuzz on December 10, 2007, 07:16:00 am
You said you did have goblin sieges.
Did they by any chance inhibit the arrival of the dwarven caravan?
I'm not sure, but I think that you will only get immigrants when a dwarven caravan has come to your fortress and left in one piece to report your fortress' status to the mountainhome. (If you miss them for a year, you will have no immigrants for a year).
Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Ratha on December 10, 2007, 11:34:00 am
About my issue which is different than the topic starter's i started the game with a noble, i guess that might explain the reason ive got 11 instead of 10.
Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Ltheb on December 10, 2007, 11:48:00 am
My Save http://rapidshare.com/files/75633649/nomigrants.zip.html
Note: I had been using some mods, so I included the raws I used, though I don't  think all of them are needed, but just to be sure. I don't believe any of them are the problem, because I have a current fortress with the same raws, and it has 150+  pop and the king is coming soon...
Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Toady One on December 10, 2007, 03:38:00 pm
Okay, I've downloaded it and will take a look at some point.
Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Sappho on December 10, 2007, 03:52:00 pm
I also had this problem when I upgraded from 33b to 33c.  Upgrading to 33d did not fix it, and I haven't gotten 33e yet due to the farming problem.  Once I switched over to c, I stopped getting traders and immigrants entirely.  Before that, I had regular visits from humans, elves, and dwarves.  I continued playing for five more game years, and no one ever came.  Also, none of my dwarves ever had any more children.
Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Ltheb on December 10, 2007, 04:02:00 pm
That sounds like the bug I have. If you are not using any mods, you may want to post your save so Toady can compare. (If that matters, I don't know exactly what he would check)
Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Ratha on December 11, 2007, 12:32:00 am
Ive got my population capped at 10 in the init file.. i think something is broken with the cap. This is on a fresh install of 33e, with no mods, minor tweaking of the init.txt.

Started with 7
First migration +4 = 11 total
Dwarf dies of thirst in winter -1 = 10 total
Second migration +3 = 13 total
Third migration +4 = 17 total

I have 1 noble and 2 peasants, no children.

[ December 11, 2007: Message edited by: Ratha ]

Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Wolfius on December 11, 2007, 05:44:00 am
When are your migrations coming? Traditionally it's taken upwards of a year for the cap to kick in.
Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Ratha on December 13, 2007, 04:02:00 am
I think i just hit my second winter, so from the start however long that is. Is there a way to see what day/month it is rather than just waiting for season announcements?

I figured that the game would do a check of the init before each immigration is rolled, but maybe it does not? Either way, the init hasnt changed since i started this fort.

I think i may have created the fort with a cap of 200, and then changed the init to 10 before i played the fort for the first time. Wonder if that has something to do with it?

Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: avari on December 13, 2007, 07:30:00 am
quote:
Originally posted by Ratha:
Is there a way to see what day/month it is rather than just waiting for season announcements?

The overall status screen (z) shows the date and the season, as well as whether you are early, middle or late into the season.

Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Nil Eyeglazed on December 13, 2007, 05:03:00 pm
I had the same problem when I copied a fortress from 33b to 33c.  Two years after the copy, I had had no traders or migrants show up.  I was receiving both regularly in the 33b version.

For what it's worth, I copied over in the midst of a goblin siege.  The siegers were rapidly routed, but the rout occurred in the 33c version.

Other people posted about a lack of migration in 33c.  A few reported copying a save file; nobody reported problems with a fresh fortress, native to 33c.  It sounded as if the people reporting migration problems had had no migration in their 33b version either.

That suggests to me that some kind of no migrant/trade flag was not being reset properly on the transition, a flag that could be due to a young fortress, or due to the presence of siegers.

I started a new fortress in 33c, and had no problems with migration or trade with it.

Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Alfador on December 14, 2007, 02:24:00 pm
quote:
Originally posted by Ratha:
<STRONG>I think i may have created the fort with a cap of 200, and then changed the init to 10 before i played the fort for the first time. Wonder if that has something to do with it?</STRONG>

AFAIK, the immigration cap is checked and applied on startup, not just when a new fort is created. This way you can change it upwards when you're ready for more immigrants.

Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Toady One on December 14, 2007, 08:46:00 pm
Ltheb, were there ever any dwarven traders?  The lack of migrants is coming from the lack of traders (they need to report back for you to get immigrants later), and it seems like the elven traders are the only ones coming because the edges are iced in that season.  Did your wagon start on the ice?  It might think that's the best entry point for the fortress and disregard that bridge you built later on.  I'll have to think a bit on a fix, since it would be easy to open up a bunch of exploits if you can affect the edges invaders come from and so on.
Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Ltheb on December 14, 2007, 11:58:00 pm
Yes, there were traders; The first year. I know this because the liaison came, and I made the agreement, but had been so busy with construction that I didn't trade with them. I Initially thought that was why they weren't coming back, but 8+ Years is an awfully long time...

And yes, the Wagon did start on the ice. (I think right under the 'middle' of that brige) I was thinking that the traders were trying to arrive on the iced edges during seasons where there isn't ice. (my was to build a re floored border around the edge of the map, but, as you can guess, that would take forever on the 3x~8 map, nor do I recall if you can actually re floor right on the edge...)

Does the code allow traders (and migrants) want to choose impossible routes to your fortress? Like try to make them spawn over Water, and if they can't, don't spawn them at all? Or can it attempt to spawn them on any appropriate square? Also, while players can't affect the outer ~10 or whatever tiles on the map, the player could still re wall a big 'fort' wall around the inside and flood the rest. (or just lock the door) Filling all of the outer most squares with un-pathable tiles like walls would kind of break the game, but on a normal size map, would take forever. World-Flooding or Turtling inside a No-Entrance Fortress are much easier options. (for now :D) That tower and the bridge took me hours and hours of micromanagement to create with SPEED 0 workers; In a normal game, a player simply could not accomplish that in any reasonable amount of time, and I estimate Trapping or Walling off the Outer Edge of a map to be just as much work. (Besides, you would have to wall off all the Z levels, since they would just spawn on top of your walls anyway, and traps would eventually jam)

Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Toady One on December 15, 2007, 04:21:00 pm
Right now the traders check every edge square that was connected to your original wagon (which lead to the problems from your ice wagon, as far as I can tell).
Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Ltheb on December 16, 2007, 01:20:00 am
Well, I checked, it 'seems' that I can indeed refloor around the edges of my whole map. Will it work? I was thinking of reflooring the 3 outer edge tiles. By my estimates, its only 2736 tiles... Plus job cancels...  :roll:
Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Toady One on December 16, 2007, 03:37:00 pm
Since they come in on the ice, it'll probably work.
Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Shadowlord on December 17, 2007, 12:02:00 am
If you built bridges on the edges instead (if possible, and if it works), that would use much less stone than re-flooring with actual floors.

[ December 17, 2007: Message edited by: Shadowlord ]

Title: Re: Problem with Migration
Post by: Ltheb on December 17, 2007, 12:07:00 am
I don't think you can build bridges on the very edge, else a player with enough stone and mechanisms could build the super-smasher-9000, with bridges rapidly smashing the outer tiles through an automatic system. (Lever set to repeat, some sort of water-pressure plate loop, etc) (turned on right after you get all the dwarves you want) Nothing could ever enter the map unless you allow it. (maybe fliers, but I suspect they start on the ground) :)