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[Tarqiup Inua]

I suppose this was brought up before, but I found no satisfactory answers to this question. With the last version, one can easily get around 100 dwarves within first 2 years and they keep coming. It's always the same - I create somewhat working outpost that can sustain it's dwarves and all of a sudden, number of my dwarves double... so I create additional rooms, my fortress has to expand almost twice in order to facilitate all those newcomers and all of a sudden, another wave which almost doubles my population!

I find this distasteful, it pretty much kills the game for me... I like planning my fortress a lot in advance and having to pause every season just to figure out what should my fortress look like when it's twice its current size annoys me beyond measure.

So my question to you would be - what should I do? How do I deal with those little bearded leeches that raid your food supply, socialize around and have less than desirable skill sets (well, not always).

I heard there was thing called population cap, how do I set it?

Can I reduce the number of migrants, somehow? I heard the wealth somehow affects it... number of things you sell to the caravan, perhaps?

If I make fort near pole - in forbidding wilderness on an evil glacier, will that reduce dwarves desire to visit me?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Let's answer these questions one by one.

I suppose this was brought up before, but I found no satisfactory answers to this question. With the last version, one can easily get around 100 dwarves within first 2 years and they keep coming. It's always the same - I create somewhat working outpost that can sustain it's dwarves and all of a sudden, number of my dwarves double... so I create additional rooms, my fortress has to expand almost twice in order to facilitate all those newcomers and all of a sudden, another wave which almost doubles my population!

I haven't gotten quite that high a population, but my playstyle tends to discourage and/or kill migrants.

So my question to you would be - what should I do? How do I deal with those little bearded leeches that raid your food supply, socialize around and have less than desirable skill sets (well, not always).

Murder, Military, or Megaprojects: The Three M's of Migrants. (Not to be confused with Mechanisms, Mugs, and Megaprojects, the Three M's of Spare Stone.)
I typically go with "Military." It can also accomplish "Murder," but productively.

I heard there was thing called population cap, how do I set it?

It's in data/init.

Can I reduce the number of migrants, somehow? I heard the wealth somehow affects it... number of things you sell to the caravan, perhaps?

No, the value of what you make. Don't start engraving or metalworking en masse until you have enough space to put your dwarves.

If I make fort near pole - in forbidding wilderness on an evil glacier, will that reduce dwarves desire to visit me?

No. It might reduce the number who make it to the fortress entrance, depending on the type of evil we're talking.

[Garath]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

in your DF folder

data => init => init.txt

note that pop_cap is not a set number, but a "somewhere around but not under this number" and will be checked with the caravan. So if the traders arrive and you have less than the pop_cap, you'll get 3 migrant waves - untill the next caravan arrive.

I found setting it around 70 usually got me about 100 migrants. Basically, you get the first year, you wan the next year to get to 60+ dwarfs, but make it stop afterwards, set to 50 and you should be fine barring strange events

keeping your fortress wealth low seems to keep the number of migrants per wave down, so mass producing gold crafts (or even rock crafts, or mechanisms) is a no-go, as is smoothing and enraving. Just the bare living conditions.

If you set weapon traps to catch invaders for example, don't stuff them full. You need the larger field anyway in case of jams, and they don't need to be ful to be lethal and most importantly, that way you don't create extra wealth over what is needed. 10 weapon traps with 3 discs is more effective than 3 with 10

if a large number of dwarfs died recently, migrants might not show up due to horrible rumors

the region you embark has no effect as long as it's reachable

includes:

what he said plus some more on pop_cap

[Finn]

I find this distasteful, it pretty much kills the game for me... I like planning my fortress a lot in advance and having to pause every season just to figure out what should my fortress look like when it's twice its current size annoys me beyond measure.

So my question to you would be - what should I do? How do I deal with those little bearded leeches that raid your food supply, socialize around and have less than desirable skill sets (well, not always).

I'm going to give you a slightly different answer, though there is nothing wrong with setting pop-cap, I do it all the time.  When you carefully plan your fort, why don't you plan for the migrants as well since you know they are coming?

The Mountain King has decided that a new Home must be established.  He has sent 7 of his most capable ahead to strike the earth.  Behind them will follow a rag-tag train of desperate rejects, the worst the kingdom has to offer.  Can you lead this this motely crew?   Can you guide them towards building the greatest Home of all the ages?  Or will the rats gnaw on your rotting bones?

(Dwarves minimum requirements are food, drink, occasional clothing and a place to sleep.  Make a dormitory and put all migrants to work making either food, drink or clothing until you find something better for them to do.)

[Vndetta]

Just wanted to add that if you limit your pop cap, it's important to also note the separate setting for babies. In my most recent fort I set the pop cap to 80, which worked great, but neglected the baby cap and ended up with 60 or so extra children (apparently a lot of my dwarves are married). Whenever you lower the baby cap, existing pregnancies will still complete, but new ones won't occur until the number of babies falls below the cap. The OP's original concern (of forced fortress expansion) would still be a problem if all married females are each popping out a new citizen once a year.

You can raise or lower either setting at any time during play, although as mentioned the pop cap re: migrants is dependent on the dwarven caravan reporting back, which can cause discrepancies in the number you actually end up with. There's a DFHack script that lets you "insta-report" your cap limit to the game to avoid this problem.

[Sutremaine]

So my question to you would be - what should I do? How do I deal with those little bearded leeches that raid your food supply, socialize around and have less than desirable skill sets (well, not always).

Give them desirable skillsets, in skills that won't be too badly impacted by their initial low skill. Try mining, plant gathering, plant processing, brewing, or whichever furniture-making skill you have the most materials for (hint hint). As for the fortress planning issue, extra dwarves don't really need much extra space, nor do they need bedrooms as long as the other aspects of their lives are pleasant enough.

If I make fort near pole - in forbidding wilderness on an evil glacier, will that reduce dwarves desire to visit me?

You wish. :/

[Tevish Szat]

Murder, Military, or Megaprojects: The Three M's of Migrants.

This is absolutley correct. 

In an average fort, I usually have very few dwarves highly skilled in workshop labors: barring moods, it's liable to be 1-2 carpenters, 2-3 masons, 3-5 craftsdwarves (Stone and bone), and a mechanic (7-11 total dwarves) plus members of other industries that I start up later like metal.

At maximum, I have "full employment" for 20 worker dwarves, 4 miners, 2 engravers, a broker/expedition leader, a bookkeeper/manager, a CMD, and about a dozen dwarves in the food production industry (A brewer, a butcher/tanner, and a bunch of planters) -- or just north of 40 dwarves

It's probably worthwhile, depending on the fort, to then have a proportion of your functional dwarves in Haulers -- between 25% and 100% depending on how far-flung your fort is, how many haulage solutions you employ, and how aggressive you are disabling hauling on more useful dwarves.  Let's say 50% haulers (20 haulers for 40 dwarves: a bit much for many fortresses, but it keeps everything running SMOOTH)

After that, I find my full employment comes from the M of "Megaprojects!"  builder slaves get masonry and hauling enabled, possibly mechanics or stone detailing if I'm using those skills.  If they get masonry or mechanics, workshops that care about quality are profiled to take only skilled workers (the mason's workshop on Rock Blocks/R can take the dabbling slaves).  I can use Close To an infinite number of such dwarves, who do nothing but assemble constructions, put up buildings, and haul shit -- but having them ups my need for farmers too.  At this point, we've broken 80 and are getting sieges...

Then there's military, the need for which cannot be overstated.  Well, maybe it can: a truly diabolical trap setup and some conservative construction will protect you from everything but above-ground titans, but dwarves that are armed, armored, and trained are a far more versitile way to defend a fortress from the goblin menace.  Again, with some concessions towards increased infrastructure needs, you can literally eat up infinite dwarves in the fortress military.  I like to keep 25% of my total population as active duty military (20 dwarves if my pop is 80, for instance)

A word of warning about drafting "junk" dwarves into the military though: Migrants can come in families of significant size.  You can conscript single dwarves only (the ones nobody will miss), conscript the entire adult family (So they "don't care about anything anymore" and/or "Took joy in a slaughter" when a loved one dies), or deal with a tantrum spiral when Urist McMilitaryWife the Megaproject Slave becomes Urist McMilitaryWidow.

[CaptApollo12]

I draft them all and make them go to a bridge above my misty, artifact full, caged animal full, engraved dining room that is open to sunlight. In the middle are glass windows and spike traps set to repeat. My dwarves no longer care about anything, and my migrants are no longer a problem. If you really dont want those migrants you can always lock them out. Make a minecart jump that will take gathered plants to the fortress until goblins kill your migrant wave. I like to use my dining room because i can take them right away to thier casket.

[Blue_Dwarf]

We should have the ability to make migrant crafts, migrant pots, migrant blocks and migrant press cakes...