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Author Topic: Can anything be done about migrations?  (Read 1258 times)

Snow Gibbon

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Can anything be done about migrations?
« on: November 24, 2017, 11:01:34 pm »

Hey all,
I'm a super old DF veteran coming back. Lately (and by lately I mean since about 2010) I've been pretty disgruntled at the migration rate - In 40d days getting a migrant wave was a bit of an achievement to get, nowadays you're pretty much guaranteed a swarm of 20 dudes within the first two seasons and it ruins the sense of progression. Migrants have always been in the "Its hardcoded" zone, has anything changed recently?
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scamtank

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Re: Can anything be done about migrations?
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2017, 12:28:31 am »

Nothing without external help, at least. The limits in the inits are the only dials we get.
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Manzeenan

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Re: Can anything be done about migrations?
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2017, 11:16:55 am »

i mean.. you can set a population cap? then just slowly accept visitors and get them citizenship as a roundabout way to control the influx of bodies to the fort
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Alpaq

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Re: Can anything be done about migrations?
« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2017, 01:44:07 pm »

As for my opinion: getting migration is one thing, making use of it is another, so migrants can be good but also often this riff-raff is completely useless mouths to feed in the begining and it only complicates situation in the fortress before you get them to use. I would not say it affects balance that much, I'd say it shifts the game focus to more of a macro-management one.
Maybe a world with very low dwarf pop or embarking in some desolate place would change migration values? I didn't experiment with this.
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Can anything be done about migrations?
« Reply #4 on: November 26, 2017, 11:10:06 am »

As for my opinion: getting migration is one thing, making use of it is another, so migrants can be good but also often this riff-raff is completely useless mouths to feed in the begining and it only complicates situation in the fortress before you get them to use. I would not say it affects balance that much, I'd say it shifts the game focus to more of a macro-management one.
Maybe a world with very low dwarf pop or embarking in some desolate place would change migration values? I didn't experiment with this.

There are no 'useless mouths to feed' in the game, except maybe children for a given number of years.  Almost everyone can haul stuff and in the game most work is hauling, not crafting production or anything cool or particularly dwarfy. 

There is also really no need to even bother to manage the labours of your dwarves in the present version, except when you have a small number of dwarves in your fortress.  If you have over 50 dwarves, chances are there is a already a dwarf with a labour to do whatever you want doing; so the game will get it done in a negligible amount of time.  Even if only one dwarf is doing to job, he can easily glut the fortress with far more stuff than you have a use for in about a month. 

The more people, the easier the game.  The fewer people, the harder the game and the more actual management is needed.
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soulmata

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Re: Can anything be done about migrations?
« Reply #5 on: November 30, 2017, 03:46:30 pm »

By lowering population cap in my last game I completely disabled all migration waves - even the "hardcoded" ones didn't show up. It was a beautiful 1x1 fort in which all dwarves were descendants of the first 7. You could give that a try.
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Jazz Cat

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Re: Can anything be done about migrations?
« Reply #6 on: November 30, 2017, 08:00:43 pm »

There's a DFHack script that will automatically adjust the population cap to limit the migration wave size. Of course, DFHack's not out yet for 44.xx.
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Snow Gibbon

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Re: Can anything be done about migrations?
« Reply #7 on: December 06, 2017, 04:40:04 am »

I'm not worried about migration size but migration frequency. They were much rarer as I liked it and now I learn it's hardcoded that you get them in the first year, that doesn't sit right with me at all. I suppose I'll check-in in another 18 months then.
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