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[postm00v]

I want to start a fortress that's totally dependent on births. I understand from reading various topics that I can't disable the first two migrant waves, but if I set the popcap at 7 those will be the only migrants. The strict popcap is at 150 (to allow a queen/king at some point).

Also, is there a way to make sure the migrants that do come have no previous family/relations?

[Telgin]

Pretty sure you can't, at least not without some major work in DFHack or a similar tool.  One thing you can try is to have as short of a history as possible though, since I'm pretty sure having fewer historical figures and history in general will reduce the number of migrants with families.  I'm pretty sure the game will just invent dwarves on the spot if it doesn't have enough historical figures to draw from, although I don't know if that will guarantee that they aren't related to any other migrants.

[PatrikLundell]

The pop cap bug was fixed years ago, so the two first migrant waves respect the pop cap. Thus, a pop cap of 1 -7 will block migrants (with 7 you're going to eventually get losses recovered, which I suspect you don't want). Actually dead civs won't generate any migrants beyond the two first waves, so if you block out those you won't get any replacements, but you should probably use a pop cap of 1, as there's no point in a higher number for a no migrant fortress.

Void dorf can be married to each other, and they can be a parent and a kid (and probably both parents and several kids if the RNGs align).

It can be noted, though, that breeding a fortress from the starting 7 is doomed fairly frequently, as age, gender distribution, and sexual preferences, coupled with personality, can frequently lead to a starting 7 team which doesn't have two compatible pairs (which is required for a second generation). It's possible to work around this by backing out from embarking and restarting if examination of the 7 while on the embark purchase screen shows a poor cast.

I play dead civs, and receive the two starting waves, resulting in a pop ranging from 12 to 22 or so, and I tend to manage to cobble together 2-5 couples, provided the starting 7 passes a basic pre embark screening (6 of 1 gender and 1 of the other isn't a good start...).

[vjmdhzgr]

The pop cap bug was fixed years ago, so the two first migrant waves respect the pop cap. Thus, a pop cap of 1 -7 will block migrants (with 7 you're going to eventually get losses recovered, which I suspect you don't want). Actually dead civs won't generate any migrants beyond the two first waves, so if you block out those you won't get any replacements, but you should probably use a pop cap of 1, as there's no point in a higher number for a no migrant fortress.

Void dorf can be married to each other, and they can be a parent and a kid (and probably both parents and several kids if the RNGs align).

It can be noted, though, that breeding a fortress from the starting 7 is doomed fairly frequently, as age, gender distribution, and sexual preferences, coupled with personality, can frequently lead to a starting 7 team which doesn't have two compatible pairs (which is required for a second generation). It's possible to work around this by backing out from embarking and restarting if examination of the 7 while on the embark purchase screen shows a poor cast.

I play dead civs, and receive the two starting waves, resulting in a pop ranging from 12 to 22 or so, and I tend to manage to cobble together 2-5 couples, provided the starting 7 passes a basic pre embark screening (6 of 1 gender and 1 of the other isn't a good start...).

The pop cap thing was never a bug. It's just that the outpost liaison is the one who checks your pop cap and the outpost liaison only visits after two migrant waves. If the caravan arrives earlier in the year, like Summer or Spring, then it can stop migrant waves.

When and how was it fixed though? I don't remember ever noticing that, aside from the addition of the strict pop cap which can be used instead.

[PatrikLundell]

The pop cap bug was fixed years ago, so the two first migrant waves respect the pop cap. Thus, a pop cap of 1 -7 will block migrants (with 7 you're going to eventually get losses recovered, which I suspect you don't want). Actually dead civs won't generate any migrants beyond the two first waves, so if you block out those you won't get any replacements, but you should probably use a pop cap of 1, as there's no point in a higher number for a no migrant fortress.

Void dorf can be married to each other, and they can be a parent and a kid (and probably both parents and several kids if the RNGs align).

It can be noted, though, that breeding a fortress from the starting 7 is doomed fairly frequently, as age, gender distribution, and sexual preferences, coupled with personality, can frequently lead to a starting 7 team which doesn't have two compatible pairs (which is required for a second generation). It's possible to work around this by backing out from embarking and restarting if examination of the 7 while on the embark purchase screen shows a poor cast.

I play dead civs, and receive the two starting waves, resulting in a pop ranging from 12 to 22 or so, and I tend to manage to cobble together 2-5 couples, provided the starting 7 passes a basic pre embark screening (6 of 1 gender and 1 of the other isn't a good start...).

The pop cap thing was never a bug. It's just that the outpost liaison is the one who checks your pop cap and the outpost liaison only visits after two migrant waves. If the caravan arrives earlier in the year, like Summer or Spring, then it can stop migrant waves.

When and how was it fixed though? I don't remember ever noticing that, aside from the addition of the strict pop cap which can be used instead.

A faulty design can still be a bug. Using the outpost liaison is a faulty design resulting in a pop cap bug, both because the cap doesn't work before the liaison arrives normally, and because it continues to ignore the pop cap when the liaison fails to show up (e.g. due to a necro siege).
Anyway, it has been fixed for quite some time: I've never encountered it (and I used the pop cap to pace migrant influx in 0.40.X).

[mikekchar]

I can verify that the pop cap worked recently (in 44.10 IIRC).  I was surprised as I thought I'd be forced to get the first two waves, but it didn't happen.

[postm00v]

Great, that's good to know. I was wondering if I could lower the amount of starting dwarves. I read about a DFHack command, but I keep getting an error when I try to set it at a lower amount than 7.

Is there a different way of doing this, or is it impossible?

EDIT : Never mind, I found a way to do it.

[PatrikLundell]

"Nevermind, I fixed the problem" posts are good in that it tells others that you need no more assistance, but bad in that any other people with the same issue are left in the dark.

Please post what your solution was, so others can make use of it.

[Telgin]

When and how was it fixed though? I don't remember ever noticing that, aside from the addition of the strict pop cap which can be used instead.

Can't comment on when it was fixed, but I'm pretty sure Toady changed it so that the limit was just applied when the game launched from now on instead of waiting for the liaison to report it.  I seem to recall him saying something about not being sure why he did it that way to begin with.

[postm00v]

"Nevermind, I fixed the problem" posts are good in that it tells others that you need no more assistance, but bad in that any other people with the same issue are left in the dark.

Please post what your solution was, so others can make use of it.

You're quite right. I downloaded a DFhack lua, which lets met exile a dwarf without incurring unhappy thoughts on the rest.

[Shonai_Dweller]

"Nevermind, I fixed the problem" posts are good in that it tells others that you need no more assistance, but bad in that any other people with the same issue are left in the dark.

Please post what your solution was, so others can make use of it.

You're quite right. I downloaded a DFhack lua, which lets met exile a dwarf without incurring unhappy thoughts on the rest.

You know you can exile dorfs in vanilla now, right?
Doesn't cause unhappy thoughts in anyone. They'll take their family and pets with them, but none of the starting seven are related so that doesn't really matter.

[postm00v]

You know you can exile dorfs in vanilla now, right?
Doesn't cause unhappy thoughts in anyone. They'll take their family and pets with them, but none of the starting seven are related so that doesn't really matter.

How do I do that? I think I tried a 'exile' command before and that didn't work.

[Shonai_Dweller]

You know you can exile dorfs in vanilla now, right?
Doesn't cause unhappy thoughts in anyone. They'll take their family and pets with them, but none of the starting seven are related so that doesn't really matter.

How do I do that? I think I tried a 'exile' command before and that didn't work.

Should be in the v-p preferences screen. You can't exile the expedition leader though. Everyone else should work (and if not, please post a bug report, it's a new feature so should get fixed by the next version).

[mikekchar]

PatrikLundell specialises in that and I believe he has a lot of problems because even when the populations are said to be dead, they may not be.  If you are mostly interested in making sure there are no organised dwarfs around and are OK with a "mostly dead" civ, I would recommend the following.  Remember that DF has a distinction between general population and "historical figures".  In other words, because it's too expensive to model every single being in the world, only some of them are modelled.  The rest are just groups of population.  The ones that are modelled are known as "historical figures".  You world can actually have no dwarfs in it, but the civ is not dead.  What happens is that when the game needs more dwarfs, it poofs them into existence -- these are so called "void dwarfs".  You can tell they are "void" because they have no history and no family.

As far as I can tell, if you set your population cap to 1, then the game will *never* make void dwarfs.  Sometimes civs can be "not quite dead" because some random historical figure is hiding out in the ruins of a fortress.  Sometimes it's because a dwarf got enslaved by the humans and ended up in the human civ -- except they are still the military commander of the dwarven civ.  Sometimes it's because a goblin went to study with a dwarf master and thereby became part of the civ -- and is immortal, so refuses to die.  There are lots and lots of ways the civ can be basically dead, but "not quite dead yet".

So if your goal is to play in fortress mode and never see another dwarf, setting the population cap to 1 and making sure that the dwarf civs are all at least "mostly dead" -- that should do the trick (you might still get a caravan....  maybe...).  Even if you *do* see a dwarf, it will be basically a miracle -- the military commander of the dead civ, leaves their hiding place in the ruined fortress and seeks out your starting seven.  I think that would be pretty cool, personally.

But like I said, PatrikLundell will be able to give you better advice.

[mikekchar]

its [POPULATION_CAP:1]  in your d_init.txt file in data/init directory.  Just set it to 1 like I have it there and you will never get migrants.  The one below it, [STRICT_POPULATION_CAP:220] indicates the point at which dwarfs will stop getting pregnant.