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Author Topic: Migrant Cap  (Read 2088 times)

snow dwarf

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Migrant Cap
« on: September 18, 2018, 10:52:59 pm »

What are your thoughts on playing around with migrant cap? It's definitely easier to manage if you only have ~60 dwarves, but at the same time it feels kind of like cheating.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2018, 11:20:54 pm »

What are your thoughts on playing around with migrant cap? It's definitely easier to manage if you only have ~60 dwarves, but at the same time it feels kind of like cheating.
It's an option in the options list. How can it be cheating?
Set it to whatever you want. You cant cheat in a game you can't win.
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mikekchar

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #2 on: September 19, 2018, 01:25:05 am »

Definitely agree.  DF has a lot of playing styles, which is one of the charms.  I think DF is best when you set your own house rules.  For example, my current game has a population cap, but I don't have bridges blocking entrances to the fort.  I also don't use cage traps (except to capture wildlife for breeding purposes).  I *need* the population cap to give me enough time to design a fortress where I can defend it without using those things.  I'm also experimenting with the needs system so I don't want to be overwhelmed with hundreds of dwarfs.  Unless I throw an Armok tantrum and reforge the world, I'll get there eventually, but in this play through I'm focusing on other areas.
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Ziusudra

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #3 on: September 19, 2018, 01:41:19 am »

We got Archcrystal thanks to being able to limit the migrant cap.
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Fleeting Frames

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #4 on: September 19, 2018, 01:02:02 pm »

I like it (and like to use max-wave.lua to limit migrant wave size as well), but yeah it's definitely lot easier to play (though not easier as game) without having to spend hours assigning labours or having game go faster than Goatmaan's 2 fps in his aiming for 1k dwarfs forts so I can understand why you'd call it kind of cheating.

Setting it to 1 results in quite a bit more attention to births and visitor petitions, which are pretty insignificant when you get two-digit migrant groups several times a year, so it can be firmly said to do a large change to game's nature.

Madrigal

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #5 on: September 19, 2018, 08:36:06 pm »

If reaching a fort size of 200 typically took 10 in-game years or more, I might feel bad about reducing the population cap. But with the game as it is, I can reach that population number partway through year 4 with a fairly bare-bones fort (under 200k created wealth), which seems unbalanced or unintentional to me.

In one of the Future of the Fortress posts (this one) there was a very brief mention of introducing negative quality levels for crafting (in the distant future of the game, I assume). A change like that would, I think, drastically reduce a fort's created wealth value, especially in the early years when skills are low. If that value affects migrant numbers, as the wiki indicates, then the current high migrant load might be an aberration instead of intended gameplay. So I don't feel bad at all about limiting a fort's population to what it "should" be, given its short history and limited wealth.
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Dozebôm Lolumzalìs

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #6 on: September 19, 2018, 09:05:17 pm »

Well, I might consider it "cheating" to turn off caveins and temperature and proceed to build a floating fortress in the magma sea...

Never mind, that's so awesome that I don't care whether it's cheating.
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Schmaven

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #7 on: September 19, 2018, 09:10:23 pm »

Well, I might consider it "cheating" to turn off caveins and temperature and proceed to build a floating fortress in the magma sea...

Never mind, that's so awesome that I don't care whether it's cheating.

That sounds like 1 of the victory conditions to me
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Dozebôm Lolumzalìs

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #8 on: September 19, 2018, 09:19:47 pm »

If reaching a fort size of 200 typically took 10 in-game years or more, I might feel bad about reducing the population cap. But with the game as it is, I can reach that population number partway through year 4 with a fairly bare-bones fort (under 200k created wealth), which seems unbalanced or unintentional to me.

In one of the Future of the Fortress posts (this one) there was a very brief mention of introducing negative quality levels for crafting (in the distant future of the game, I assume). A change like that would, I think, drastically reduce a fort's created wealth value, especially in the early years when skills are low. If that value affects migrant numbers, as the wiki indicates, then the current high migrant load might be an aberration instead of intended gameplay. So I don't feel bad at all about limiting a fort's population to what it "should" be, given its short history and limited wealth.
Wait, why should some shoddy chairs in a dirt hovel attract people less than a bare dirt hovel? Why not just scale all migrant values down in the beginning, rather than penalizing unskilled crafting?
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Madrigal

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #9 on: September 19, 2018, 09:48:32 pm »

Wait, why should some shoddy chairs in a dirt hovel attract people less than a bare dirt hovel?

Huh?

Right now, the worst possible chair is worth 10, right? In the future, if the game is changed to include negative quality levels, a really crappy chair might be worth only 2. So an early fort with 3 chairs (plus the other bare minimum stuff, like workshops, depot, entrance drawbridge...) would likely have a lower value than it does now, so would hopefully attract fewer migrants. That's all I meant to say.
« Last Edit: September 19, 2018, 10:04:02 pm by Madrigal »
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snow dwarf

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #10 on: September 19, 2018, 10:45:49 pm »

Wait, why should some shoddy chairs in a dirt hovel attract people less than a bare dirt hovel?

Huh?

Right now, the worst possible chair is worth 10, right? In the future, if the game is changed to include negative quality levels, a really crappy chair might be worth only 2. So an early fort with 3 chairs (plus the other bare minimum stuff, like workshops, depot, entrance drawbridge...) would likely have a lower value than it does now, so would hopefully attract fewer migrants. That's all I meant to say.
Oh I thought you meant that a very crappy chare will have a value of -10
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Madrigal

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #11 on: September 19, 2018, 11:08:59 pm »

Oh I thought you meant that a very crappy chare will have a value of -10

I sure hope it wouldn't work that way!  (Keeping in mind this is all speculation right now.)
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mikekchar

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #12 on: September 20, 2018, 07:25:30 am »

I have specifically tried to have the lowest possible value fort.  It did not significantly affect the migrant wave size as far as I could tell.  I've done some low point / no dig / no anvil challenges before.  I *still* got pretty big migrant waves, even though I had *nothing*.  If the wealth does anything at all towards migrant wave size, it's minimal.
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #13 on: September 20, 2018, 11:03:10 am »

I have specifically tried to have the lowest possible value fort.  It did not significantly affect the migrant wave size as far as I could tell.  I've done some low point / no dig / no anvil challenges before.  I *still* got pretty big migrant waves, even though I had *nothing*.  If the wealth does anything at all towards migrant wave size, it's minimal.
I think I've seen a difference in the number of migrants received for a dead civ based on value: there seems to be fewer migrants in the two waves combined when I have an aquifer to pierce than when I don't (as aquifer piercing takes efforts from digging and building, the way I do things, and there's no stone to turn into mechanisms and furniture). The sample is too small to be conclusive, though.
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Fleeting Frames

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Re: Migrant Cap
« Reply #14 on: September 20, 2018, 01:08:59 pm »

For measuing impact, I'd go by second spring migrant wave size (3rd wave), rather, as by then caravan has reported your wealth back. Fort 1, just live off herbalism and water, no brought items. Fort 2, dig straight down to adamantine and make as many axeblades as you can (and perhaps trade half to caravan; I've anecdotally noticed differences with that in visitors at least in 42.06 but I'd want further data to confirm).
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