40d:Immigration

v50.12 · v0.47 · v0.34 · v0.31 · v0.28.181.40d · v0.23 This article is about an older version of DF. More Info · V

Immigration can occur during any Template:L. A migrant is a member of a wave of immigration.

Migrants will spawn at the edge of your local zone and move towards any meeting area that you have designated. They will travel single file from this one location until the last one of this wave has arrived.

If there is no meeting zone they will simply sit at the edge of the map until their "migrant" status fades and they find a Template:L. Keep in mind that they can spawn on any open edge of the map, on any Z-level; if there is no available path to your Template:L, they will sit and wait until one is opened up or until they go crazy and die. Additionally, if you change orders so that Dwarves are not allowed outside (o - i) immediately after immigrants begin arriving they will freeze in place, with no path to your fortress. Some players have reported that their migrants spawn in the middle of nowhere. This behaviour is a bug, though an entertaining one.

By default, immigration will stop when your fortress reaches 200 or more, but you can change this in the Template:L file. It will take several years to reach this number, assuming you want to reach it at all. Once your population falls below this number, immigration will begin again.

How immigration is calculated

Immigration figures are influenced by your fortress's total "Created Template:L", probably further influenced by reporting of the yearly dwarven Template:L.^[Verify] If, for any reason, the caravan does not arrive, or does not make it off the map alive the first year, no wealth is reported^[Verify], and this will seriously hurt your chances for immigration.^[Verify] Later, if they fail to make it off your map, then the previous year's caravan report is used to determine the next immigration waves.^[Verify] The other known factor that influences immigration is that dwarf deaths in your fortress will make immigrating dwarves scared, reducing immigrant numbers possibly down to zero. If this reduces the number of immigrants, the message announcing the seasonal immigrants will include comments to this effect.

Created Wealth is visible on the Status (z) screen once you get a Template:L with the Template:L skill. All objects with any Template:L (including mined-out areas, Template:L, and just about every kind of created Template:L) will be included in the total. Template:L usually are one of the largest influences of fortress wealth. Artifacts made of precious resources and heavily Template:L can potentially double fortress wealth early in the game. Forbidden items are included in your wealth "properly" as of 09/02/2008.

It is not a hard formula - identical fortresses with identical created wealth will tend to get more or less based on that wealth, but can experience some differences in the exact number arriving. The wealth seems to create a target number, and the exact number of immigrants varies around that target.

Immigration is rarely greater than 24 dwarves per wave, not including Template:Ls, Template:L and spouses, though rarely larger numbers have been reported.

Immigration will be stopped if your fortress reaches the Population Cap set in the Template:L file, but a given wave may cause your total to exceed that number. If your current population is even 1 less than the Population Cap, a full wave of 2 dozen (or more?) immigrants can arrive.

When does Immigration usually occur?

Usually you have to wait until the dwarven Template:L arrives - and leaves alive - in Template:L to start the immigrants on their way. If the caravan reports a high Created Wealth (of perhaps over 60,000? - an approximate number, there is no hard formula or known cutpoint), you can expect to receive maybe eight or more migrants in Template:L after the Caravan, and/or more in the Template:L following. If your dwarves are extremely productive, immigration can occur before the caravan arrives, in Autumn or even in Template:L of your first year. Even with low created wealth, immigration does usually begin in Spring of the second year on.

Migrants seem to have a greater tendency to arrive in Spring and in greater numbers, but can arrive in any season.

Immigrants' skills

Migrants are never very skilled. They arrive with one of the following mixes:

• Template:Ls - No skills at all
• Novice level (level 1) of two or three related skills from a single Template:L
• A (no adjective) level (level 2) of a single Template:L
• A Template:L - Novice level each of Template:L, Template:L, one Template:L (and Template:L if not a Template:L.)

Migrants will sometimes bring their unskilled Template:Ls, Template:Lren, and even their Template:L Template:Ls. Children can perform some jobs, and will slowly grow to become adults, and any adult dwarf can be given any job, and eventually learn that Template:L while performing that Template:L.

How to influence the types of dwarves that immigrate

Note that the greater the number of dwarven Template:Ls, the greater your ability to influence immigration.^[Verify]

The immigrants' Template:L/Template:L might be influenced by the type and number of Template:L available, but also might be influenced by the population of the surviving dwarven civilizations. (Similar to that Template:Ls sometimes have dwarves in their armies, that were previously snatched from you!)

Template:L will only arrive if you have made or decorated their type of Template:L; if you make one Template:L, you will only get Template:L. If you make a Template:L and a Template:L, you will get Template:L and Template:L. This is not affected by weapons brought to your fort; getting immigrant Template:Ls won't let you get immigrant axedwarves. It is not known if the number of weapons created matters.^[Verify]

When you meet certain requirements in your outpost, like population or created wealth, some Template:L will immigrate, like the Template:L.

Immigrant's equipment

A migrant may not always come with the necessary equipment to perform their jobs. For example, a Template:L may or may not come with a Template:L. Template:L may appear with only the clothes on their back, or geared up in full steel armor and weapon. Rarely, a migrant may come with equipment they don't need to do their jobs - for example, a Template:L may come with a Template:L.

What are the drawbacks to immigration?

Most of the time, immigration is a Good Thing, and the more, the merrier. More dwarves means more work gets done (especially hauling, since immigrants are basically peasants), more dwarves can be given "luxury" tasks like defending the fortress or making Template:Ld Template:L, and some nobles require a certain number of dwarves before they arrive. However, more dwarves also means more CPU cycles eaten up, especially if your fortress is already taxing on your computer.

Of course, additional dwarves also require additional Template:Ls, workshops, and Template:L before they can be properly productive, and some players prefer to increase their population slowly to allow them to add the extra infrastructure at a more sedate pace.

Useless tossers Nobles also can come with immigration waves and will require posh rooms immediately and other items eventually.

How can I curb immigration?

The easiest method to handle immigration is to change the point when immigration stops in Template:L, under "population_cap". You can first set it low and raise it as you see fit. Note that you may consider this to be cheating, and it also requires exiting the game each time you want more immigrants.

You can also make sure your fort does not produce or build much. Of course, this is not an especially interesting way to play the game. Since artifacts often account for most of your fortress' wealth, killing dwarves that enter Template:Ls, or turning the moods off entirely in the init file, may be a better option. This can often be accomplished by making sure all your Template:Ls are in enclosed Template:Ls, then locking the Template:L on them until they go Template:L, then starve to death. This has a drawback in that dwarves that do manage to produce an artifact often gain a desirable Template:L Template:L. Lock the door at your own discretion.

You can also kill the immigrants themselves, deliberately or otherwise. Large numbers of deaths will reduce immigration or prevent it entirely.

Several immigration messages are possible:

• A migrant have arrived.

This occurs when only one migrant comes.

• Some migrants have arrived.

This is the normal message.

• Some migrants have arrived, despite the danger.

This occurs if there are many deaths but not enough to stop immigration.

• Migrants were too nervous to make the journey this season.

No migrants.

• Some migrants have decided to brave this terrifying place, knowing it may be their tomb.

Appears to be caused by a lot of deaths (80+?) yet with a fortress wealthy enough (2 million?) to attract immigrants anyway. The death of Nobles appears to carry significantly more weight than non-noble dwarves, and may well be a qualifier in and of itself. ^[Verify]

• Migrants refused to journey to such a dangerous fortress this season

Very large numbers of deaths at a fortress can cause all immigration (except nobles) to cease for a while. Killing nobles seems to have a magnified effect here, and killing even a single noble can cause no immigrants to arrive in the next Template:L.

• No one even considered making the journey to such a cursed death-trap this season.

Like above, but even worse - so many dwarves have died at your fortress (whether due to invasions, Template:L, or death-traps gone horribly wrong) that nobody wants to come anywhere near your fortress.

Migrants in Template:L

Roving bands of migrants may be found on the world map. These migrants can be linked to any of the major civilizations found on the world. This includes Template:Ls and Template:Ls. Such bands will consist of non-specialized adults and children.

Migration Effects on the World

It is possible for migration to change the population levels of settlements on the map over time, and to cause factions of a civilization to merge. This can be discovered through talking to individuals in Adventurer mode, and will subsequently show up in Template:L.

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