v0.31:Immigration

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v50.14 · v0.47 · v0.34 · v0.31.25 · v0.28 · v0.23 This article is about an older version of DF. More Info · V

Immigration can occur once per season, and can happen at any time throughout (both early and late season immigrations have been reported)

Smaller migrant waves (2 to 10) seem typical in early seasons, followed by a large wave (low double digits) in the second Spring (one year after embark). Be prepared with adequate Template:L, Template:L, and Template:Ls, among other things. Max wave size reported to date is 28.

Migrants also often bring animals with them. These are often not pets of the migrants, but will always be domestic animals.

It may be the case that the first 2 migrant waves are special and possibly generated out of thin air, like all waves used to be. Even if your parent civilization is extinct, two waves will still show up.

Migrants will have skills that match your fortress' needs: Migrants with skills your fortress uses a lot or skills that your fortress doesn't have at all are more likely to show up at your gates. Important skills (mining, food production and basic crafting according to Toady) are weighed more heavily than other skills.^Source

Labor preference bug

Migrants each can arrive with a wide collection of (often unrelated) skills, far greater than possible with one of the Template:L, and Template:L levels as high as Legendary. Any and all skills might be represented, including obscure military skills (like Template:L), high levels of one or more Template:Ls, Template:L, Template:L and others. It's even possible to have dwarves with skills that may not be obtainable by other means, like Template:L.

Immigrants may have high skills in certain Template:L without actually having them enabled in their labor preferences. This leads to dwarves either doing jobs from an area they are not labeled for or no work at all. For example, an adequate cheese maker (with the cheese making labor turned on) may also have the skill bonecrafting on "high master", albeit turned off in his preferences. The dwarf in question is listed as a bonecrafter on screen and in the Template:L tab, but will only perform the cheese making labor. Individually checking each immigrant for skills and labor preferences is the only workaround so far. But the use of programs such as Template:L can greatly decrease the time taken to check each dwarf's skills.

Military Immigrants

Any immigrant, with (apparently) any collection of skills, may also arrive with some Template:Ls, all of the same Template:L level. These appear consistently to be:

• Armor User
• Fighter
• Dodger

...and one of either...

• Wrestler, Striker, Kicker, or Biter

...or...

• 1 (or more*) weapon skill

and

• Shield user

*If more than 1, then the total experience divided between the skills seems to be approximately equal to that of any of the other skills.^[Verify]

Worldgen Migrants

Migrants can arrive with professions uncommon for Dwarf Fortress mode (such as "Thief", "Merchant", or "Drunk"), and some can even be of other races - it appears to be using existing members of your civilization created during worldgen rather than creating them out of thin air as in previous versions. Such migrants cannot be enlisted in military or assigned labors, but Dwarven ones can still be made into nobles - as they do nothing but drink alcohol, eat food, and sleep, they are oddly ideal candidates.

Limiting/preventing immigration

Immigration should stop when the fortress population exceeds the POPULATION_CAP option found in Template:L; to stop immigration, set it to a number lower than your current population. However, this option doesn't seem to effect the first few immigration waves, and it might only take effect after the first dwarven Template:L leaves your site. ^[Verify] For some people POPULATION_CAP doesn't work at all. ^Bug:2922