What happens when I get like 50 million dwarves in my base?

[Lord Haart]

...And I can't keep track of them all.

What do you do ?



ty

[IHateThinkingOfUsernames]

set population cap if you aren't for ridiculous dwarf population sizes.

[AmesNFire]

The default pop cap is 220 (assuming you have tons of kids running around).
You could just... not change the default cap?

[Nakaris]

If you get this high pop send me your pc specs. xDDD

[Mysticara]

There are just quips and things I've noticed when I've been playing with larger population forts.

Once the Fortress population starts to grow, you have a few options and things you need to keep in mind. First of all is FPS. The more entities and activities in a fort, the more it'll burn your FPS down. This happens not only with dwarves but pets too (see Catsplosion), so you do need to actively scour at what population size your game starts to lag out to a point it feels unplayable. Personally I've had a situation where I had a dwarf population of roughly 750 and 3000+ animals, cause I was testing out leather industry and taming and ended up letting my turkeys and other egg layers get out of control. Thus the game ran at 1 FPS. The specs of your computer do affect it and I think it's a bit more balanced in the Steam version as well so far.

For population control you can either use the population cap limits to ensure your fort doesn't grow uncontrollably, banish incomers, make military squads and send them out on constant missions, or conquer a remote site and keep sending workers in there.

* Population cap will affect the rate of birth as well as migrants arriving. It's the easiest solution, you can adjust it as you go and learn the game more.
* Banishing migrants basically sends them away from your fort and civilization. They will get an unhappy thought and just leave.
* Sending workers to a remote site keeps them at your use if needed, and you can send a messenger to request workers from the settlement if you need extra hands in your current fort. It does require you to conquer a place through military missions first though. I've personally used it to send all my angry tantrum prone people to "work remotely".
* Creating a massive military and sending squads out on constant missions keeps the extra hands out of your hair for a while. If they succeed in a mission they will also bring in goodies for you to use, new workers or even pets. If they don't succeed they can get killed or become captives. There's always too many goblins out there anyway so sieging them before they siege you is a good way to keep up neighborly relations. Squads who are out on a mission will be decreased from your population counter, they aren't on your map tile, and won't consume your food or drink. However, they will take their equipment and rations with them whenever they stop at home, so that's something to remember. Having a massive military is never a bad idea either and going on missions is good training for your fellows, in case of uninvited visitors and other !!Fun!!.

Secondly you'll need to start scaling up your production. Idle dwarfs are unhappy dwarves. Everyone needs something to do, so you'll need to build way more workshops and ensure you'll get the necessary materials. Establishing new trade routes might as well be a good idea so you have an outlet for the wealth you accrue. Food and alcohol can be pretty manageable with fishing (if you have water), pets (a handful of turkeys will get you really far) and farming. A bigger issue will start to be clothing, since clothes wear down at a pretty fast rate. You'll need a good source of wool, plant cloth, silk or leather to keep everyone happy and clothed going on wards.

Assigning labors will also become quite tedious when you have a massive amount of people, especially if you get a huge influx of migrants at once. It might just be best to set it and forget it. When you have a population of over 100 you'll have enough people to cover every task anyway so you don't necessarily need to be pinpoint precise on who does what (except for dwarves with legendary skills, let them work in what they're legendary at). Luckily outside of peasants most dwarves and immigrants do have some labors already assigned to them and having "Everybody does hauling" on means that if there's nothing else for your dwarves to do, they will keep moving items to stockpiles at least.

When your population grows, it's also a great idea to get used to queuing jobs through Work Orders rather than through the workshop menus. It helps you control the big flow of goods and that you can fill the needs and items inside the fort.

Bigger population also means you have more workforce.. come up with a fun mega-project. Build a statue out of rock blocks, look for fun by digging deeper, make an artificial waterfall, there's a lot of fun things you can look into by having a separate task force work on whatever interests you while the rest of the anthill goes about their dwarven ant lives.

A bit of the charm does go away from having to manage such a huge mass, but you can always help it by giving nick names to dwarves that interest you. Some folks make certain to take extra good care of the original seven, who founded the fort, maybe a military hero rises.. Give them nick names and follow their adventures in the midst of the other masses.

Plus there are some fun things that can happen with a bigger population.. :D

[Yomitht]

After a while I just... Don't. Once you've been going for several years of in-game time there's been so many new arrivals that basically every profession is covered twice over. At that point I just make designations and let them go about making it happen as they see fit.

That said, it can help to rename your dwarfs if you reeaaly want to keep track of them all.

[Dcethe]

Originally posted by Lord Haart:

...And I can't keep track of them all.

What do you do ?



ty

You kill your dwarves, and yes. The Woman and Children too.

[Rainbow Jeremy]

Originally posted by Nakaris:

If you get this high pop send me your pc specs. xDDD

integrated gpu
single core 2ghz cpu
2gb of RAM
Windows 95

[Dcethe]

Originally posted by Rainbow Jeremy:

Originally posted by Nakaris:

If you get this high pop send me your pc specs. xDDD

integrated gpu
single core 2ghz cpu
2gb of RAM
Windows 95

Just the PC the game was made for. *sips coffee* ahh yep