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[RemusShepherd]

I started up a new fortress.  It's been going through a little bit of Fun (tm).  Anyway, to make a long story short, we dragged in the carcass of the dragon that the kobold army killed and then walled off all the exits.  The surface world is now dead to us.  Too bad about those migrant waves.

But one of the earlier migrants was a vampire, who caused her own Fun (tm) for a time before I picked her out and sent her into the caverns.  She's cutting down cave trees and killing Forgotten Beasts and seems pretty happy.  But she won't mine.  There is a pick nearby, and I've tried turning off her Woodcutting labor, but she will not grab the pick and mine.

As far as I can tell she isn't sentimentally attached to her copper axe or anything.  She just refuses to strike the earth.  Is this intended behavior for vampires?  I can see it being a good idea; it would be too easy to kill them if you made them miners.  But the wiki says nothing about vampires refusing to mine.

Also, if you have advice for how a starving underground fortress can deal with a surface war between human sieges and kobold war parties, that would also be appreciated. 

[Grim Portent]

The vampire should mine just fine, we've got a few that are used for mining in a succession fort right now in fact.

As for the war, the answer is well trained dwarfs and magma, especially the magma.

[RemusShepherd]

The magma is 130 z-levels deep.  I've put an outpost down there to smelt metal and try to get a steel industry going on the sparse wood that I have.  The military is training but they'll have no gear until the metal industry works.

Aquifers prevent me from creating pit traps for the siege, and I definitely don't have enough metal to create trap corridors.

I just wish my vampire would mine the caverns.  Then I could build down there, instead of just clearcutting the place.

[Grim Portent]

Do any other dwarfs have mining enabled? If so then maybe one's claimed the pick but can't get to it for some reason.

[Garath]

switching between woodcutter/miner sometimes causes a bit of a problem and the dwarf will hold on to the axe. IIrc, it had to do with therapist. If I switched from woodcutter to miner by simply selecting mining and letting it auto-deselect woodcutting, it didn't work out. I could solve it (again iirc) by reselecting woodcutting, apply change, deselecting woodcutting, apply change, select mining, apply changes

[Sutremaine]

With all that it almost seems easier to do it using the in-game interface...

Probably unecessary observation: you said in the OP that you turned off her Woodcutting labour, but you didn't say anything about turning on her Mining labour.

If you have any military dwarves set to use picks then one of them may have nabbed the pick. You could also try setting the vampire to have an axe as part of her military uniform and then activating her -- it's a common lament that miners and woodcutters drop their weapons upon an emergency draft, and once she drops the axe you can forbid it.

[Garath]

With all that it almost seems easier to do it using the in-game interface...

I'm probably using some extra steps there, and when I remember this issue, I deactivate the woodcutting, then activate mining. No problem like that. The problem appears when using therapist to switch from woodcutting to mining and letting it do it 'automatically'. The woodcutting (or mining when switching the other way) doesn't get properly disabled or something.

[RemusShepherd]

I am using Therapist -- that could be the issue.  I'll see if I can force it as you suggested.

(As for other suggestions:  Yes, I'm remembering to turn Mining back on.  My only military are trainees, none of which has been assigned a weapon yet.  I think all my current miners have their own picks.)