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[yaymeh]

Hi!

So - because I always had problems with soldiers refusing to use their assigned weapon types (and biting forgotten beasts instead...) + with miners / lumberjacks / hunters being more or less a waste of space during sieges... and also with civilians wandering into dangerous places without weapons / armor etc... I wonder if it would be efficient to make 3 squads out of those, have them permanently active but not assign them anything in their schedule, so they do only their civilian jop (hopefully in military equipment?) in addition to private / nonscheduled training...

If assigned in a smart way, that might also make then stick together a little when going out... at least in my head it works that way because miners & lumberjack all follow the same order of mining/lumbering :3 ... well... and hunters... they... ah, well, screw the hunters!

Anyway - good idea or bad idea to have those as my only military? Will I end up being slaughtered by something that is very resistant to pick + axe damage? Will I miss out on an important weapon in this mod that is almost obligatory to deal with the hordes? Or something like that?

[razorback]

As far as i know, all these 3 will drop their 'labor tool' when they are in active military status so they will again use their hands an teeth.
On the other hand, if you asign those weapons as their military equipment, they won't use it for their labors.

[mahrgell]

Uh... few points:
- if you assign the equipment as 'replace clothing' they will always wear it, no matter if on duty or off duty (with one exception, see the second point)
- neither of the 3 groups will use their 'work weapons' if ordered in any way... So if you tell any of the squads to station somewhere or kill something, they will drop their weapons and instead try to pick new ones (this is the only exception to the first point)
This makes the whole idea pretty terrible as your main organized defense. They will use their work weapons whenever they encounter an enemy  by themselves... But any orders screw them! (especially since once done with their orders, they will drop they army weapons whereever they are... leaving them in terrible places...
- lumberjacks do NOT train their axeskill during work making them completely useless in battle... miners and hunters can do quite some damage...
- if assigned a barracks, they may do some training, even whole off duty... for that again they will swap out their weapons... (especially fun with hunters, scattering their weapons around the landscape... )
- you want he squad set to inactive, if you want them to do their work Otherwise they will just stand around...
- if you are not very careful with your weapon stocks, it is very tough to always have them equipped with proper weaponry... So you have to forbid all other kinds of weapons and then have twice the numbers of axes, picks and javelin throwers (better use just one weapontype/material per workertype


so in short:
-all have huge trouble with their equipment
miners:
decent fighters, but rarely working close to the battle lines
lumberjacks:
awful fighters, due to lacking weapon skill
hunters:
quite useful, but have even worse equipment problems then the other ones


Oh and I never had troubles with normal militia using their weapons... But I also assign each weapon individually. (armor i use material+itemtype, but weapons I use specific assignment) And the occasional bite... Well... I'm fine with that

[yaymeh]

Thanks for the info, that came just in time to save me before I hit "e" for embark too!

Ok, so I guess if you take the guild system into account on top of that, too, that really is a very terrible idea. Guess I'l just leave military considerations out of choosing embark skills and sort migrants into squads by skills like they happen to come along as usual :3

[kamikazi1231]

One thing you can do if you hate losing those dwarves is give them leather armor with steel plate on it.  Put them in a squad but never have them active and no weapon assigned.  Then have it set to replace clothing and stay in uniform while off duty.  This way if they are ambushed they might have a chance to escape or survive a bit better until the main military gets there.  It also has the advantage of not worrying about these dwarves getting unhappy thoughts from not wearing clothing as the armor won't degrade.  Then if there is a siege or a fight you still have the option of activating them as a quick militia or using a movement order to get them inside if they are ignoring burrow commands and running around the map.  You could even have them train unarmed as wrestlers in their off time and you'll have a super strong and quick work force/emergency militia.