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[Eskalat]

Hey dwarves. So here's the setup:

I've created a new alert called 'To the Walls!'. Each of my squads is set to that alert.

(The alert is made - https://ibb.co/6X0j9Xf)

Within the alert, the schedule for each month is for my squads to defend the 'western walls' burrow.

(The schedules are set - https://ibb.co/4NsbFNg)

(The burrow is designated - https://ibb.co/yF1DfKz)

Then I unpause... and each squad member reverts to civilian status.

What's happening here? What am I doing wrong?

(here's a forum post from back in 2012 describing the same issue: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=110754.0. This is the only other case of this occurring that I could find. Curiously, I'm also getting the same "broker never goes to depot" issue that the user describes.)

May Armok guide you all unto FUN!

(Playing version 0.44.12 with dfhack and twbt (text will be text) from Lazy Newb Pack 0.13b)

[Hyndis]

There seems to be a daily tick when it comes to soldiers vs civilians. It may take another day for pass for the game to realize that these dwarves should be in soldier mode. Problem is, they spend an entire day in civilian mode, and so they all run away or all rush back to your main meeting zone and away from defenses.

As a workaround, make sure to order your dwarves to positions before they need to get there. Don't wait until the last moment. Or as an even better workaround, have your squad assigned to a barracks where you need them. You can set the number of active squad members lower than 10. Maybe only have 5 active. This means at any given time 5 will be on guard duty and 5 will be doing other things around the fortress, such as hauling or crafting. In case of ambush you already have military dwaves on location ready to go. A third possible workaround is to manually give specific orders to squads. This seems to have no delay. Dwarves will instantly change back to soldiers and start moving to the location.

I personally use the barracks method. I'll make a new alert called "Standby", which is training but only 5/10 dwarves active to train. Constructions then funnel all visitors past this barracks which always has military dwarves on duty, even if only half of each squad. This approach is very hands off. As an added bonus by making a smallish barracks (maybe 5x5) all of your active duty dwarves will all engage the same attacker at the same time. A blob of melee dwarves with masterwork axes will chop through goblin with horrifying speed.

[Eskalat]

Huh... I'll load up and test this out. If at least one of these squads was already set to train, presumably they would be able to transition to 'defend burrow' without issue, right? I'll admit, I wasn't fastidious in checking every squad that was ordered (there's about 8 marksdwarf squads in total) - I more swept over the various screens of dwarves in these squads and said "yep, they ain't defending." I'll try and confirm this...

Regarding giving manual 'defend burrow' orders to squads, I *can* confirm that it isn't helping in this instance. I haven't yet had an issue giving  inactive squads 'station' or 'kill' orders (they transition immediately without issue, as you said) - so far it seems to be specific to the 'defend burrow' order. I guess I'll also test out giving them a manual 'patrol' order (though honestly have been avoiding the patrol mechanics altogether - I've only just my head around alerts and scheduling, and need to gather the *sheer will* to go back to reading wiki pages...).

Armok bless you kind stranger!

[Eskalat]

Yes, you where correct - there was an interval between receiving the order and carrying it out, during which they reverted to civilians; I just hadn't waited long enough.