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[Dubyamn]

During sieges I've noticed something peculiar about my dwarves. My military will always find something to do other than go to their stationed point. They'll eat, drink, replace the sub-optimal pieces of armor that I told them to ditch 3 years ago and just about anything else than actually man their guard station and kill any poor goblin who wasn't smashed, caged or cut into chunks by my series of traps.

And then while my military finds ways to not justify the thousands of Dwarfbucks worth of gear they have my citizens are filled with an almost zealot like patriotism. and will swarm out to clean the first trap that becomes clogged with coagulated goblin blood and will ecstatically march out into a large group of hammer goblins to make sure that the trap can kill again and this keeps on going until finnaly, to hold the lines I call up my militia (miners and woodcutters) to kill whatever got through and to save whoever I am able.

Now on the one hand I find it hilarious that the dwarf incased in so much steel that he looks like a Mecha will shirk and who is so good with a sword that he could probably preform surgery in the field if he knew the difference between a lung and an elbow stays safely inside the walls confident that nothign can touch them while the citizens rush out desperate to save the dwarfhome.

On the other hand I'm sick and tired of losing my legendary dwarves because they didn't have the commonsense to figure out that the trap only killed one goblin and there is an entire horde out there.

So what do you think? Is the needless cowardness of the military and the suicidal bravery of the masses a great part of the game or the one that you hate the most?

[Deon]

Lock the doors. Make outside entrances and combine it with "only military can go outside". Use 1-dwarf squads. Forbid corpses.

There're a lot of ways to prevent dwarven AI faults, it just requires some dedication.
Remember, these small dwarven ASCII symbols have their in-built AI which acts always the same way via pre-defined algorythms, it's not that hard to learn how it works and how to control them.
Experience is your friend =).

[Dubyamn]

Lock the doors. Make outside entrances and combine it with "only military can go outside". Use 1-dwarf squads. Forbid corpses.

There're a lot of ways to prevent dwarven AI faults, it just requires some dedication.
Remember, these small dwarven ASCII symbols have their in-built AI which acts always the same way via pre-defined algorythms, it's not that hard to learn how it works and how to control them.
Experience is your friend =).

If I lock the doors then the goblins just sit out there until they get bored and wander off which while effective is what I was doing until I got my army up and running. The one dwarf squads though is a good idea even if I risk losing the squad "Irons of Chaos" and how does an outside entrance work? build walls to funnel enemies to a Downstairs?

[Omega2]

I really wish military dwarves could cancel their current AI orders whenever a new player-given order shows up. So they would jump out of the bed, drop the beer barrel and go straight to where they're needed. Sure, they'd still be thirsty, hungry and sleepy and wouldn't fight as well (just like in adventurer mode), but it's a lot better than the current "do not disturb" system.

At the very least it would allow you to gather the whole squad in one place before sending them forward, avoiding the common "let's go out one by one and get nailed by marksmen" syndrome.

[Kazindir]

"let's go out one by one and get nailed by marksmen" syndrome.

I beleive this cunning and foolproof strategy is actually called "Lets split up - we'll cover more ground that way". It is a time honoured strategy which has never, ever, resulted in the death of everyone involved.

[Granite26]

I think that dwarves, when activated (or put on active duty), will take a moment to take care of anything that might stop them from fighting for a long time.  It's the difference between being called up to active duty, kissing your loved ones, putting your affairs in order then shipping out and the alarm going off, ohshitohshitohshit movemovemove.

Would be nice to have a difference, but it's coming

My first fort, I tried the 'enlist everyone and station them in the basement tactic, except they decided to get a drink first.   At the well...  Outside...  Past the gobbos.  So basically while my troops were jerking around, the citizen militia who were active but assigned no weapons or armour charged the goblins.  They ran past the line of traps even.    It was a massacre

[Cthulhu]

Simple.  Civilians want to join the military, because soldiers are minor celebrities in dwarf cities.  Why do you think soldiers always get elected mayor?  The wannabes are trying to prove themselves worthy to join, but the soldiers are already there, so why should they bother trying to prove themselves?

[Derakon]

For the specific problem of wanting to clean up goblin blood, dwarves don't clean up the outdoors. So just make certain your traps are outdoors, and you won't have that problem any more.

Of course, the dwarves will also run out to loot the bodies, so really you should ensure that there's an outdoor area that dwarves must pass through before they get to the danger zone. Putting the traps outdoors is just generally useful to cut down on work, though, and as an added bonus the dead bodies won't generate miasma. Also you occasionally end up with limbs flying up into the air, which is always fun.

[iskurthi]

For the specific problem of wanting to clean up goblin blood, dwarves don't clean up the outdoors. So just make certain your traps are outdoors, and you won't have that problem any more.

Of course, the dwarves will also run out to loot the bodies, so really you should ensure that there's an outdoor area that dwarves must pass through before they get to the danger zone. Putting the traps outdoors is just generally useful to cut down on work, though, and as an added bonus the dead bodies won't generate miasma. Also you occasionally end up with limbs flying up into the air, which is always fun.

Really, the ultimate lesson is to place the entire fighting area outside, and make sure that there is (at least one) wall between where evil is coming in and where the civilians are dancing in and out of the doorway going "ooh, cave spider silk loincloth-- aie, forbidden area! -- ooh, cave spider silk loincloth..."

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Clothespins.

We need to put clothespins on the dwarves' noses so they can't smell the loot outside. Plus it prevents unhappy thoughts due to miasma!

[Jackrabbit]

To prevent them from exiting just make the area a couple squares behind the doors forbidden. so when they smell loot instead of dancing outside (which should be forbidden too) they will dance safely behind the walls of your fortress