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[sleksa]

I'd like to see a option similiar to "dwarves ignore refuse from outside" that would be somewhat like "dwarves ignore jobs outside" The reason for this is what happened a few minutes ago.

on my current fortress a siege of roughly 50 goblins and 3 human leaders with masterpiece weapons came right when the dwarven caravan showed up.

The caravan was quickly slaughtered, which resulted in lots of dwarves getting a "haul item to stockpile" order. Also all my nobles were running up to the front entrance to "clean traps" when there were dozens of angry goblins waiting by the traps, i tried to cancel all my stockpiles,except food so it wouldnt rot. but the dwarves still insisted on getting that plump helmet from the dead caravan.

In the end i was forced to activate - Deactivate spam the dwarves at the entrance, and use the maxwell's demon door-closing , and even despite that the dwarves still somehow got through. In the end i lost 2 legendary miners, tax collector, hammerer, captain of the guard, manager and roughly 10 other dwarves.

The "dwarves stay indoors" command just seems to cancel the dwarves from walking outside, but it doesnt stop them from getting a "haul goblin scimitar next to 60 goblins to weapon stockpile", then running to the gate, and getting shot. And after the slaughter of the dwarves, the goblins routed when their squad leader humans got all luckily killed. But the story doesnt end there. After the fight my military dwarves were somehow compelled to go and pick equipment from the outside, just too bad that there were Zombie hippos and a zombie cougar outside. So what is the most reasonable thing for a military dwarf to do when 12 zombies are sitting on his prized equipment that he so badly needs? Rush to the fight and get maimed in seconds thats what is the dwarven reasonability. Even now, after roughly 20 ingame days my master masons are still running into the zombies  and then running away instead of doing anything productive

now most of this could be prevented if there would be a "dwarves stay indoors" , that would recognice jobs that are outside, and automatically ignore them. Instead of the current system that really seems to prioritize the dwarves to run into the goblin squads to fetch those right mittens or haul the dead goblins to refuse/chasm and getting the dead into tombs.

Also notice that the dwarves werent going for a break outside as i have a few statue gardens and a zoo inside the fortress.

[Fedor]

Agreed 100%.  I also had a siege recently.  The problem wasn't the 133 human soldiers who invaded, or my near-total lack of traps, 'cause they only brought 4 warlords with them, had almost no ranged weapons, and let me raid them a couple of times around their campfires before rushing the gate.

No, it was the combination of:

1) The failure of my military dwarves to set up any kind of synchronized sleep/eat/drink schedule within squads, or to resist bodily urges in a time of peril even for just a little bit, obliging me to mobilize 'em all and wait for those who felt like it to show up, then form temporary squads and use them quickly before they scampered off.  The human squads, in contrast, all moved in unison...

2) The extreme difficulty of kitting up with appropriate weapons and armor as opposed to the silver weapons I was using for sparring and the bronze/leatherwear that it's a PITA to get them to stop putting on again.  This was a big reason for not having too many melee chaps other than wrestlers, and for having no speardwarves at all, 'cause my barracks wouldn't just be covered in blood then (flowing out the door even!), it'd be decorated with limbs and spleens.

3) The insistence of my dwarves at charging the enemy with totally inappropriate weapons (unloaded crossbows) and attacking regardless of numbers and disposition, despite setting them to "stay near station", setting the station directly away from the enemy, and even ordering all dwarves inside.  The only tool I found that worked on a suicide charge was deactivation - turning them into unarmed, unarmored civilians.  And that desperate move cost me half my total deaths.

4) The entire nonchalance of my civilians, who (as pointed out before) behave exactly the same in time of danger as they do when the coast is clear, except for milling around near the entrance if you turn on "Dwarves stay inside".

++++++

Had the humans simply rushed the gate, I estimate that 5-10 civilians would have been milling around, half of my military would have been away, and many of those who did show would be using inappropriate gear.  Can we say "massacre-in-detail"?  It's no wonder people use traps so much!

The only thing that saved me was machine-bows.  Two or three marksdwarves (out of 12) would show up at the assembly point at approximately the same time, I'd send them off raiding the furthest campfire from the gate, they'd spray death on those who deserved it, and then I'd turn them into civilians so that they would run away when out of ammo.  Killed 30 to 3 that way.

I then tried using melee dwarves (wrestlers mostly, plus a trio of well-trained mace/axe dwarves).  Enough showed up at the assembly point at one time that I zerg-rushed the nearest campfire to the gate.  Big mistake.  Oh, sure, the warlord-less human squad around that campfire got massacred with no dwarven loss, but the remaining humans finally charged the gate, and we were in the way.  Seeing some of my melee chaps mosey off for tea, and some wandering about, and some charging into the oncoming warlords without backup, I decided to deactivate them all and flee.  The humans killed 5 before we got inside, despite the intervention of some marksdwarves, who slew enough to break the seige.

++++++

Oh yeah, and one other thing:  This whole war - which may easily cost hundreds of lives before it's over, to say nothing of years of lost exchange - was caused by a human Trade Baron getting stomped on by an elephant appearing right at the edge of the map.  Not only are my dwarves innocent of murder, they weren't even allowed to patrol out far enough to have any chance at stopping it.

... this is why I'm so happy to hear that military stuff will be redone at some future point.  That'll be a happy day!  

[BurnedToast]

I wish there was a dwarves stay past the river option, or maybe even a dwarves stay past the chasm option.

that would solve alot of problems. force them to stay back there while the military fights up front.

Also I wish it actually halted pathfinding like a locked door or raised bridge did so they wouldn't spam job cancellations at me while I'm trying to kill the goblins.

[Endiqua]

Argh, I  know.  Basically, when the gobs hit, I turn off the "announce jobs cancelled" and turn on stone hauling.  Most of the guys run off to past the chasm to haul ore and stone and ignore the chaos.

[Karlito]

quote:Originally posted by BurnedToast:
<STRONG>I wish there was a dwarves stay past the river option, or maybe even a dwarves stay past the chasm option.

that would solve alot of problems. force them to stay back there while the military fights up front.
</STRONG>

Of course in the next release there won't necessarily be a chasm or river.

But we will be able to forbid areas and I hope we can designate forbidden areas to:
forbidden to all
forbidden to civilians.

[Fedor]

The idea of setting areas as "no go" zones would solve a lot of the problems pointed out here.  And, best of all, the game already does some of this.

When reclaiming a fortress, all objects and stuff are designated in green.  Civilians will not use them until they are explicitly cleared using the 'd' menu.  So, a couple of options in the 'd' menu to mark and unmark no-go objects will help.  A lot.

What would be even more helpful is a way to mark entire regions as no-go, before objects get created and tasked.  This would stop dwarves from picking up clothing, single bolts, and refuse far away from the entrance.  Seeing a stream of ants - I mean dwarves - run all the way to an outside map corner to pick up stuff one piece at a time, dancing with leopards and elephants the while, makes little Fedor cry.

[Silveron]

You guys have heard of making a "Civilian Squad" for your military right?

Setup:
Step 1: Put all civilian dwarves in one squad. Station in a safe location.
Step 2: Activate squad. Stand them down and let them spar for a few days.
Step 3: After most have gotten some military skill, deactivate the squad.

Usage:
Step 1: All dwarves remain inside.
Step 2: Activate Civilian Squad. Put them on duty.
Step 3: Dispose of seige with method of choice.
Step 4: When siege is done deactivate the Civilian Squad and get back to work.

Note that having them on duty and set to no armor/weapons will prevent them from rushing out to pick up equipment. Some will wander to the front gates but be turned around by the "All Inside" setting.

Worst thing that usually happens is I lose a few cows/horses or a noble that wasnt too hard to please.

[mickel]

Making a "civilian squad" isn't much of a solution though. Hopefully the burrows system will make for some sort of a solution though.

[sleksa]

quote:Note that having them on duty and set to no armor/weapons will prevent them from rushing out to pick up equipment. Some will wander to the front gates but be turned around by the "All Inside" setting.

The thing is that even some of my drafted dwarves still felt compelled to go and pick items, i think this was due to them having some tattered clothing and wanting to replace it with the dead dwarven caravan's clothes.

Also Some will wander to the front gates to get turned around by the all inside setting, but what if the goblins are camping in the front gate? This is the main reason why i lost so many dwarves, they still went to the front gate to be shot by 20 goblins. But what if we'd have a somekind of a automatic system that notices the job being outside the fortress, and then automatically cancelling it, instead of running to the front gate to cancel it's job?

Also thanks to Endiqua, your stone hauling tecnique just saved a dozen dwarve's lives when the goblins decided to come back. Some still wandered off but i could  keep the few of them inside using locked doors.

[DrJonez]

These military bugs are some of the most frustrating in the current game. I hope these get some attention soon. The stuff mentioned in this thread is one of the few things that sorta ruins DF for me   The rest of the game is so awesome, but situations like this make me want to turn it off and stop playing for a while.  

[Gask]

This is why I line my hallways with statue gardens and always build a bridge wall at the front gate.  It works well.

[ October 02, 2007: Message edited by: Gask ]

[mickel]

It would all be a lot better if their danger avoidance was good enough to understand the concept of ranged weapons and danger zones.  

[Endiqua]

I plan on working on defenses more in the future, but for right now, I have two relatively short hallways (one northern and one southern) which are lined with traps and closed off by doors linked to a lever.  Basically, when I get the notice of a siege, I tell them to ignore wood, everybody get inside.  When everyone's in, I order the lever pulled which closes the doors.  The dwarves are off hauling stone so they're not all milling about the locked doors.  (Glad I could help save a few dwarves!  

Obviously, this isn't an ideal situation because the gobs are reluctant to enter after a few get hit by traps and I have to manually unlock and relock a door that isn't levered to entice them in which I don't like, so I'm considering playing with drawbridges in my next setup.  I like the idea of CLUNK CLANK SQUISH.

[Lightning4]

In addition to giving my dwarves some nice tasty ore hauling jobs deep in my fortress, I find completely eliminating any stockpile that would take items dropped from goblins or traders really helps. Pretty much the only reasons dwarves try to go outside:
-"On Break" stragglers... usually only early on. Once they can't go outside they don't try to take their breaks out there.
-Put Item in Tomb. This really, really makes me wish "All Dwarves ignore Corpses" really did make them ignore all corpses, including ones that go in coffins. It's an annoyingly powerful task and even if the body is at the map edge and dwarves aren't able to go outside, a bunch of dwarves will still get about 5 tiles outside until they realize they're full of crossbow bolts. It's only a problem if the goblins decide they want to rape the dwarven caravan, or some unlucky bastard was caught taking a piss in the bushes.
-Pickup Equipment. Usually only the marksdwarves when there's not enough bolts behind them. Also seems to be a common problem when you recruit an artifact-maker dwarf... they'll try to lay claim to something and go run out to get themselves killed. As a general rule it's probably best never to recruit them. I think it's a bug since I've never actually seem them bother to equip whatever they laid claim to, and they are set to clothes with no weapon
-Clean Trap. We could use a "All Dwarves ignore Cleaning" on the orders screen too, because I'm playing a game of whack-a-mole with nobles doing suicide charges here. Self-disposing nobles are fun and all but some of them I do want to keep.

As long as you get rid of all of those stockpiles like bolts, arrows, armor, and clothes, no suicide tasks should be generated except for the above ones.