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[Bernard]

Was playing yesterday and it occurred to me it would be vastly easier most of the time if rather than having to move soldiers individually or by groups to patrol locations, you could just designate a Patrol area and say '1 Melee & 2 Ranged Dwarves wanted'.
Then a new Alert status for a squad saying 'Available for Assignments'.

The Available soldiers would then treat these the same as dwarves treat civilian jobs, going to the location, patrolling the zone, and when they got hungry/thirsty to a certain point, interrupting their patrol to go eat/drink.  Thus leaving the job free for another military dwarf to go there.  Or the Dwarf to return after eating if you've not enough soldiers.

This could even go so far as to create structures eventually such as watch towers (increased visual range for spotting approaching thieves), Murder Holes (Specifically set up to shoot through properly to a cave below), and Ambush pits (Covered hole that requires hatch, cloth + channelled square to build that your Melee dwarf leaps out of at 1 range from a target), making for more variety defending your fortress

[Hyndis]

You can already do this with burrows.

Create one or more burrows, and then order one or more squads to defend those burrows. They will automatically engage any hostiles in that area. You can also create patrol paths or station points, and order squads to patrol or defend certain locations.

[Bernard]

My problem with Burrows has been that I have to assign specific dwarves to the job.

Meaning while I can just ask for my Workshops to make 10 steel doors, I have to tell McBearded that he, and only he defends this tiny burrow.  And then when he needs a break, I have to tell McDoubleBearded he does it now.

Rather than just saying 'I want 1 Dwarf to defend this area'  And the Dwarves sorting themselves as to which Dwarf actually takes the job.

[cameron]

you can set the squad so that only one dwarf is active at any one time so if you told squad A. to defend the entrance burrow one dwarf would go over there and attack any hostiles they would then rotate between the squad when one gets hungry/thirsty/tired, its not as simple as i think you want it but for now it sort of works

[Hyndis]

you can set the squad so that only one dwarf is active at any one time so if you told squad A. to defend the entrance burrow one dwarf would go over there and attack any hostiles they would then rotate between the squad when one gets hungry/thirsty/tired, its not as simple as i think you want it but for now it sort of works

You don't want just 1 dwarf though. 1 dwarf is easily overwhelmed. I like using full squads, which means out of the 10 dwarves in the squad 5 of them are on duty at any given time. Plenty of downtime for the rest, but that keeps 5 on station at all times, which is enough to hold the line.