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[Carpman]

So I've reached the point where I have a squad of five or so dwarves that can decimate any elf or goblin siege thrown at them. The problem is, this one squad can't be everywhere at once (training, guarding the entrance, guarding the caverns, taking time off). So I  created a bunch of noob squads that could kind of fill my military in around the edges.

Now if you know my playing style, I'm all about roleplay and in-depth realism. So I thought it would be cool if I made all of my "elite" dwarves be differentiated in some way from the "militia" dwarves. Any suggestions on how to create a sweet uniform for my elites?

[Girlinhat]

Capes.  Capes and hoods.  Or cloaks if you have no capes.  Color-coded capes!  And I mean to say "color coated" as in "coated in elf blood".

[Moonshadow101]

I like the idea of cloaks, actually. Make five cloaks, and put some real effort into them. Adamantine cloth would be best, if you can spare it. Sewn in images as decoration. The works.

Alternatively, pick a kind of leather that you can picture them wearing. All wolf leather, or something unifying like that.

[Scruga]

Spidersilk cloaks with somewhat related pictures sewn into them

[Girlinhat]

Cloaks wear down, so do adamantine cloaks.  Waste of bluestuff.  Pig tails work just as well, and are easier to dye and mass produce.  Get yourself a legendary dyer, weaver, and clothier, just produce cloaks forever!

Or if you've got the spare resources, produce a certain type of thing with a certain image.  Pig tail dress (on a man, it's a robe) with an image of your fort's symbol?  Or a wolf leather waterskin with a cloth image of the goddess of war and fortresses?  Take the goblin route, and put the same art image on something.  If you never noticed, goblin breastplates have an image of the civ they came from.

[Eric Blank]

I would give them adamantine shields or helms studded with gems, bones, shells, skulls and with any images on them that you can get (not sure if they can have sewn leather/cloth images)

[Urist_McArathos]

Cloaks wear down, so do adamantine cloaks.  Waste of bluestuff.  Pig tails work just as well, and are easier to dye and mass produce.  Get yourself a legendary dyer, weaver, and clothier, just produce cloaks forever!

Or if you've got the spare resources, produce a certain type of thing with a certain image.  Pig tail dress (on a man, it's a robe) with an image of your fort's symbol?  Or a wolf leather waterskin with a cloth image of the goddess of war and fortresses?  Take the goblin route, and put the same art image on something.  If you never noticed, goblin breastplates have an image of the civ they came from.

I really, REALLY hope some day we get the option to set what our workshops produce (as well as let them procedurally generate as they do now), so I can decorate my armor and such like this.

I too LOVE RP and realism in my forts, but I'm not good enough at micromanaging my workshops and such yet to get reliable results even with dying.

[Aramco]

Give them elf leather capes, coated in elf blood.

Some raw editing may be necessary for the butchering, however.

[RAKninja]

If you never noticed, goblin breastplates have an image of the civ they came from.

humans do that a lot too.  and not just breastplates.

my dwarves also like to decorate with our civ's symbol, both my local and parent civs.

then i get that same old rendition of an elf shooting a vile brute.  i swear, that one event has been engraved and sewn more times than i care to count... perhaps even more than the foundation of my fort.

[Girlinhat]

You CAN specify specific decorations, if you're willing to mod.  I have a decoration workshop (lost the raws to datamonster) that has a few reactions, namely "encircle with bands", "spike menace", and "hang rings".  These take 1 anything + 1 metal and produce a decoration on the "anything" of that type.  So I can selectively place a masterwork steel helm and a bar of gold in a workshop, and produce 1 encircling, which results in the helm being encircled with golden rings 100% of the time.  I haven't tried it for art images, because those are random and I'm not sure how it would handle those, but for other types, well, I had my militia commander decked in masterwork steel with hanging rings of iron and lead, because her squad was named "the chains of fleeing" or something like that, so I added a bit of shackles.

See the reaction for glazing pottery, it shows how to make a decorating reaction.  Just be aware that if you're accepting anything, you can decorate odd things.  "This is a pig tail roast.  It menaces with spikes of jade."  "This is a bar of lead.  It is adorned with hanging rings of gold."  You can also, theoretically, apply strange decorations.  "This is a willow bed.  It is encircled with rings of dwarven wine and menaces with spikes of dwarven syrup.  On it is an image of a cat in charcoal."

[Carpman]

That sounds awesome, but I'm shit at modding. Anyways, thanks for the help guys. I have my elites running around in midnight blue cloaks and hoods, my elite marksdwarf in a green cloak, and my captain of the guard in a red one. My new recruits don't get that because after a year of training they are still dabbling axedwarves, lazy fuckers.

[Indricotherium]

You CAN specify specific decorations, if you're willing to mod.  I have a decoration workshop (lost the raws to datamonster) that has a few reactions, namely "encircle with bands", "spike menace", and "hang rings".  These take 1 anything + 1 metal and produce a decoration on the "anything" of that type.  So I can selectively place a masterwork steel helm and a bar of gold in a workshop, and produce 1 encircling, which results in the helm being encircled with golden rings 100% of the time.  I haven't tried it for art images, because those are random and I'm not sure how it would handle those, but for other types, well, I had my militia commander decked in masterwork steel with hanging rings of iron and lead, because her squad was named "the chains of fleeing" or something like that, so I added a bit of shackles.

See the reaction for glazing pottery, it shows how to make a decorating reaction.  Just be aware that if you're accepting anything, you can decorate odd things.  "This is a pig tail roast.  It menaces with spikes of jade."  "This is a bar of lead.  It is adorned with hanging rings of gold."  You can also, theoretically, apply strange decorations.  "This is a willow bed.  It is encircled with rings of dwarven wine and menaces with spikes of dwarven syrup.  On it is an image of a cat in charcoal."

This is the first time I've read something that made me want to step away from vanilla into modding. Awesome, girlinhat!

[Girlinhat]

I'll probably recreate the workshop and reactions and toss them up in a bit, it's actually relatively simple to mod in.  As I see it, this will do until Toady adds selective decorations to vanilla's hardcode.

[Jake]

Why stop at cloaks? I assign my sentry-duty squads a full uniform: White shirt, red tunic, blue trousers and a leather coat.