Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Klokjammer]

Yes, It's been a while since I last played. I thought I had the new Military screen figured out, but I guess I was wrong on some things. Right now I'm in the early stages and just want a single marksdwarf to keep the livestock safe from the wildlife. I've figured out how to enlist and station him, but now I want him to stand down when the danger has passed. I don't want to discharge him from service, I just want to dismiss him from duty.

I think it's the alert system that's confusing me, how exactly does the dwarven military screen work? How does the alert phases relate to deployment?

On an unrelated note, since large quantities of water is not readily available, how deep should I make my entrance pit trap?

[Urist McPanzerbeard]

Military is a little confusing for me as well. As I understand it, you want to press S to go to the squad menu, A to select your first squad (which should just be that one guy) and press T until it says "Sched- Inactive". He should just return to his usual business of being a dwarf and doing dwarf-related activities. If you want him to return to duty, just do the same thing, but set it to "Active/Training". I'm still figuring the whole military thing out myself, so I don't really know much more than that right now.

as for the pit, make it as deep as you want it, really; the deeper the deadlier, but if it's just soil then it won't be too difficult to climb out of anyway. You can stick upright spike traps at the bottom for 100% more impalation (it's a word, right?), just make sure it's more than one Z-level if you do that. Or, you know, magma, when that's an option.

[PatrikLundell]

If you've issued the 's'quad/'m'ove order to station him you cancel the order with 's'quad/cancel 'o'rder. I haven't dealt with patrols, so if that's the route you've taken I can't comment.

The alert thingy is rather messy. If you don't touch it, your squad will do no training whatsoever, but you can still call on them (the totally green guys) with the squad command.
If you want them to train, I think you need to assign them to a barracks and set up a 's'chedule from the alert menu. The schedule specifies when they are to train in an organized fashion, and when they are sort of off duty. "Sort of off duty" means that they will still spend most of their time with individual training, and only seldomly perform any work. The only way I've found to get scheduled troops to work on more than "I'm bored and like to work" fashion is to remove them from the squad.
I've actually never used the military alerts themselves for anything, but the civilian alerts seem to be more effective than ordinary burrows in getting civilians into safety when activated. A warning with especially masons, though: if you activate a civilian alert while they are in the process of building something with a boulder, the silly buggers will slowly hobble to safety clutching the precious boulder. If you locate them first and cancel their jobs they will drop the stone and then move with a more reasonable speed towards safety when the civilian alert is activated.

I'm basically not using pit traps... It depends on what you're trying to achieve. If you want to block access e.g. with a dry moat, it will have to be at least two z-levels deep with an overhang (a floor or better, wall or fortification, jutting out one tile), because some critters climb like it's level ground. I'm not sure if 2 levels deep is enough, though. If you want to fling them to their death with a retracting bridge, I think it will have to be at least 2 z-levels deep to cause any damage, at least that's the minimum for a spike trap at the bottom to inflict damage on the victim hitting it. Also, I think victims hitting the wall before hitting the bottom will get their fall distance recalculated to start at the wall hitting point.

[smakemupagus]

Each "alert" is a set of orders that cover the entire year, laid out like a calendar planner.  Planned orders might include training, patrolling, and stationing.

Additionally you can attach a burrows to the alert, meaning they will try to follow the orders without leaving the burrow.   

Additionally, you can issue "station" or "kill" orders that override the planned activities.

By default the game starts with very basic alerts.  You have "inactive" (no orders) or "active/training" (one calendar filled with a very basic and arguably non-optimal set of commands). 

You can control your squads in several ways

* edit the orders within the existing "active/training" alert calendar
* create new alerts with more optimized orders and toggle the squad's standing orders by changing them to follow the new alert
* order direct commands overriding the current alert

Many players seem to delve not much farther into this system than they have to, e.g. (a) modify the alert/training alert so that military dwarves get enough down time (b) create a new alert state connected to a burrow for civilians to hide in during times of danger (c) when military action is needed, simply order the squads to station or kill directly.  Walk through for each of those actions is described in many places here and on wiki and that is a good place to start.

But it is also simple (I mean, not a lot of key presses.  Still a bit convoluted to understand ^^ ) to set up some other nice things, like "when the Standby alert is active:  two archers should always station at this point A in fortified tower -- two patrol the walls between point B and C -- two more on duty training -- the rest of the squad is free to pursue other activities at will" once you see how it works.

----

To answer you question directly, How to station a marksdwarf at a point but give him enough free time too?  Here are a couple options.

* Leave his squad in the Inactive alert, and use direct action orders station the squad only in times of danger.  when danger passes release the direct order and he'll revert to the normal orders in the Inactive alert, i.e. civilian work.

* Put him in a squad with 2 or more dwarves and edit the squad's schedule on the Active/Training Alert calendar so that only one of them is required to be on duty at the point (set the location of the point with Note command - select the point using the Station command on the Military Alert Schedule calendar interface) at all times.  they'll automatically relieve each other as needed.

[greycat]

There is a Military quickstart page.  You can start there, and follow the links to the more detailed pages as you need them.

In a nutshell, you create squads, which are groups of 1 to 10 dwarves that mostly train and fight together.  You assign dwarves to the squads.  You create uniforms, and assign the uniforms to the squads (or to individual positions).  Note: you do not assign a uniform to a dwarf; you assign it to a squad position or a whole squad.

Make a barracks, and assign the squad(s) you want to train there.

Activate each squad, by changing their schedule from "Inactive" to "Active/Training".

If you want a squad to fight, give them a move/station order and tell them where to go.  If they see an enemy, they will fight.

If you want a squad to chase an enemy across the map (usually failing to catch it), give them a kill order.

Don't forget to cancel your move/station and kill orders once they are no longer relevant.

[Klokjammer]

Thanks, I think I got it now. He's back to work getting ready for winter, but ready to stand guard at a moment's notice (as long as he isn't sleeping, drinking or eating of course).

RE the pit: How big a fall would guarantee a 100% fatality? And does it matter what kind of material I make the spikes out of?