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[pisskop]

Anybody regularly use the station, patrol, or defend burrows orders for the military as part of a schedule?

What use do they have, to set regular and recurring orders such as these as opposed to making a barracks nearby and training during said duty or watch?


do they only attack enemies of the fort, or will they kill errant keas, crundles, and mischief makers?  can i station a squad by the caverns, and expect them to weed out crundles, or topside, and hope they stop thefts via keas?  do they get happy thoughts or confer happy thoughts for successful watch?

How does one use these?  I usually only set manual station orders when I expect trouble, say for the caravans or when I know a group of nuisance monsters are on screen.

[Uthimienure]

I just started using the patrol to see how it works, but so far no enemies or thieves have come by to see what happens. Incidentally, my patrols are on the fortified wall-walks in an above-ground fortress. I'm just posting to pass along this link:

http://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/2k8vkj/mechanixms_patrol_route_and_burrow_defense_guide/

There are many other guides:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MechGuides/

[kaijyuu]

They will definitely keep wildlife at bay. I don't use station as part of a schedule but I do often use the command for directed military action, and they help a lot when venturing into caverns or fighting off stealing monkeys and birds.

[Urist9876]

Station will position soldiers randomly around selected point. Station order are easy to send in the whole squad when there is a threat.

Defend burrows can be very precise. You can also specify how many should guard the position and change who is on duty for every month.

When your archers need to stand right next to fortifications, a burrow can help. Alternatively you can also design a room in such a way that the archers have to stand next to the fortification.

You could send just two archers to defend a burrow. You can also do this by selecting individuals, but then it isn't part of a schedule.

Against regular armies you often do not need a complicated setup. You get the warning, close the gates and shoot them to oblivion from behind the fortifications. Things like keas, monkeys, kobolds might warrant setting up patrols or defend burrows if they keep pestering you.

In such a case you could setup 2 dwarves to defend, 2 to train and 6 to be off duty and do regular work. By switching roles every two months you keep a position safe while still getting work done and they stay more or less happy (depends mostly on dwarfs personality).

I use defend burrow in such a case, I have little experience with patrols. You might need to set up patrols in your fortress if you invite a lot of goblins and assign a tavern keeper. Also a thing I have (purposely) little experience with.

Stress is a big factor. Without discipline, stress kills many dwarves after combat. Train as soon as you can, even if it's just wrestling. Letting soldiers train on a spot where enemies come in vision can lead to extra stress. Soldiers picking up new equipment or food are considered civilian for a brief moment and get spooked from enemies during that time.

It helps if you design the shooting area in such a way that only a few steps are needed to get out of sight of the enemies.

Choice between station orders or scheduled order also depends on how much you like to automate and what you are willing to do by hand.

[knutor]

Defend Burrow and Train, is all I have been using. My soldiers are always in their armor.  Patrol and Station might make a difference with micromanaging their daily change in wardrobes, if they do not live in their armor.

To try and avoid loosing their bedrooms after a trip abroad, I've started using soldier beds assigned via individual squad eq positions and the cabinet, instead of the bed. Not sure if this works, have to do more research on follow.

Ive found Defend Burrow really useful in Capt of Guard squad orders. It plants him and his squad mates centrally, for other dorfs to submit crime reports to. As any dorf, in his posse, err, squad, I think can take a criminal complaint, not just him.

[HungThir]

so, i almost always end up with some kind of battlements above the main entrance to my fort, or pillboxes/guard towers/etc nearby

i keep the battlements path only 1 tile wide (with an inner wall separating off the access stairs/ammo stockpile/etc), and schedule a patrol order under "Active/Training" such that there's always a marksdwarf or two cutting a lap around them.  because the path is only one tile wide, the patrolling dwarves are always adjacent to a fortification.  if it's a big above-ground castle with a long perimeter, i'll schedule more dwarves on patrol at a time for more coverage

the patrolling dwarves do a good job of knocking down keas/buzzards/etc, they get a bit of live-fire training, and they give you early warning about kobolds/werecreatures/ambushes/etc without needing regular dwarves or chained animals on the surface

usually a good idea to build roads around your perimeter to prevent trees popping up and blocking the view (or providing climbing access over the walls)