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[Granite26]

•   Military

Again, I know some of these are reflected elsewhere, and I apologise for the overlap.

o   Add ‘Standing Guard’ task

• Task should be divided into Ranged/Melee
  
• Basically allows players to set a point as a guard point.  
  
• Fortress Guard points : Fortress guard will man these points.  This will keep them from running out to get killed.  This will also make them useful.  Think of having your fortress guard manning the towers and murder holes while your army engages in maneuvers.  Also allows you to station guards at choke points in your fortress and potentially in the asylumn (AKA your workshop area where the dwarves are going loco)
  
• Royal Guard posts : Ok, so maybe it’s a little bit creepy in the bedrooms, but it would be kind of cool if one of the demands nobles made were for guard posts in their rooms, between them and outside, or whatever requirements make sense from a world view and coding perspective.  Especially if the king decided to start asking for a guarded treasure vault and got pissy if it wasn't guarded 24-7
  

o   Realign military as

•    Emergency (drop what they are doing and run)  :  Seriously... wake the hell up and go kill badguys...
  
•    Active Duty (normal on-duty)
  
•    Off Duty (Spar and take guard jobs)
  

o   Traps are way too powerful, but dwarven military discipline (AKA lack thereof) requires them.  Please don't reduce the utility of traps before increasing our power to use the military effectively

o   Indiana Jones rolling ball trap  : ...Ok, not really

o   Reload

•    Currently my marksdwarves will use up all their ammo at extreme long range and then run in.  Since I use a lot of ranged combat murder holes, this looks just plain ignorant on the dwarves’ parts (they’ll run past the melee fighters and traps to get to them.)  An option to have them go get more bolts rather than engage in melee would be nice.  This would involve them knowing what ‘too close’ to break off is.  See below
  

o   Siege Warfare

•    Calculate distance better : As the Crow Flies is a bad way to calculate engagement distances.  Siege Operators shouldn’t run away if the enemies can’t actually get to their location (through walls, moats, etc).  This makes it possible for ‘surprises’ when Giants smash walls or the merfolk swim the moats, but that’s kinda cool on its own.
  
•    Rearrange priorities
  
• ..   Training – Siege Operators take it as a normal job
  
• ..   Active Callout – Siege Operators will try to get to the siege weaponry
  
• ..   Option to make Siege Operators exempt from the Soldiers only outside option.
  
•    Three Combat Settings
  
• ..Fire at Will (Load and Fire)
  
• ..Load and Wait
  
• ..Fire (automatically resets to L+W afterwards)  This would be doubly cool if you could fire all ready seige engines from a single point.
  

o   Invaders stuff

• Invader’s goods are of a quality far superior to their threat level.  Currently, your economy can be based entirely upon killing goblins and selling their goods.  It's nice, but also kind of broken.  With 1/3 of my total wealth being stuff they've dropped and another third being engravings and other archetecture, what are they trying to accomplish?  It would also be nice if we could cut up cloth the same way we melt down daggers.
  

o   Militia

• Add ‘militia’ job to the civilian jobs list.  People with militia will occasionally take sparring/marksmen tasks.
  
• This would be a good way to get your haulers better paid and some skill levels as well.
  

o   Sparring

• The weapon racks in a barracks could be used to store training weapons, with dwarves automatically picking them up as they enter to spar.  This would be useful for both militiamen who don't carry weapons, and the champion dwarf with his artifact mace.
  

o   Fall back/Rally

• Losing control of military dwarves in combat is a problem.  I’d like to be able to set dwarves to a fallback state for a number of reasons
  
• Not enough fighters present, so run away while more get there
  
• Get back behind the wall of traps you morons!!!
  
• The archers have arrived, it’s time to fall back around the corner
  
• I drafted you to stick you all in the basement so you’d stay AWAY from the fighting
  

o   Citizen Rally Point(s)

• This is not a drill, all civilians should proceed to their designated rally point for the duration of this emergency.  This has been said before, but it's always worth a bump.  

  Not long ago, I tried drafting my civilian population and stationing them in the basement.  Every last one of them decided he'd get a drink at the well before he went downstairs, so the lot of unarmoured recruits marched outside to the well.  On the way, they saw, in the distance, the aproaching goblin horde.  So they rather than follow orders (I guess I'd left them to chase, live and learn) they charged the goblins, leaving my actual soldiers (taking a nap, I think) in the dust, out past the moat, out past the balista tower(the seige engineer had long since fled, dispite not being in any danger) out past the wall of traps, into the aproaching horde.  Where they were promptly masacred.

  Actually, that was entirely my fault, I've since moved the well inside, along with all my piles and other excuses they found for getting killed, and carved out longer trapped approaches.
  

[Jamuk]

Another idea for your fortress guard post suggestion... Have civilians bring them food and water so they don't have to leave their posts.

[Neonivek]

Whoa Granite... going a bit overboard with your suggestions are you? (in that you have many topics created full of your suggestions)

Ill have to respond to them as soon as I am feeling better

[Granite26]

quote:Originally posted by Neonivek:
<STRONG>Whoa Granite... going a bit overboard with your suggestions are you? (in that you have many topics created full of your suggestions)

Ill have to respond to them as soon as I am feeling better</STRONG>

Yeah, I kept a diary as I was playing, then put them all into an 8 page word document.  After I parsed out what was left based on other people suggesting it, I still had a lot left.  It's taken me 5 hours to get it all on paper.  Fortunately I had to stay late at work for stuff...  

[Granite26]

quote:Originally posted by Jamuk:
<STRONG>Another idea for your fortress guard post suggestion... Have civilians bring them food and water so they don't have to leave their posts.</STRONG>

Yeah, tell me about it.  I keep think about the British guards, and the tomb of the unknown soldier and all that, and then I look at the guards in DF.  I've got murderholes all over the place, defended lookout towers, etc, but no way to encourage my soldiers to hang out near them short of stationing them there 24/7.  Meanwhile the guards are wandering around the high traffic areas getting in the workers way.

I really want to say 'stay their 24-7' but there's a little bit of Atlas syndrome in the worry about them getting releaved.  getting brought food and water would help that a lot.

[Wokeye]

GW Granite, there are lots of great ideas and observations your posts.  I esp. like this military one with guardpoints etc.  

I support the development of an Indiana Jones Rolling Boulder Trap (IJRBT).  These IJRBTs would be tricky to code I expect, but a whole lotta fun and Dwarf squishing mayhem!

[ June 10, 2008: Message edited by: Wokeye ]

[Tamren]

Boulder traps can't be too hard. Dungeon keeper had them from the beginning.

[MaxVance]

I do think specific areas for normal dwarves to hide would be very useful. The current "dwarves stay indoors" order usually isn't too effective.

[Neonivek]

Ohh my goodness 4th and I am halfway... but I don't think Ill ever have the energy to comment on them all later... MUST GO ON!!!

Standing Guard
-The Fortress guard as we know are the police. The ability to add waypoints allows you to use them as the Military. The same sorta goes with Royal Guards. It is too capable of being abused.

Realign Military:
-Your military moves SLOWLY... At this point I am in the boat where I say it is intentional and your supposed to suppliment their slow movement with Active guards, Guard Dogs, and Traps. It isn't a bug its a feature.

Reload:
-No real arguement here... "Run away and get more ammo" makes perfect sense to me. Though it would take a while.

Seige Warfare:
-Enemies are SCARY and siege opperators are ordinary dwarves... I purpose you just build your Siege engines further back... they got serious range. Besides leaving Siege opperators open to arrow attacks is bad anyhow and I think them running away should be a sign.

Invaders Stuff
-This is going to be SORTA fixed (as you won't get magical Spawning Goblins)... however don't underestimate them, later they have the numbers to uttarly decimate you if it wasn't for the fact that moat and walls PERFECTLY negates them. Your Dwarven Home is impressive especially compared to just about any location.

Militia
-The Fortress guard is a Militia... they just don't alternate.

Fall Back / Rally
-This may very well need to be fixed once you actually get to War on others. Though I think that having limited control rather then the usual absolute control is one of the great features of Dwarf Fortress. "Fall back to behind the traps" may be TOO much control while "Run away" is good.

Citizen Rally Points:
-This is not a bug its a feature. Your not supposed to have hands on control of your citizens... Also your supposed to build in such a way that your citizens are never at the brunt of any attack.
-Side note: There is a "Citizen Rally Point" it is called "Dwarves stay Indoors"

[Granite26]

quote:Originally posted by Neonivek:
<STRONG>

Militia
-The Fortress guard is a Militia... they just don't alternate.

</STRONG>

I guess that's the crux of my issues right there.  There isn't a fire and forget way to set up points that generally have soldiers at them.

[Jamuk]

Militia is military not police.  Maybe it could be made so that a certain number of your fortress gaurds are on policing duty at a certain time, instead of having them all act like police all of the time.  Anyway, it would at least make them useful, fortress guard should be able to stop theives and stuff, that's their job.  If they aren't at somewhere useful they'll never be much help.

Maybe seperating "police" from "fortress guards" would be useful.  A guard should have the duty of watching for invasions and protecting entrances, and police would walk through the fortress giving happy safe thoughts to people.

[ June 11, 2008: Message edited by: Jamuk ]

[Granite26]

quote:Originally posted by Jamuk:
<STRONG>Militia is military not police.  Maybe it could be made so that a certain number of your fortress gaurds are on policing duty at a certain time, instead of having them all act like police all of the time.  Anyway, it would at least make them useful, fortress guard should be able to stop theives and stuff, that's their job.  If they aren't at somewhere useful they'll never be much help.

Maybe seperating "police" from "fortress guards" would be useful.  A guard should have the duty of watching for invasions and protecting entrances, and police would walk through the fortress giving happy safe thoughts to people.

[ June 11, 2008: Message edited by: Jamuk ]</STRONG>

DF requires a lot of police (15% of your manpower!?!) for the level of crime in a dwarven community.  (U.S. is .2% of the manpower)

I'd be happy if the Guards obeyed the 'soldiers outside' restriction, and acted like a civilian militia/national guard.  That way I could at least ensure that they didn't rush out in ones and two past my carefully planned military line.

[gurra_geban]

gj granite!

These suggestions, along with a couple of other improvements would really make DF way more easy to manage, and way more playable!

improved hauling (not 1 +feather tree ring+ each haul, you weakling!)
increased rate of wear for clothing (seriously, who can wear 1 pair of trousers for 4-5 years while working in a mine?)
uses for the craft items

[Granite26]

quote:Originally posted by gurra_geban:
<STRONG>
improved hauling (not 1 +feather tree ring+ each haul, you weakling!)
</STRONG>

I think the caravan arc is supposed to handle a lot of the piles stuff.  What I read seems to indicate that joining piles will be supported, as well as carrying bins/backpacks on some tasks.  I'd actually like to see donkeys set up to accompany haulers at some point.  (Imagine, one trip to haul stone filling up a donkey with 10 stones per trip!!!)

[Moron]

On the subject of military suggestions; I think it would be nice if the leaders of squads made more of a difference.

I don't know if something like this has already been suggested, but maybe there should be a Leadership skill that a squad leader can gain experience in in battle (but not sparring). This would give a combat bonus to all troops in the squad, and maybe there should also be a limit on the number of troops a leader could command, which would also increase as the leadership skill increased.