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[Emmental]

I've just recently got into DF and have been following TinyPirate's excellent tutorials. To follow the tutorials I'm using the version of DF he provided since it uses a pre-generated world. That version of DF is 0.28.181.40d which has the previous combat system.

However, according to the DF wiki, the current build of DF has a few bugs in the new combat system, some of which seem to be quite significant, so I'm wondering if it would be best to stay on that older version when I start playing "real" games until those bugs are ironed out or use the current version and work around the bugs.

Since DF has such a steep learning curve I'm thinking that the bugs may cause me extra, un-nnecessary confusion as a new player and could leave me with a "broken" save game. On the other side, I'd rather be using the newer build for all of the other changes (as well as the new combat system). I'm also not sure how up-to-date the bug list is on the wiki since in the 0.31.08 release notes I can see "fixed crash associated to assigning daggers to dwarven soldiers" which still looks to be listed as a bug on the wiki.

Any advice on this?

Thanks.

[Greiger]

It is a bit of a dilemma.  I would try .31.08 for a bit and see if you like it better than 40D.  If you do, play .31 if not, there's no harm in going back to more stable 40D.

The equipping daggers bug does seem to be fixed from my experience, and I havent gotten a crash since I started playing .08.   But .08 still has it's oddities, most inorganic (and a couple specific organic) creatures are effectively unkillable without some kind of cavein, or sometimes a magma flood.  And military crossbow users are completely non functional at the moment.  .31 does make the underground significantly more interesting though.  In 40D 90% of the world is nothing but completely featureless solid rock underground.  in .31 if you dig down you are pretty much guaranteed to hit some kind of feature.

The military system is completely rewritten.  So learning the old 40d military interface won't help much in the future.  And you need to use the finder or have feature icons on to find anything remotely interesting underground.  And you are highly unlikely to find a site where you can do everything.  If there is no sand, you will not make glass.  Period.  No way to get the raw materiels.  if there isn't a magma pipe or pool? No Magma.  40D however is more stable.  And what bugs are still around are less jarring.  40D is also arguably easier to play.  The underground is less dangerous, and military training is faster.  And while the military interface in .31 is far more powerful, it is at least 3 times as complex as the 40D one, which might make 40d better for learning late game stuff.  (If you can't work your military your chances of surviving to year 4 5 or 6 is much smaller)

So I guess each version has it's pros and cons, I would just try them both and see what you like better.

[Bloogonis]

The new military system drives me up the wall. I love micromanagement as much as the next DF fan, but the new military just seems to be overdoing it. Granted its probably still way to early in the new model to be overly critical. Wish I could get my military screen back, that way even though I couldnt do the extremely complex order combinations the new system allows I would at least be able to call emergency squads or off duty squads up without having to change order sets and equipment sheets.

I would always have my miners and woodcutters in their own squad in 40d as quick action teams to deal with snatchers or if the "squad captain in charge" left his post without asking, or even "Catastrophic Failure of all defenses ever...". You know that scene where the bad guy takes out everyone and then turns a corner to find the big guy with the wrench. of course the bad guy could just walk past but he has to knock the big guys sandwich on the ground first. Saved several forts this way, its amazing how much damage an ultra legendary Miner with Leather trousers can do.

So I love the new version, and most of my current beefs with it are about bugs in the materials(my bone mug!?!?! it is iron now?). So Im playing 40d again myself. Much more strait forward and gives you a good feel for how dwarves react to each other and how they coordinate in squads. Draw back is, you miss out on all the new lovelies and have to deal with limited embark potential but for basic military organization it was the best.

[Leperous]

My experience has been that yes, it seems incredibly buggy for the first few fortresses, but you eventually get the hang of it and learn the "workarounds" as it were - and it's actually a lot better than the old system.

Some tips:
1) Dwarves get by fine if they all have axes. Change the default "metal armor" uniform to include axes so you don't have to micromanage everything.
2) Give your soldier dwarves custom job titles (p-z-p I think?) so it's easy to arrange squads.
3) Keep them individual-training all the time (keep the squads inactive on the alerts page). Make sure there is a weapon/armor rack somewhere with training (t) assigned to squads.
4) Kill-orders are (usually) your friend (s-a-k from main screen) and make it a lot easier to kill enemies than stationing them somewhere. It's often buggy, so if your dwarves don't go anywhere then undesignate the barracks.
5) Consider save-scumming when engaging with Forgotten Beasts. Some are invincible.

[Emmental]

Thanks for the replies.

I've decided to go ahead with the current version and see how it goes. I've not yet learned either combat system so hopefully I'll understand the workarounds better after studying the wiki pages. The amount of detail in this game is mind-boggling to I'm just trying to learn things bit by bit.

[dermal_plating]

I'm noticing one particularly infuriating bug from 40d that's still in .31.08. My soldiers never pick up the correct items. I have a dwarf who's carrying a wooden training axe in one hand, and a wooden shield AND bronze axe in the other, despite the fact that he's only been instructed to carry the wooden shield and wooden axe. I know its not a gamebreaker, but I don't want him to be hacking up my other dwarves when they started sparring (assuming they still do that, I've only seen them do individual training so far). I've tried setting him to have no equipment, but he won't drop any of his weapons.