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[i2amroy]

Will soldiers learn the skill from a weapons demo if they use a different weapon based on the same skill, e.g. having a Great Axe but following a Battle Axe demonstration?

Yes. Demonstrations teach skills, not weapons, so two weapons that use the same skill will be trained simultaneously.

Note: Keep in mind that unless your higher skilled dwarf is a good teacher and there is a large skill difference between the dwarves that demonstrations are a terrible way to teach skills. If you meet both of those qualifications then they are the fastest way, but sparring is the best choice if you dwarves have a medium amount of skill or you don't have a skilled teacher.

[walberg]

Aaaargh.. "Deadly blood" issues... Not sure what just happened.

So, I've got a pretty mature fort going, and finally decided to breach the candy cane. I set up a long path that first went through a bunch of repeating spikes, then through an arena with a marksdwarf gallery (20 elites) above, and then finally a twisty 1-wide hallway to prevent line-of-sight (and more importantly line-of-breath) until any potential survivors popped out into the middle of a swarm of 20 axe lords. The actual breach was done remotely by cave-in, sparing my miner, and things went very well for the most part - the spikes got about 75% of them, the marksdwarves about 24%, and only one made it into the twisty hallway, but bled out before making it through to the melee squads. So my axe lords were maybe a bit miffed about being left out of the fun.

However, there were 2-3 clowns left that decided to hang out near the entrance to the spike area. They were pretty weak ones - made of snow, no special attacks of any sort, basically one-shottable - so I turned off the spikes and sent the axes in. Now, one of the clown castes (mongoose fiend) had "deadly blood", but I figured the axe lords are in full masterwork steel (high boots, greaves, mail, breastplate, gauntlets, helm, shield, axe) with enough clothing underneath to avoid bad thoughts (trousers, shirt, socks, gloves, cap), and they're not actually fighting the mongeese, so there's not any blood flying around - they should just be able to walk through the path and take out those wimpy clowns. Their boots would get a bit dirty, and they may get a bit more from bumping into the wall or something, but they don't have much exposed skin. Apparently there must be other ways to get the blood on them, because 15/20 just flat out dropped dead.

Any ideas on what other ways there are to get blood a dwarfs skin from the ground/wall? My best guess at the moment is, since it was a 1-wide hallway, when the dorfs start climbing over each other, the one that ends up on the ground might be at risk... Other ideas, which seem less likely, would be 1) puddles deep enough to leak into boots, 2) boots being modeled as just coverings (i.e. there's no sole to the boot) combined with leaky socks, 3) some sort of blood mist hanging around in the air, 4) blood not being only "deadly", but acidic or something...

Any other thoughts?

[i2amroy]

If they were laying on the ground to crawl over one another then I believe it's possible for them to get the contaminants on other parts of them. Right now your reasons 1-4 aren't implemented, so it was probably the crawling that did it.

[AutomataKittay]

Make sure they have all the gears on. I've not had issues with just boots and gauntlets for haulers. But I also tend to not cram them into narrow hallway so that might be the trouble of them lying into the blood.

I believe you need at least a dress/robe/cloak and hood on top of armor to cover every part of dwarves. Also caps blocks helmet usage.

[walberg]

If they were laying on the ground to crawl over one another then I believe it's possible for them to get the contaminants on other parts of them. Right now your reasons 1-4 aren't implemented, so it was probably the crawling that did it.

I didn't really think those alternates were really possible... I suspect the crowded corridor is probably to blame, but not sure if that's verifiable without sending more lemmings through the puddles.

Make sure they have all the gears on. I've not had issues with just boots and gauntlets for haulers. But I also tend to not cram them into narrow hallway so that might be the trouble of them lying into the blood.

I believe you need at least a dress/robe/cloak and hood on top of armor to cover every part of dwarves. Also caps blocks helmet usage.

Actually I fixed the caps, because I found that particular change annoying (IIRC it was an armor layer tag that changed in the cap raws) - I'm not one to exploit the multiple metal caps with a helm thing that used to be possible, but I do like to have one cloth/leather cap under a helm - helps with the chafing or some such... And this is the first time I haven't added robes, cloaks and hoods to all my military folks, because when they get to legendary level, it just means they never get hit by anything - so I scaled back the uniform a bit this time. Guess that's what I get...

[Rotinaj]

Two more quick questions:

Is there anyway to exert more control over the positioning of my military dwarves? A lot of the time it seems like 2/3s will show up to a station within a reasonable amount of time, and when stationed several will wonder off and try and fight goblin squads one at a time.

2. Is there anyway to better see what my military requires to be better equipped? Like is there anyway to see if I need to make more greaves or helmets in particular? The stocks screen and checking each dwarf individually doesn't work so well for large forces.

[AutomataKittay]

Two more quick questions:

Is there anyway to exert more control over the positioning of my military dwarves? A lot of the time it seems like 2/3s will show up to a station within a reasonable amount of time, and when stationed several will wonder off and try and fight goblin squads one at a time.

2. Is there anyway to better see what my military requires to be better equipped? Like is there anyway to see if I need to make more greaves or helmets in particular? The stocks screen and checking each dwarf individually doesn't work so well for large forces.

For 2, you should be able to see their equipments being checkmarked through an option ( I forget exactly which, probably Equip then View ) in the military screen. Equipment priority is from first squad to last, and first dwarf to last within each squad before the next.

[Trif]

Is there anyway to exert more control over the positioning of my military dwarves? A lot of the time it seems like 2/3s will show up to a station within a reasonable amount of time, and when stationed several will wonder off and try and fight goblin squads one at a time.

The missing third might be getting some better gear. Dwarfs only seem to notice that when they get orders, so it's a good idea to give out station orders when you made some new armor or weapons.
Soldiers on duty will attack enemies as soon as they can see them, and you can't really stop them. I guess the answer is to position your squads more strategically - group them up in a safe spot, and then send them into action.

[Damiac]

Be careful with the military equipment though.  A checkmark means they have claimed equipment, not that they're actually wearing it. But it is a good indication of whether you actually have enough for everyone.

Yeah, dwarves are apparently psychotically bloodthirsty.  Once they see an enemy, it's on.  And it doesn't stop till there's no enemies in sight, or the dwarf is dead.  I hope Toady fixes that at some point... it takes some of the strategy out of the game.

[Rotinaj]

Thanks for all the replies! Much appreciated guys.

[i2amroy]

Yeah, dwarves are apparently psychotically bloodthirsty.  Once they see an enemy, it's on.  And it doesn't stop till there's no enemies in sight, or the dwarf is dead.  I hope Toady fixes that at some point... it takes some of the strategy out of the game.

I think the next version will have some small changes at least. And this showed up in the FotF reply:

Going back to the combat mind portion of this update, will we have civilian dwarves in fortresses occasionally not only fighting back, but making sure an enemy is sufficiently incapacitated if they can, out of retaliatory anger?
Will dwarves always have the heart, militia or not, to finish off an unconscious/sufficiently helpless/fleeing enemy after getting the upper hand in what has developed into the 'lethal combat' range?

Yeah, the responses aren't going to be uniform, but I'm not sure that they'll change vs. unconscious opponents -- the main thing there was to go on to conscious targets.  They need a new check for conscious targets to do that part right.

[Sutremaine]

Once they see an enemy, it's on.  And it doesn't stop till there's no enemies in sight, or the dwarf is dead.  I hope Toady fixes that at some point... it takes some of the strategy out of the game.

There's still strategy, but it's all up to the player. Mostly it's geared towards restricting lines of sight so that the enemies your dwarves hit in their berserker frenzies are the enemies they'd hit if they had any sense of self-preservation.

[Captain Man]

On the barracks screen you can enable sleeping, training, individual combat drills and squad combat drills. Whats the difference between those last three? Sleeping I get.

[knutor]

Depends what your object is. 

If its a wpn rack/armor stand, then you'll want just a /t next to the squad, who all will be training there.  All 10 will train there if the order to train isn't edited, there in the military scheduling menu.  They may get bad thoughts without some down time to relax.  I use 8.

If its a cabinet, you'll want either a /i, and the position of the fella who you wish to use the cabinet to store his armor.  Do not bother with this, however as item storage in cabinets is currently bugged to hell.  /s just refers to that particular squad storing all their armor in the cabinets, found with that resized area.  Again, do not bother with this.  Bugged.  I don't even make cabinets, unless its for a Noble room.  And then I just plop them down, without assigning any specific flags or requirements on them.

I cannot think of any other items, cept maybe the Archery Target, in which those 4 objects show up.  Again, only use /t on it.

At the moment owned items, and tattered item decay decisions do not occur on something found inside a cabinet.  If these two things don't bother you, go ahead and use cabinets.  It bothers me tho, so I'd just as soon they drop there gear on the ground.  And it eventually poof or I sell it.  Sincerely, Knutor

[greycat]

Sometimes I think you're just making things up, knutor.

As far as I know, the type of object from which the barracks was defined has no effect whatsoever.  Dwarves won't store equipment in the barracks, and why would you want them to anyway?  They should wear their armor 100% of the time, even when off-duty.