Ive put 10 Dwarfs in a squad only one is active goes and kills thing when i tell the squad to kill things.
Their schedule is empty they have no labors turned on they just sit with No job
can anyone help out this is my first fortress and ive probably lucky not to get a siege with only one marksdwarf to defend it
First thing: if this is a marksdwarf squad, do not give them kill orders. Only give them move (station) orders. Marksdwarves do not generally interpret a kill order the way you want. (They will move toward wherever the monster was at the moment you gave the order, until they either catch sight of an enemy, or get to that spot... if they get there and haven't seen an enemy, they'll get a new location for the enemy, and move toward that spot... etc. What they will
never do when you use a kill order is climb up on the fortified archer's tower that you built, and wait for the enemy to stroll by. So use a move order instead.)
Second thing: when you give your move/kill order, and "only one is active goes and kills thing", what are the other 9 doing? Are they civilians or soldiers? What jobs are they actually doing?
Third thing: make sure you have a militia commander (that he isn't dead), and that the squad has a captain (a dwarf in slot 1). I don't think the captain's skills matter, but a squad with a dead captain doesn't work very well.
Fourth thing: since it's a marksdwarf squad, make sure each dwarf has a crossbow and a quiver, and that ammo has been assigned to the squad. For a full squad of 10, you'll want to assign about 500 bolts, and you'll probably want to make a couple thousand. (I'm not sure how many bolts a quiver can hold, but it's more than 25.)