Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Broken Bolt]

I forged silver weapons so they wouldn't get hurt sparring.
Then forged some iron but can't make them give up the silver ones.
I deactivated, forbid the weapons in their inventory, and designated them to be dumped.
Still they won't set the silver down.
Ideas?  thnx

[0x517A5D]

Try reactivating them then setting their weapon preference to "unarmed".  This is most easily done through the m(ilitary) w(eapons) screen.

Once they drop the silver weapons, change 'em back, and they should grab the iron ones.

[mwoody450]

Do activated military personnel always pick up the best item, or just the closest?  I tried making them drop their weapons and go grab new ones a couple versions ago, and I could have sworn that my shiny new armor sat unused and they just ran back and grabbed the nearest crap.

[Broken Bolt]

yeah they're careless it seems.

Can forbid what you don't want them to have, or melt, sell or dump it.

I shovel my lame shields/weapons off on visiting traders so dwarfs are more likely to take the good stuff.

[Troas]

As 0x517A5D observed you can make them grab new weapons by changing their weapon type - I keep separate armories (re: specialized weapon stockpiles) for silver and steel hammers.  I swap my military from their silver hammers to crossbows, then forbid the hammers they drop, open the armory door and swap them back to hammers for them to pick up steel.  Once they have re-armed I unforbid the silver ones and they get put into the silver armory.  It works, but I don't know how to make the process quick - it is too slow to pull off during an invasion.  

Also note that dwarves will happily use melt-designated items.  So temporarily forbid those items if you have to do a arms/armor switch, then unforbid them later to allow melting.  Or place them in easily lockable rooms.

[Bogdanov]

a more simple way to do it is to have two weapon stockpiles : one for silver weapons, one for steel weapons.

open the silver stockpile and close the steel one, make them go "unarmed", they will drop the weapons, which then will be hauled to the silver stockpile.

then lock the silver stockpile, and open the steel one, and tell them to pick up weapons again

[0x517A5D]

quote:Originally posted by Bogdanov:
<STRONG>open the silver stockpile and close the steel one, make them go "unarmed", they will drop the weapons, which then will be hauled to the silver stockpile.

then lock the silver stockpile, and open the steel one, and tell them to pick up weapons again</STRONG>

Yes, but that's terribly slow.  I can easily imagine it taking several months to complete hauling the silver weapons.  And until then you can't lock the silver pile.

[Valdemar]

quote:Originally posted by 0x517A5D:
<STRONG>

Yes, but that's terribly slow.  I can easily imagine it taking several months to complete hauling the silver weapons.  And until then you can't lock the silver pile.</STRONG>

What about stationing them in the silver pile (would have to be big), getting them to drop, stationing them outside it, locking the door, then reassigning? Once they take their steel weapons, you can unlock the silver pile to get all the weapons stored in bins.

[mwoody450]

Or...  If we're sure they grab the nearest weapon/armor, you could have the stockpiles of good/bad weapons relatively far apart, then just station the dwarves in the better pile once it's time to get weapons.  Hopefully, they'll grab the ones right next to them.

It's not a huge improvement on the other ways mentioned, but at least it doesn't involve forbidding or locking doors.

[cephalo]

Here's a question. If you want to forego the weapon switching (it sounds painful actually), is it more profitable to just fight enemies with bad weapons and suffer fewer injuries during training, or is it better to risk injuries with your best weapons so those that survive the training process can fight enemies more effectively?

I haven't had a really large battle yet so I'm wondering. I'm trying to rely on troops more than traps this time, since traps are kinda cheap.

[Mlittle]

The way I do it
I have two armory rooms:
room A with silver weapons stockpile
room B with steel weapons stockpile.
They can drop their silver weapons anywhere, except in the room B. It's best to station them in room A though, to minimize the hauling. Then I station them in room B, lock the door to the room B and tell them to pick weapons again. I can check if they all got weapons before unlocking the door and letting them out.

[ February 29, 2008: Message edited by: Mlittle ]

[Captain Goatse]

I usually train my military as Pump Operators before. They get easily to Very Tough in one year, then I give them full iron plate and wrestler training. After that, they train easily with +iron mace+ and shrug off even yellow wounds after a week of bed rest.

[Hyperturtle]

my problem is getting everyone to use steel shields.  There always seem to be some iron shield SOMEWHERE and someone always manages to find it before I forbid or mark it to be melted.

So I change the affected dwarf to buckler, then shield again, and he finds a fancy iron shield that I didn't want to melt but forgot to forbid, and by then he gets irritated with me and goes for a drink and I have to keep an eye on him to get him back to trying to use a steel shield again.

It is terribly time consuming to have to micromanage the weapons/armor.

Worst of all is when you have a legendary armor/weaponsmith and then a regular one.  You want to keep the regular one in case the legendary gets wasted, and you want the regular one to go up in skill, and not complain about job loss... so weapon makers I have just make trap components, but its hard to get the armorsmiths up in skill.  I usually make a lot of bronze armor with them, then try to get it moved to a stockpile and forbidden or activated to melt it, or just hope they get decorated so I can sell the stuff.

[Troas]

I'd recommend using bucklers for training novice armorsmiths.  They are fairly quick to make, take only one bar, and as long as you restrict your military to using shields they won't ever be picked up by active duty dwarves.

[Inquisitor Saturn]

They really ought to add a way to make this simpler.