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[Silver Dragon]

I dont suppose theres a way to improve the current military system, ive been LPing MWDF for months now and just recently had one of those complete failures with the functioning of my military that has me debating continueing the series, when the "alarm" sounds and they need to get to there posts they take a bloody long time to do so and end up screwing around too much or worse and the most anoying pick up the wrong or incomplete equipment, it drives me nuts XD
Its such a pain in the ass to setup and train a military squad to be effective in combat, im not even going to go over the hell trying to outfit a ranged squad turns out to be, so again i dont suppose theres a way to change the core aspects of the military to make things easier, or should i just give up give my whole population wooden swords and send them to the hellzone wile i enjoy there peanut brained squeals of death?

[Meph]

I dont suppose theres a way to improve the current military system, ive been LPing MWDF for months now and just recently had one of those complete failures with the functioning of my military that has me debating continueing the series, when the "alarm" sounds and they need to get to there posts they take a bloody long time to do so and end up screwing around too much or worse and the most anoying pick up the wrong or incomplete equipment, it drives me nuts XD
Its such a pain in the ass to setup and train a military squad to be effective in combat, im not even going to go over the hell trying to outfit a ranged squad turns out to be, so again i dont suppose theres a way to change the core aspects of the military to make things easier, or should i just give up give my whole population wooden swords and send them to the hellzone wile i enjoy there peanut brained squeals of death?

I dont find equipping soldiers that hard. You make the armor/weapons and station the squad on top of them. Then you give them backpacks, quivers and flasks and they'll fill up thier proviant... the garrison can stop all sleeping, breaks and parties, so you dont even have to worry about those.

[migshark]

Rather than building walls up, I find it's faster to just get everyone picks and just channel out a courtyard ringed with a moat. The moat keeps the enemy from peering down from above and shooting/scaring your dwarves, and you get a wall as thick as you like. The downside is that it costs a layer of soil or two. My genius masterfully illustrated:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If you make the wall ~9 tiles thick, and just channel out a 1-wide moat around it, you can later channel out the middle of the wall and build in that too. It makes a good place for corpses in an evil biome, or for bonerattling when a living enemy is pathing through.

You could just breach the cavern and seal it again for the moss. If you manage to breach the third but not the first or second, you can grow shade thorns en masse and sell em at the fine goods market for a good price.

[Silver Dragon]

I dont find equipping soldiers that hard. You make the armor/weapons and station the squad on top of them. Then you give them backpacks, quivers and flasks and they'll fill up thier proviant... the garrison can stop all sleeping, breaks and parties, so you dont even have to worry about those.

My problem isnt as much with equiping them initially "though i do still have issues with that at times and should figure backpack equiping out" its that once they leave the military for any reason they tend to drop everything which gets hauled off and issues commence, it would be nice if once they have gathered there "designated" equipment if for any reason they need to take off the armor it all combines into say "Tomoks Armor Set" rather then there individual pieces removing them from the stock list, something that he stores away in barracks or room and dosent take a month to gather up, then again im not sure if its possable to code it so multiple items get combined into a single one only to resume there "equiped" state when used, maby even having them include a bag of food and water in it via default (complaining if you dont have enough) to reduce the micromanagement one has to do. All and all i just want my entire squad to quickly respond to any imediate threat that is presented to them "it may just be a issue with my approach" but i would love less micro to make them function well XD

[Another]

Don't allow the following labours on military dwarves: Hunter, Miner, Lumberjack. Their equipment counts as uniform and is a Vanilla issue with military uniforms.

[Repseki]

Are you removing the dwarves from the military completely? Or do you have them set to not wear their uniforms while inactive?

If you know you have enough armor for all of your military it can also help to make sure they are set to replace their civilian equipment, so it doesn't interfere.

[urmane]

Make the dwarves full-time military - no other labors, change the schedules for each squad to train and "sleep in barracks at need" (not at will), make sure to copy-paste those orders to all months, put the barracks/military wing close to the entrance.

When the pop gets larger, create a few single-dwarf squads as lookouts, make sure they have backpacks and waterskin/flasks, and set them on patrol routes on top of your outer walls / in your lookout towers / wandering through the bush.

Even with all that, though, the enemy comes fast - you must have route controls or they'll be in your fortress in no time.  Keep your levers in your siege burrow.

Have a couple of small piles to use for micromanaging equipment and armor - as your armorsmith/weaponsmiths get better and if/when you get the kewl furnaces, you'll want to specify these.  Don't be afraid to melt down older stuff.

My personal opinion: skip the archers, or have one small squad - all enemy archers are far more effective than yours, until they are very experienced, and the archery training (either with archery targets or mass pits) is too unreliable to waste much time on it (until you get a large population).

[Srial]

Heya Silver Dragon, I enjoy your LP's a lot.

I have to echo the others.  A big solution to military inventory woes is simply to never remove them from the military for any reason.   Leave them on neverending training duty in their barracks, and station them or order them to attack when you need them to do something.    That means you can't use those dwarves for other tasks, but it's also zero micromanagement and you always have an equipped squad ready to respond.

I also agree archers are kinda useless, unless you do something like make a big moat around your base.   Aside from a complete wall in, the best defense I find is digging a large 2-3 z level deep moat around the edge of the map (say within 10 squares of the end) with one drawbridge across it.    Keep these archers inside the moat, and use them to kill anything on the map that moves, animals, animalmen and invaders.  That gets them plenty of training and practice and gets you meat and bones (for more bolts) and such.   Usually your archers have a longer range than the goblins and will break their will to fight before they do too much damage to your troops.

Of course, once the flying enemies show up the moat idea doesn't help you so much, but hopefully by then your troops have had enough practice.   

[Rikbog]

Rather than building walls up, I find it's faster to just get everyone picks and just channel out a courtyard ringed with a moat.

That's actually a pretty good idea.  I tend to make an unfilled moat around my outdoor 30x30 area, but the beasties kept scaring my dwarves.  I'm in the process of building a wall around the entire area, but it's a low priority.  I had my first flying siege yesterday, so I really appreciated that bridge in the hallway leading to my pasture.  I have enough indoor grazing land and a refuse pit that it was mostly just an inconvenience.

Come to think of it, I'm not actually sure where my food and booze comes from.  I have a bunch of fields and the boozebellies have really gotten out of hand with the breading.  I occasionally slaughter a dozen of them.  If I killed them all off, would the whole fort go dry and starve, or are they just add some flavor to all the crops I farm?  I really have no idea.  I have whiskey though.  I have a ton of whiskey, and that is no accident.

I don't want to go to the extreme of walling off my fortress with bridges and wall grates, because it feels a little cheaty. Though lately it seems like this is the only way to survive as dwarves fall like wheat before a scythe and the resultant tantrum spirals destroy what's left of the fortress.

With the huge annoying waves of migrants attracting attention and eating all the food, is it even possible to get a strong enough military ready for sieges by the time they come?  Later on, you might be able to dispose of your walls and traps, but I've found it almost impossible to deal with sieges head on in the first couple years.  Maybe I just just don't play aggressively enough.

You could try a compromise though.  Have a couple long entrance hallways gated off to split the siege into more manageable pieces for your military to handle.  Later, when those sieges just put your troops to sleep, you can bring in the traps/magma and make it viewable from the dining room.  Nothing like some goblin screams for background noise while you eat, right?

I'm actually starting to think that walls are to keep the refugee migrants out.  Stopping sieges is actually just a side bonus.  I might have to make a migrant incineration burrow to get rid of the milkers and such without keeping the useful ones away.

[Meph]

I dont get it.

you say sieges are too hard, but you kill your migrants, which would make perfect soldiers and archers?

[Another]

That is probably because the original more severe problem than sieges is a threat of starvation. And that one is only worsened by taking additional time to bury 20 more bodies that boldly thought they could make any difference in a siege with their low skills and no good armor but could be even worse if you put some time into equipping/training/feeding them to whatever level they can reach in the first year instead of agriculture for the same final result.

I usually get better results when I concentrate all the best resources on 1-2 elite dwarves than a bunch of conscripts.

[Parhelion]

It just sounds like you're not balancing what you have right.

I only get huge migration waves when I've over-developed and tried to sell too much in the first year, or sat around with 200+ stores of food in either drink or edibles.  If everyone is super-awesome mega happy, then too many people show up in the next season and crap all over my parade.  I've actually learned to NOT give people nice bedrooms or dining rooms until I can afford a wave.

[Caz]

Thanks for all the great replies. I'll hold off on breaking open any caverns until I have a proper militia going, and try not to raise my fort price too much (fancy rooms, smoothing walls etc).

[Rikbog]

I dont get it.

you say sieges are too hard, but you kill your migrants, which would make perfect soldiers and archers?

If you mean me, not really.  I don't think they're too hard.  I just tend to turtle a little, and I know it.  I also had a lot of starvation with this fort keeping me from making much of a strong military.  I wall in and play pretty conservatively for the first few years.  I suppose even if the migrants failed to kill a siege, it would whittle them down and suck up less food.

I also don't usually keep the migrants out.  I let them in and regret it most of the time.  Maybe I just need to embark with more seeds/animals and miss less caravans while my broker sits there with NO JOB.

[Meph]

I dont have problems with food, ever. Cant remember that last time someone starved. Its all butchery and hunting, done by my military, and as soon as the caravans and embassy are up, I'm stocked for all eternity. Remember that you can call caravans whenever you like.