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[Urist Sonuvagimli]

Nothing in the game gave my face more palm than military. Sure dwarves are not the brightest kin, but those uniformed airheads are even more dumb than the civilians! At least civs can run away instead of charging 30 cave croc-mounted goblins  and getting slaughtered. Yet, given the complex nature of the game, I reckon I just lack knowledge. Henceforth, could you please clarify the following:

1.Is it possible to order militia to retreat (preferably to the trap-riddled corridors) after they have already saw/charged the enemy?
2.Is it possible to do hit-and-run tactics with squad of marksdwarves? At the moment they just stand and shoot until challenged in melee and slaughtered, oblivious to the "move" command and alerts.
3.Goblin spearmaster is serving the fortress as a target practice for marksdwarves. Though none of the squad members can hit him (arrows get blocked/dodged), will they still get "Marksman" skill-ups?
4.Will stationed militiamen withness/report vampires?

Thankyou!

[Garath]

1: remove them from their squads. They're now civvies and will run, hopefully in the right direction and without dropping all their gear. Just changing their active status to inactive may work too - eventually - but I wouldn't bet on that.

2: No, which is why I usually give them a tower (more of a bunker, but it's above ground level) or other place to safely fire from and reload their quivers untill I feel like letting the melee dudes go.

3: Yes, naturally. You learn more from your mistakes than your success, right?

4: Pretty sure yes, though you need a CotG to receive the reports, possibly with an office. I recall so from some events in a fort some time ago, but I could be wrong.

[Witty]

1. As far as my experience goes, no. Once a military dwarf has seen a hostile, it must either kill that creature (and any other hostile in view) or die trying.

2. Nope. Best to keep marksdwarves behind a fortification. Since their AI is a bit screwy, they have a bad tendency to blindly engage the enemy in a melee charge.

3. Even if the shots are blocked, I think the unit still gains XP. They won't get XP from missed shots, IIRC.

4. Yes, but they won't actually try to stop the vampire from killing the victim.

[smjjames]

Dwarves (or anybody else for that matter) don't have any concepts of basic military concepts and tactics right now like stand your ground or retreat when they see the enemy.

Someday we will be able to command our squads like a professional military.

[ShadowHammer]

Dwarves (or anybody else for that matter) don't have any concepts of basic military concepts and tactics right now like stand your ground or retreat when they see the enemy.

Someday we will be able to command our squads like a professional military.

Yeah. In DF2014... or -15, or -16... we shall have the glorious power of battle tactics!

I find that as long as they're in a tunnel and you turn off their orders in the squads screen, and set them to inactive on the military screen, they will retreat with little difficulty. The problem comes when they are either surrounded or out in the open.

[smjjames]

Dwarves (or anybody else for that matter) don't have any concepts of basic military concepts and tactics right now like stand your ground or retreat when they see the enemy.

Someday we will be able to command our squads like a professional military.

Yeah. In DF2014... or -15, or -16... we shall have the glorious power of battle tactics!

I find that as long as they're in a tunnel and you turn off their orders in the squads screen, and set them to inactive on the military screen, they will retreat with little difficulty. The problem comes when they are either surrounded or out in the open.

Not DF2014 though as that's the upcoming release and teaching them basic tactics and concepts is likely to come with the army arc or whenever he decides to work more on fort mode military.

[Sutremaine]

1.Is it possible to order militia to retreat (preferably to the trap-riddled corridors) after they have already saw/charged the enemy?

You can make them run away by deactivating them, but like the civilians they are they'll run away randomly. You can use the civilian alert to get them headed for the 'safe' burrow when they're not panicking, or take control of them by issuing short move orders when they're out of engagement range. Battlefield control is very important, especially with dwarf control being so poor. Put your dwarves somewhere where you can cut off line of sight to the enemy, and marshall them in a group before a bout of fighting starts. Around a corner, behind your trap corridor would work very nicely...

Do not remove them from their squads, unless you're happy for them to drop anything that a civilian wouldn't carry or wear normally.

2.Is it possible to do hit-and-run tactics with squad of marksdwarves? At the moment they just stand and shoot until challenged in melee and slaughtered, oblivious to the "move" command and alerts.

Well, you can make them run away...

It's best to keep marksdwarves somewhere they can't enter melee. Use move orders and not kill orders; if a dwarf with a kill order runs out of bolts, they'll attempt to finish the job with the butt of the crossbow. You can also train the marksdwarves to be less fragile, in the same way that you train your melee dwarves.

3.Goblin spearmaster is serving the fortress as a target practice for marksdwarves. Though none of the squad members can hit him (arrows get blocked/dodged), will they still get "Marksman" skill-ups?

Yes. The mere act of live fire is enough.

[Urist Sonuvagimli]

Thankyou! The burrow idea is actually neat, gonna try that. On the side note, do you know how to make my legendary bone-carver/axedwarf stop doing drills WHILE INACTIVE and get the hell to BONE CRAFTS! Sry for caps, it really annoys me

[Sutremaine]

Alter the dwarf's barracks options so that the dwarf's squad doesn't train there. They'll still want to finish the individual drill, but a brief station order will cut that short.

[Lochar]

I am still learning this too but I have found when my military dwarves are doing civvy work they dont seem aggresive. Was actually annoying to see my axedwarf next to a thief and ran like the others since he wasnt on duty...