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[Proudnerd]

So i just had the upteenth fort where dwarves never show any improvement despite constant combat drill and  being armored entirely in steel or iron with quality weapons..it takes years to get to even competent.


I'm also sick of seeing dwarves get punched in the head by goblins  dying due to the half assed way brains/skulls are depicted. Ditto for instadeath archers and broken fingers/toes causing unconsciousness.


And I'm especially sick of waiting for a release that apparently wants to implement every single fix and new feature under the sun instead of you know making basic concepts like the military work correctly. Im sure some players would agree it would be great if bugs were squashed in a timely manner. its fantastic that toady has such huge ambitions for the game and i cant wait to see where df goes next, but cmon can't the basics work right?


Can we please have more smaller bugfix releases instead of a few massive releases over actual years?


I love df and have for years but I'm sick of the same old bugs going unpatched for literally years, in favour of regaling us with lists of new trees being implemented. i can never get a decent military going at all.

[pisskop]

My dwarves don't do danger rooms, and the years it takes to reach proficiency is good.  I don't like the idea of danger rooms and don't really care for legendary in  months.  Even the incredibly rapid growth of botanists, crafters, and miners/loggers is kind of silly.

the rapid growth of skills is something Id want fixed.

Injury and hospitals in this games are one of the lacking areas, but I don't find them as detrimental as they could be.  I swing on them, there's a deal-with-it fatalism that permeates all of DF that helps.  I do want hospitals especially rehauled.

Head injuries aren't 'realistic' per se, but I rather like how it is implemented, and I don't find too many issues with it.  Not when using humanoids at least.  The ability of spherical monsters is negatively affected, but meh.

I guess that overall I would rather not have smaller bug fixes unless what was being fixed was a dire issue or in it (near) final state.  For example, the issue with fortress-born chillens retaining their infant size.  Was a rather big deal.  But then again my average fort is only 5-7 years in length and 200 dwarves strong.

[Witty]

Really? If anything, I think troops train waaay too fast for just sparring. How large are your sqauds? Generally, you're going to want a single squad with two or three dwarves only. Give em a year or so, and they'll be able to take on most things the game can throw at you.

Thin skulls do suck indeed. I don't know what fix Toady has planned for the upcoming release, but I found (or rather, someone here on the forum found) a temporary workaround by making the skull about the same size as the brain in the body_default.txt. Works great, you can actually punch someone without their face collapsing. The Broken Arrow mod also fixes archery to a good extent

And yeah, I'm sure most would agree that bugs should get fixed in a more timely manner. Both for the project's sake as well as the players. buuut that just isn't how Toady rolls, as annoying as it may be. From what I've heard, smaller, more bug-squashing centric releases have occurred in the past, and will probably occur sometime in the future. This release is definitely an oddball, and is probably the biggest victim of feature creep that DF has yet to endure. Once this release is out and patched, things will probably be back to semi-normal.

[FallenAngel]

Honestly, the only way I circumvent this is by having a race that lacks organs overall, except for the eyes, for the purpose of Eye Scream. They also don't eat or drink or breathe, so...

[Urist McKoga]

I really want military skills get a fair balance in offense skills and defense skills. Using sparring or dangers rooms just results a fast legendary fighter and legendary [insert weapon skill name]dwarf and low-levels of shield, dodge and armor user (in that order).

[ShadowHammer]

My dwarves don't do danger rooms, and the years it takes to reach proficiency is good.  I don't like the idea of danger rooms and don't really care for legendary in  months.  Even the incredibly rapid growth of botanists, crafters, and miners/loggers is kind of silly.

the rapid growth of skills is something Id want fixed.

Injury and hospitals in this games are one of the lacking areas, but I don't find them as detrimental as they could be.  I swing on them, there's a deal-with-it fatalism that permeates all of DF that helps.  I do want hospitals especially rehauled.

Head injuries aren't 'realistic' per se, but I rather like how it is implemented, and I don't find too many issues with it.  Not when using humanoids at least.  The ability of spherical monsters is negatively affected, but meh.

I guess that overall I would rather not have smaller bug fixes unless what was being fixed was a dire issue or in it (near) final state.  For example, the issue with fortress-born chillens retaining their infant size.  Was a rather big deal.  But then again my average fort is only 5-7 years in length and 200 dwarves strong.

I agree with this. What's the point of valiant deaths and heroic failure if you can just churn out a new crop of legends next month? The way it is now makes every warrior worth something, because they alone rose among their peers, all of whom faltered and fell on the path to greatness.

[Melting Sky]

I really want military skills get a fair balance in offense skills and defense skills. Using sparring or dangers rooms just results a fast legendary fighter and legendary [insert weapon skill name]dwarf and low-levels of shield, dodge and armor user (in that order).

Currently defense far outweighs offense in DF aside for the eggshell thick skulls issue so the fact it trains slower is probably a good thing.

As far as my personal wish list of military bugs I wish to see fixed goes, this is how I would rank them.

1: Cage traps. It is just so anti-climatic and utterly ridiculous when some rickety trap made of sticks and a little web takes down a 30 ton civilization destroying eldrich abomination that has been worshiped as a God since the beginning of time. Cage traps need some massive re-balancing/nerfing.

2: Fix the enemy siege IA. Intelligent enemies should not act like zombies. Instances where a goblin will run suicidally into a hall of death where he just literally watched half a dozen of his buddies get turned into hamburger moments earlier should not happen just as a simple draw bridge should not be capable of rendering the greatest military forces on the planet utterly useless. Digging and other more dynamic elements need to be added to the tactical arsenal of intelligent foes. Enemies of extremely low intelligence such as some animals and zombie are fine how they are but intelligent foes should act the part. I should add that as "intelligent" creatures our dwarves really could use some similiar improvements in AI.

2: Removal or absolute massive nerfing of danger rooms and the spear of enlightenment. They are just plain broken.

3: Fixing the eggshell thin skull issue. Headshots with a proper weapon by a large or skilled foe should still be fearfully devastating but the whole situation where a 20 ton mega beast's head explodes from a single lash of a whip really shouldn't happen.

4: Undead, particularly the low level zombie variety, are bit too hard to kill. I particularly do not like that they are so fire proof since fire is one of the classic weaknesses of undead in most mythical lore.

5: Overhaul of the equipment and military interface. Currently the way we arm our dwarves is really prone to bugs and is unnecessarily convoluted. I can't even count how many times I've had to stop some suicidal dwarf from running head on into the enemy lines to pick up a a boot he just had to have or had problems with crossbowmen refusing to pick up some ammo from a bin filled with countless bolts etc.

Edit: Reading this list, I find it comes off as harshly critical of a game I truly love so I just wanted to add that these complaints are intended as constructive criticism rather than to be insulting or demeaning towards one of my all time favorite games.

[Ieb]

As a note to the post about wanting slower skill gain on civilian job(which can be pretty insane, then again they're dorfs, their quick rise to legendary is directly linked with their quick rush to meet an untimely death that will send your entire fort in a tantrum spiral), you can just add the SLOW_LEARNER tag to dwarves, or if you want to specific, use the SKILL_LEARN_RATES. For even MORE specific, SKILL_LEARN_RATE for picking what exactly you want to go slower.

Makes me wonder if there's a mod already for this.

Anyway, I too would like to see military train in Armor and Shield usage, they only seem to hold lessons about those so you pretty much can only receive points in 'em at actual combat. I'm not sure if sparring even gives the dorfs XP on Armor and Shield. I had plenty of near-Elite weapondorfs at my last fort, who still were at Adequate to Competent in Armor with over a decade of training, involving sparring, a few siege cleanups and mass prisoner executions.

I guess the only "legit" way to actually get points through training to Armor and Shield would be to wait for the soldiers hit legendary in their weapon of choice, and then tell them to go without weapons and enter the danger-room. Then again, that will raise their Dodging high enough to dodge a lot of the attacks fast. And is a bit too micro-intensive, especially since you need to fix up their outfit afterwards. Or if they need to fight.

Maybe we could get some changes on the invader side on sieges too. I figure that the goblins that show up to siege are always around Adequate in their weapon, maybe even on all the other military skills. Maybe we could see some more mixed up sieges, with the usual skilled soldiers and bunch of recruits who were given weapons and told that they're going to siege the dorfs.

Which may be what will happen once Toady gets to the Army arc, though. Oh well.

[Loud Whispers]

This reminds me of the time where in the adventure mode forum people were complaining about paper thin skulls, and then it was found out they were using toughness as their dump stat.

So i just had the upteenth fort where dwarves never show any improvement despite constant combat drill and  being armored entirely in steel or iron with quality weapons..it takes years to get to even competent.

There are a lot of things you can do to improve the learning rate of soldiers, such as bringing some proficient teachers on embark or giving multiple training orders of 2/3 to maximize sparring.

I'm also sick of seeing dwarves get punched in the head by goblins  dying due to the half assed way brains/skulls are depicted. Ditto for instadeath archers and broken fingers/toes causing unconsciousness.

There'll be a spectrum of lethality/non-lethality come the next update, so don't worry to much. I'm not surprised that goblins would be able to break skulls with their fists though, they are trying to kill your Dwarves unlike a fistfighting tantrum Dwarf. Though admittedly, only an incredibly strong goblin should be able to break the skull of an average Dorf.
Also on the topic of fingers and toes, ever stub your toe? You'll want Dwarves with high willpower and the like. Because it is painful. Very painful.

And I'm especially sick of waiting for a release that apparently wants to implement every single fix and new feature under the sun instead of you know making basic concepts like the military work correctly. Im sure some players would agree it would be great if bugs were squashed in a timely manner. its fantastic that toady has such huge ambitions for the game and i cant wait to see where df goes next, but cmon can't the basics work right?
Can we please have more smaller bugfix releases instead of a few massive releases over actual years?

Toady does both m8y

I love df and have for years but I'm sick of the same old bugs going unpatched for literally years

[Citation_needed]

in favour of regaling us with lists of new trees being implemented. i can never get a decent military going at all.

One such "basic" thing that was being implemented to DF was multi-tile trees. Just because you can't get a decent military going doesn't mean others can't, with some good planning you can get quite a fierce force going by the end of year 2. Also next update is a bit more than just trees, one of the things that has been long awaited is the fact that the world will continue living as you play DF.

[vanatteveldt]

How to get a decent military by end of year one?

1) Embark with 4 dwarves with 5 skill points in teacher* and 5 of dodge/dodge/armor/shield, 1 dwarf 5 armor+weaponsmith, other 2 as you will (e.g. farmer/brewer+leader/doctor)
2) Bring 4 picks, 10 coal, 10 copper, 10 cassetirite and 1 refined coke
3) During spring, let the 4 soldiers mine out needed quarters: farm, dining hall, bedrooms, crafting, smithy
4) ASAP, start smelting bronze and making weapons, helms, shields, armor
5) Also ASAP, but certainly by late spring / early summer, set the soldiers to train in two squads of two soldiers, make sure their squad is active. If you don't have 4 weapons yet, give them training weapons. I prefer giving them a mix of weapons since they will act as seeds for your squads.
6) fortress development will slow to a halt since 4 dwarfs are busy with military stuff and 1 or 2 with smelting and smithing. This will fix itself with the two migrant waves. Anyway, who needs a big fortress? You probably want someone crafting trade goods asap, but for the rest food and booze is all you really need.
7) By the end of year 1, they should be approaching elite level. When the first 'big' migrant wave comes in, split the original soldiers into 4 squads and assign recruits from the migrants, hopefully with some skill points in the weapon you are aiming at.
Also, try to recruit some marksdwarfs from the first wave, and get them practicing.

By the end of year 1, you have 4 highly trained dwarfs in bronze weaposn and armour. By the end of year 2, you should have 4 melee squads and 2 marksdwarf squads, also well trained and well equipped.

*) Sparring is better than instruction; however, they will do instruction sessions anyway so you might as well have decent teachers. I've not tried using teacher/student instead of teacher/defensive. 

[Rum]

IIRC Toady has made skulls stronger in the next update so non-lethal fistfights are "usually" non-lethal.   While ranged combat is really powerful... (oh shit I may have given Elves access to metal)... I would hate to see more artificial HP systems that would be needed to stop an arrow to the face/vital organs from getting an instakill.

Dwarves and fortress are fragile and fickle.  Thats the appeal to me at least.

[Zammer990]

Decreasing the arrow force gives a fairly realistic representation of arrows (broken arrow mod), and I think realistically an arrow to the face/heart is going to be near enough to an instakill. Personally, I think organ damage needs more effects; and arrow in the lung will slow a dwarf down, and occasionally wind him, but then he'll be fine, with the arrow still stick in him, killing like the rest of them. Thin skulls I solved on my DF by increasing skull size.

[Loud Whispers]

and arrow in the lung will slow a dwarf down, and occasionally wind him, but then he'll be fine, with the arrow still stick in him, killing like the rest of them.

Lung wounds are fatal, why would a bolt to the lungs not kill you simply because it didn't lodge? Massive tissue damage is still massive tissue damage.

[Melting Sky]

IIRC Toady has made skulls stronger in the next update so non-lethal fistfights are "usually" non-lethal.   While ranged combat is really powerful... (oh shit I may have given Elves access to metal)... I would hate to see more artificial HP systems that would be needed to stop an arrow to the face/vital organs from getting an instakill.

Dwarves and fortress are fragile and fickle.  Thats the appeal to me at least.

Yeah, one thing about this game that sets it apart is it doesn't have some silly abstracted hp system to decide if your character dies or not. It's very realistic aside for a few inconsistencies such as whips, and overly fragile skulls. One of the things about real world combat is that it is very hit or miss. For instance in the real world if you fail do dodge or block a battle axe blow to the head then you can expect an absolutely devastating injury, likely near instant death. The same goes with getting shot with a crossbow. If the shot gets lucky and hits something important like your lungs, heart etc. then it doesn't matter how buff or well trained you are, you are going to suffer life threatening injuries. I like that dwarf fortress's combat is highly realistic in this sense. Even the greatest axe lord can die in a single shot and this is as it should be. It's not like becoming a more skilled fighter will all of a sudden makes your flesh impenetrable.

[Baffler]

There are some bugs that absolutely need fixing, and have been around for ages though. Marksdwarves are, for me at least, basically unusable. Right now it seems like no force on Earth can make them actually pick up some goddam bolts. And shooting on the range once a year, if by some miracle they actually equip themselves, does not a competent marksman make.