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[Mike_B20]

After reading about problems with clothing wearing out and the associated morale problems and difficulty maintaining a massive clothing industry to satisfy the demand for replacement garb, I'm thinking about making every dwarf a member of the militia and equipping them all with chest, leg and foot armour, which apparently do not wear out.
However, I'm wondering about just how well the dwarves would handle switching between weapons and tools as they switch between military training/duty and their normal civilian jobs.

Is it viable to organize the entire fortress population as a reserve militia?

[Delioth]

You can do it for everyone except for miners, hunters, and woodcutters.

They don't actually need to change tools (except for those listed) anytime, so they'll just walk around in their armors with their sword strapped on. Armor'll never wear out (As long as if it's leather it's leggings, armor, and high/low boots; helm is optional) and they'll be k. Might want to make them train a little bit if they're wearing armor with any reasonable weight though- ranks in armor user lessen the speed/encumbrance penalty of armor (to the point where grandmaster armor users don't care whether they're in full steel plate or just their skivvies.)

However if you try to tell miners, hunters, or woodcutters to wear armors, they'll just say 'no.' If you tell them to replace their clothing... they'll walk around nekkid with just their profession's tool. It's quite annoying, actually.

[Wormser]

You can do it for everyone except for miners, hunters, and woodcutters.

-snipped-

However if you try to tell miners, hunters, or woodcutters to wear armors, they'll just say 'no.' If you tell them to replace their clothing... they'll walk around nekkid with just their profession's tool. It's quite annoying, actually.

Ah.. That is why they where being dunces... Question.. If I changed the miners, hunters and woodcutters to another livelyhood. Would they the equip them and keep them even after setting them back to what I wanted them for?

[Delioth]

You can do it for everyone except for miners, hunters, and woodcutters.

-snipped-

However if you try to tell miners, hunters, or woodcutters to wear armors, they'll just say 'no.' If you tell them to replace their clothing... they'll walk around nekkid with just their profession's tool. It's quite annoying, actually.

Ah.. That is why they where being dunces... Question.. If I changed the miners, hunters and woodcutters to another livelyhood. Would they the equip them and keep them even after setting them back to what I wanted them for?

They'd equip their military garb, and then when you set them back to miner, hunter, or woodcutter they would immediately drop all their military gear (stripping naked if they were to replace civilian clothing) to use their override invisible uniform.

(not rude, just blunt):
No matter how you do it, miners, hunters, and woodcutters will never wear military garb while they're miners, hunters, or woodcutters. Ever. I assume eventually this will be fixed (Like giving them overlapping uniforms; as long as you don't assign a weapon, they'd overlap and take the military garb, but still use their tool- this is not how it works now, but I'd guess that'd be the way it should work at some later date.)

[Wormser]

You can do it for everyone except for miners, hunters, and woodcutters.

-snipped-

However if you try to tell miners, hunters, or woodcutters to wear armors, they'll just say 'no.' If you tell them to replace their clothing... they'll walk around nekkid with just their profession's tool. It's quite annoying, actually.

Thank you. Basicly not worth the effort unless desprite or never plan on using them again for those professions or in need of increasing dodge skill. At least currently.

Ah.. That is why they where being dunces... Question.. If I changed the miners, hunters and woodcutters to another livelyhood. Would they the equip them and keep them even after setting them back to what I wanted them for?

They'd equip their military garb, and then when you set them back to miner, hunter, or woodcutter they would immediately drop all their military gear (stripping naked if they were to replace civilian clothing) to use their override invisible uniform.

(not rude, just blunt):
No matter how you do it, miners, hunters, and woodcutters will never wear military garb while they're miners, hunters, or woodcutters. Ever. I assume eventually this will be fixed (Like giving them overlapping uniforms; as long as you don't assign a weapon, they'd overlap and take the military garb, but still use their tool- this is not how it works now, but I'd guess that'd be the way it should work at some later date.)

[Sutremaine]

Also note: it doesn't matter what a dwarf is or what they spend most of their time doing, only which jobs are enabled. If you disable Mining on your uber-Legendary dwarf who dug out most of the fortress single-handedly, they'll drop the pick and go pick up a military uniform. If you enable Mining on your uber-Legendary cook all dressed in military uniform who's barely even looked at a rock face, they'll shuck off the uniform and look for a pick and ordinary clothing before going to work on any mining designations they can reach.

You can safely have Mining-enabled dwarves, Woodcutting-enabled dwarves, and Hunting-enabled dwarves in an inactive squad with no uniform. The only effect this has is to tidy up the military screen. You can also assign a uniform to this squad. By itself this has no effect beyond tying up the items they choose, but it might be helpful if you think you'll forget to set a proper uniform at the time it's required. I think I've done this -- sent everyone up to the fortifications with their crossbows, but the miners and woodcutters just stood around unarmed in their clothes because I forgot about the uniform.

[Mike_B20]

Thanks for the replies.
I've been experimenting with organizing a fortress militia and a few things I've noticed:
* Setting the minimum active in a squad, e.g. 2 out of 4 is a good way of training up a squad slowly over time; they do their civilian jobs when not on active duty, training, etc.
* Having dwarves train as hunters is a great way of training the archery skills before assigning those dwarves to a militia archery unit; better than training at an archery range.

Had a strange experience training a hunter as an archer.
For some reason, this particular dwarf had good bashing skills; so, rather than run away from the boars he was hunting when he ran out of bolts, he took to bashing them with his crossbow; it all worked well for a while.
One day a message appeared that his corpse had been found: a boar fought back and killed him.
Pretty funny really

[FortunaDraken]

Related question, I turned Hunter off on my dwarves but they haven't yet officially changed profession (they arrived with a high Hunting level so it still registers as their main profession), are they still going to be dunces about putting on armour or will they co-operate since they aren't actually hunting?

[Delioth]

Related question, I turned Hunter off on my dwarves but they haven't yet officially changed profession (they arrived with a high Hunting level so it still registers as their main profession), are they still going to be dunces about putting on armour or will they co-operate since they aren't actually hunting?

If hunting's turned off, they'll be fine with uniforms. It's only turning the labors on that messes with uniforms and nonsense.

[Sutremaine]

Related question, I turned Hunter off on my dwarves but they haven't yet officially changed profession (they arrived with a high Hunting level so it still registers as their main profession), are they still going to be dunces about putting on armour or will they co-operate since they aren't actually hunting?

It doesn't matter what a dwarf is or what they spend most of their time doing, only which jobs are enabled.

[Vilkku92]

Ok, I got an idea, but I'm not sure if it works. If I make squads with no uniforms, and put my miners and woodcutters in them, then activate those squads, do they carry their picks and axes with them to wherever I send them to, or will they just drop them and try wrestling with whatever forgotten beast has managed to slaughter its way to my meeting hall? It would be a nice backup if all the regulars die.

[Sutremaine]

They will drop them, because those picks and axes are assigned to the civilian uniform and not the military one.

If you pause the game before trying to order your miners and woodcutters anywhere, you can disable the Mining and Woodcutting tasks and then assign each dwarf the exact weapon they're currently holding. But, your woodcutters won't be any better with an axe than any other civilian, and both your miners and woodcutters will be in their civilian clothes. If you want to give them time to put on some armour, you can skip the fiddling around with weapons and have some weaponry lying in reserve for them along with the armour.

[Vilkku92]

They will drop them, because those picks and axes are assigned to the civilian uniform and not the military one.

If you pause the game before trying to order your miners and woodcutters anywhere, you can disable the Mining and Woodcutting tasks and then assign each dwarf the exact weapon they're currently holding. But, your woodcutters won't be any better with an axe than any other civilian, and both your miners and woodcutters will be in their civilian clothes. If you want to give them time to put on some armour, you can skip the fiddling around with weapons and have some weaponry lying in reserve for them along with the armour.

Damn, nothing I plan seems to work. Yet... Thanks anyway.