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[BoogieMan]

I was thinking about drafting everyone into the military in my next fort, and I have some questions about the behavior of inactive, but still "military" Dwarves.

How do they behave if they are inactive and not given station or attack orders? I've played quite a bit, but never really had military squads inactive during attacks. Will they flee from danger, unless activated and/or directed to station or attack?

If they are assigned to a barracks, but not specifically told to go train, I know some dwarves will go practice on their own, but what if they have active applicable jobs available? Will they train until the current session is complete, or will they break early to go do work? Would you need to avoid assigning them to keep them focused on civilian duties?



I was hoping to avoid the clothing decay issues and the messes that follow, as well as make use of lower quality armor and weapons to give "civilians" more of a fighting chance if cornered and to provide some protection against accidents. If fully armored, I imagine it will slow everyone but the strongest down but it will train their strength, right? How much can the strength training counter the speed loss without much, if any, armor user training?

For anyone who has attempted this, what are your thoughts on it?

[Orange Wizard]

Dwarves that are not on active military duty are considered civilians, and behave as such (running from attackers and so on).
Activating military duty can be done in the schedule menu (by setting them to train or patrol) or by commanding the squad to move/attack.

Arming and armouring every civilian does have advantages. Until their armour user skill goes up, they will be very slow, but have much more survivability when fleeing and can have their squad activated for a sort of last-ditch defense kind of thing.
The biggest factors affecting speed in armour is agility (for base speed), and strength/armour user to reduce the speed maluses. It's up to you to decide how important the speed loss is. Lighter or less armour means less defence but more speed, and vice versa. Although IMO you should probably work on preventing civilians from having to fight, rather than making civilians better at fighting.

[PatrikLundell]

Nothing of what I say is absolute truth, so take it with a suitable amount of salt...

- Dorfs drafted into inactive squads who have never trained, nor are given any barrack seem to work as normal.
- Dorfs who have gotten a lot of training and whose squads are set on an on/off training schedule and have a barrack rarely, if ever, work, but rather spend their off time on individual training. Dwarven children work more than these dorfs. Training seems to have a much higher priority than any civilian work.
- There was a thread with a claim a system with no/minimal individual training had been set up, but I never saw any real conclusions, as the very slow training regiment hadn't continued long enough for a definite answer the last I saw.

Running from danger/engaging behavior is based on individual traits. These are tempered by training, but don't expect the dorf who'd run from even the most necessary fight to be of much use even after years of training (or at least be pleasantly surprised if he was).

If you're going to armor civilians you should give them fairly light weight equipment. A helmet seems to be the individual best equipment item. A feather-wood shield would be handy. This also means the low quality armor is better used melted down and reforged.

Also, make sure to exclude miners, hunters, and wood cutters from the drafts, since these professions have an invisible "military" uniform that conflicts with the military one. There are claims these problems can be worked around, though...

[Zuglarkun]

I haven't played a fully armed fort, but my experience with the military tells me that inactive squads will still train in their spare time if they have a barracks assigned to their squad. I'm not absolutely certain, but training is considered high priority I think, so it might cut into your other labors.

If all you care about is avoiding the clothing industry altogether, I would advise arming your civilian squads with the weapons and armor you want them to equip, but just don't set schedules or allocate training barracks for the squad and leave them inactive all the time.

If you give them heavy armor, they will need skill in armor user to offset the loss in speed, just wearing it won't train the skill though, they need to get hit. Its armor user skill, not armor wearer skill after all.

[BoogieMan]

Hmm, well since the main goal was avoiding clothing decay (added survivability just being a bonus) I imagine that they could be minimally equipped with just a mail shirt, boots, and greaves so they are covered while being weighed down as little as possible. But it's probably better to make at least two presets, one like the above for the very weakest and another that adds a light wood shield and a short sword, and maybe a helm. Probably shouldn't assign them a train, to keep them focused on civilian work.

How much different would their speed really be affected by not having a helm, gauntlets, a shield, and a weapon? I'm not really familiar with how encumbrance without skills to offset them really works. I wonder how much a difference there would be between for an unskilled fully armored and a half armored dwarf.

As for miners, woodcutters, and hunters yeah I remember them doing weird stuff when assigned to a squad. I thought I once got my miners to use some armor before, and I remember one of them falling and not taking damage because of armor. Or maybe they blocked a falling object.. Don't quite recall. I'll have to experiment with that again while paying closer attention.

Thanks for the insight, much appreciated.

[taptap]

Inactive squads without barracks don't train and work pretty much like civilians (apart from carrying assigned equipment). Inactive marksdwarves without barracks, but archery targets, shoot regularly when training bolts are available, without shutting out all other activity. This is the setup I run. Melee squads are inactive and removed from barracks, marksdwarves are inactive, but still have their targets to train whenever I make some new bone bolts.

[Max™]

Leather armor doesn't decay.

Assign a uniform to a miner with the labor disabled, set to replace clothing, no weapon, get them geared up, change it to over clothing, make sure they're geared up, leave them inactive and activate the mining labor again, they should go grab a pick and wander around with their armor on properly.

[PatrikLundell]

As Max said, leather armor is light weight, while still armor. You should also assign boots and gauntlets to handle nasty contaminants. Boots can be made out of leather, while gauntlets will have to be made out of metal or bone. I'd definitely add a helmet as well.

[Silfarion]

Hm, so there could finally be a use for those damn elves and their useless wood armor. Well, assuming you want to use your bones, shells and leather for other purposes anyways.

[Daris]

Leather armor does decay, at the same rate as other non-clothes leather items (1 increment of wear every 20 years).

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

nooooooo.....?

[BoogieMan]

Leather armor does decay, at the same rate as other non-clothes leather items (1 increment of wear every 20 years).

Yeah I was under the impression that the only wearable stuff that doesn't deteriorate is metal.

[Borge]

Check out the wiki, all improvable items made from creature or plant material decay 1 level every 100 years. All cloth and leather items decay 1 level every 20 years.

[PatrikLundell]

Well, 20 years is a lot in DF, and certainly is more than the 2 years of clothing. Replacing the leather/bone/wood armor every 20 years may be worth the productivity gained by having the dorfs move at a brisker pace. The ideal, of course, is to deck them all out in candy armor...

[99Hedgehog]

an issue i've had, is that if I assign miners or woodcutters to a squad, put them off duty, and assign them a job, they drop all their armor and put on clothes