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[h.scorpio]

So, whenever I pick this game up again, it's always the same thing ending the fun.

It's the fact that dwarven military is largely not funtional and you have to rely on traps/walling in to defend against sieges.

Things that are particularly irritating:

 - Archers of any kind not picking up ammunition before going to battle, despite abundance
 - Archers never reloading once they run out of ammunition - instead charging the enemy
 - Dwarves leaving their stations and charging recklessly as soon as they have line of sight - makes the "Station" and "Defend Burrow" command rather pointless
 - Dwarves stationing several tiles away from where they should be stationed, often on different Z-levels, and therefore different floors with no line of sight
 - Dwarves leaving their station using ridiculous path finding, including climbing past your set up defenses - had a squad of archers climb down an impenetrable fortress to charge the invaders
 -Dwarves sparring rather than fighting the enemy that's standing 2 tiles next to them

Add to all that the amount of time and effort it takes to set up a military under the current system, it's just not worth it - and without it the game is pretty dull.

I feel like this should be a priority for development, since it's what makes the game either agonizing or incredibly boring after a certain point.
ALl the new features are nice and all, but if the game becomes unplayable after year 2, what's the point of it?

[Bumber]

- Dwarves leaving their stations and charging recklessly as soon as they have line of sight - makes the "Station" and "Defend Burrow" command rather pointless

What do you expect them to do? Stand their ground while being shot at? Stand by while the enemy runs away, and then finds easier civilian pickings?

If you want just a small area guarded, that's the use of traps. I station my infantry where the caverns meet my fort, and they deal with any threats that show up. I station them in a siege's path (giving the squad time to gather,) and they charge forward and tear it apart.

It's mostly just archers that have issues. I give them a station order near the ammo stockpiles, in advance, to make sure they load up. They're effective in combat if you station them behind your infantry in a siege, which allows them to get in some good shots while the enemy is occupied. Don't give them a kill order, as that tends to make them charge into melee. I've had success with patrol orders for my archers along the battlements, with no route to the enemy. There are roofs to prevent them from climbing over (although it's possible they could dodge through the fortifications.)

[h.scorpio]

What do you expect them to do? Stand their ground...

Damn right I do, that's why I built them a fortress. To defend the fortress, not charge out into the 40 goblins waiting to roast them outside. Instead they decide it's wise to climb down and 4 story tower, cross a moat and charge at the enemy.
Without them being shot beforehand. Without any opportunity for the enemy to get inside the castle.

What I would expect from the commands:

"Defend Burrow": Stay inside the burrow, step at max 2 tiles out of it if some enemy approaches it and once the threat has been dealt with, return to your post.

"Station": Have the squad group up as close as possible to the assigned station, at the same z-level unless that's impossible.
An option to have them stand their ground, to prevent the from leaving post under any circumstances.

"Patrol route": Similar to "Defend burrow", except on a given route.

In general, Archers getting more ammo once they run out, as a first priority.
Single dwarves not charging at superior forces by themselves, especially when outnumbered 20:1.


Again, if all you're doing is wall yourself in and rely on traps to fend off sieges, the game becomes so dull.

[Fleeting Frames]

I've never run into problem of dwarves stationing at wrong z-level, myself, though I've had them be at the wrong side of a door too many times to count (resorted to using "Defend Burrows", but shouldn't Station and Defend 1-tile burrow work the same?). I think formation fighting is planned?

There are bunch of other things, like non-tapping charge attacks in sparring resulting in quantum tunneling, but that's eh...more of a bug?

PS: Preferences vary. Lot of recent features support ideas like adventuring pacifist poet which aren't affected by combat at all.

[Migrant]

I can definitely get behind improving the ranged AI because it is broken. I don't think Station needs to be changed because if you constantly have to check whether or not your dwarves are being killed by a group of archers because they won't defend themselves if they get attacked would turn this game more micromanage-y than it should be. DF is primarily a game about managing a colony and not leading your troops into battle. Some general things like each combatant assessing the strength of their opponents relative to their own strength and then deciding if they should charge or wait for allies to arrive and perhaps fleeing back to the fortress before they pass out from exhaustion would be nice though.

[ldog]

As for stations, the problem as others have brought up is there is no 1 size fits all solution.

If they stood exactly on that spot without moving, then the forum would be full of posts raging about how stupid they are and stuff just walks by them while they stand their post, or even worse kills them from range, they stand there while civilians 5 tiles away get slaughtered, etc, etc. That's just for melee. Conversely we wouldn't want the archers to stand and be slaughtered by melee either.

Sure, I've been annoyed when I built some nicely defendable chokepoint that I wanted them to stay at and off they go into the open. Chalk it up to dwarves are all berzerkers. It isn't like the squad fights as a squad, it's more a loose group of individuals. Considering I've never seen any RTS game where a group of units acts intelligently as a combined arms force can't really single DF out on this.

Marksdwarves of course are pretty infuriating to handle for many reasons. They don't seem any better in the current version.

I think having training ammo not attached to the squad but instead attached to the archery range would go a long way. I'm still not sure if any changes have been made to the training/combat ammo designation, but it still doesn't seem to work properly.

I haven't had problems with them sparring over killing live opponents, but current game I'm seeing demonstrations taking priority over that and everything else (inlcuding picking up equipment).

[Bumber]

I think having training ammo not attached to the squad but instead attached to the archery range would go a long way. I'm still not sure if any changes have been made to the training/combat ammo designation, but it still doesn't seem to work properly.

They now carry 25 training ammo plus 25 combat ammo, separately. (I'm not sure if they'll still carry more than 25 of each, due to stacking.) Reportedly, the remaining ammo problems are due to bins. They're really particular about which bolts they want, and the bins get "tasked" as usual due to other dwarves trying to grab their own bolts. This leads to a bunch of equipment mismatch spam.

[ldog]

I think having training ammo not attached to the squad but instead attached to the archery range would go a long way. I'm still not sure if any changes have been made to the training/combat ammo designation, but it still doesn't seem to work properly.

They now carry 25 training ammo plus 25 combat ammo, separately. (I'm not sure if they'll still carry more than 25 of each, due to stacking.) Reportedly, the remaining ammo problems are due to bins. They're really particular about which bolts they want, and the bins get "tasked" as usual due to other dwarves trying to grab their own bolts. This leads to a bunch of equipment mismatch spam.

Ahh excellent! I haven't tried yet, since I used to just give them 1 type cause it was broken. Old habits die hard.
Ahhh bins, I'm still running binless. IIRC they store their ammo in chests in barracks with "store squad equipment" setting (barely keeping up with ammo production right now so it goes out as fast as it comes in), which should help even for people with bins.

[MrWiggles]

Gosh darn it, doesnt ToadyOne know he's making the game just for me.

[mirrizin]

It would be nice to have a more robust "Defend" option.

For instance, I build a tunnel with a 90 degree turn and statino my militia to catch things as they come around the corner.

It makes no sense for the soldiers to then run at the first invader they see, and then, instead of withdrawing back to the defensible spot and wait, charge pell mell into the mob of goblins where they are in the best position to encircle the poor infantrydorf.

[MrWiggles]

It makes a lot of sense, from design point of view. Its really hard to make the pawns aware of their environment, and you're asking them to make subjective inferences to their surrounding to what the player has put down. How could the dorfs ever really know what the players intended for them todo?

[h.scorpio]

Its really hard to make the pawns aware of their environment, and you're asking them to make subjective inferences to their surrounding to what the player has put down

No, that's utterly unnecessary. The player himself knows best what defenses he has put up, so he can do the analyzing. All the dorfs have to do is follow the orders more strictly, so technically speaking you don't have to make them smarter, but dumber.

Just having something like "hold position" as a command or option for the other commands would already go a long way, alongside fixing archer behaviour.

[MrWiggles]

But thats not really the goal of the game. The game isnt meant to be an RTS. They're meant to act on their own, including scrumming to fear, or disobeying orders or just being morons. Your taking the commands to literally. They're akin to suggestions or goals. You're not the literal Commander. Thats their squd leader, the captain of the guard. You're meant to passively do things in the game.

[ldog]

But thats not really the goal of the game. The game isnt meant to be an RTS. They're meant to act on their own, including scrumming to fear, or disobeying orders or just being morons. Your taking the commands to literally. They're akin to suggestions or goals. You're not the literal Commander. Thats their squd leader, the captain of the guard. You're meant to passively do things in the game.

Totally. I actually find it much better that they are (semi-)intelligent. Yes, it infuriated me the first time I tried to station them around a bend or at a choke point and let the enemy come to them instead of being live fire practice for gobblin archers or being swarmed, but the alternative of them standing dumbly where posted is much worse. Learn to embrace the berserker nature of the dwarf! Encase them in steel, and send them on their merry way. Let them go and become the hero they want to be or die trying.

[h.scorpio]

I get that that's the way it's supposed to work, but you're still the one issuing the commands to their squad leaders - and if that command is "Defend burrow" and yet they are charging out of their position, out of their defend-able fortress, into the horde of invaders as soon as they get a glimpse of a goblin's nose, clearly there is some problem in the command chain.

In other words, the current system is not working for most players, and I dare say it's not working as it was intended to work.