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[Footkerchief]

At least at this stage of the game, concerns like personality and natural aptitude is really overthinking things.  I know the intent is for the game to be as immersive and detailed as described, and that's great and all, but surely just making a military that follows coherent plans from the player is a greater priority than the martial proclivity and zeitgeist of your conscripts.

It might be premature, but it's also really easy to factor an extra number or two (for personality traits) into their die rolls. 

[Mel_Vixen]

Well "dwarfs" could have a "recruiter"-officer which decides who is material for the military and who not. He could sit in the dining-room and talk dwarfs into service, a proficient recruiter could by this choose the best Goons for your fighting forces.
The pro is that you would have the recruiting by hand out of your hair. The con that dwarfs could switch to the military which you dont want in it - a way to prevent that would be needed. The unit screen could get a toggleable option like the kitchen-screen for example.

Also people fight for money so maybe a (variable) salary for soldiers and Guards would ensure the loyalty which could attract people and ensure the loyalty.

Secondary troops/occupations would be cool (and i would say a very nice/needed thing for bigger armys) - like "Feldscher", "Field-Priests" (which could do some Psychologies too), "batmans/adjutant", Military cooks, Quarter Masters and field-communication/signal-Officers. 

[Aqizzar]

It's worth mentioning that we're still talking about just the guards and militia around your settlement.  That's 200 dwarves on the outside, maybe half of them actually in the military if anywhere near that many.  That's a platoon at most.

Nobody's more eager than me to draft and dispatch genuine dwarven armies, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.  I can't see a lot of inter-regimental infrastructure being necessary at the individual fortress level.

This has been Aqizzar, your friendly neighborhood stick in the mud.

[Mel_Vixen]

Oh right  . I tend to shoot over the finish at such points. Well atleast the adjutant as bodyguard of the officer could get in.

[Christes]

Right now my primary use for the military stuff is to draft dwarves so I can move them where I need them around the fortress.  Will this still be a possible use of the military stuff?

[Fieari]

On the subject of military size...

In interviews, Toady discussed making truely nation sized populations possible via abstracting.  How will that effect Fortress mode?  Army mode?  I know it's not coming in the new release, but it's something to think about.  With thousands of dwarves possible on a single location, how will the process be able to show them all to the player of fortress mode?

[Dame de la Licorne]

On the subject of military size...

In interviews, Toady discussed making truely nation sized populations possible via abstracting.  How will that effect Fortress mode?  Army mode?  I know it's not coming in the new release, but it's something to think about.  With thousands of dwarves possible on a single location, how will the process be able to show them all to the player of fortress mode?

Well, how about if each dwarf you see in fortress mode stood for a set number of dwarves, say 5 or 10 for simplicity.  Then you could have a fort of 1000 dwarves and still only have 100 - 200 units actually pathfinding.

Edit: this would also work for animals.

[Org]

Now, I'm not sure if this was answered, and if it was, I am sorry for asking again, but:
Are we going to bee able to rename a squad?

[Jurph]

At least at this stage of the game, concerns like personality and natural aptitude is really overthinking things.  I know the intent is for the game to be as immersive and detailed as described, and that's great and all, but surely just making a military that follows coherent plans from the player is a greater priority than the martial proclivity and zeitgeist of your conscripts.

We've already got a military that follows ignores (fix'd) coherent plans from the player -- but given that squads and commands will be improving anyway, now seems as good a time as any to think about the factors that could make it more Dwarfy.  I think my proposed model is like a lot of the other 'chrome' in the game: at least 95% of the time you won't notice it, but if you ignore it you may discover some amusing emergent behavior.

Imagine the glee when you see something like:

Morul Firebrand the Rain of Alcoholic Death has been struck down!
Cog McRedshirt now commands the Cheese-wheels of Suffering
Cog McRedshirt has entered a martial trance!
Urist Goldbrick has become enraged!
Reg Thornwhips has become enraged!
Dumat Anviltongue has become enraged!

As long as the upsides and downsides for a player are about equally balanced after any improvement to the game, I think I prefer an unpredictable game mechanic to a model that's simple or coherent.  If Toady leaves enough clues that a player can suss out what went wrong, and doesn't amp up the micromanagement challenge, then bringing the personalities of the dwarves into the military makes perfect sense to me. 

I can definitely understand where you're coming from on this, Aqizzar -- yesterday I had a marksdwarf decide that his station near the fortifications was not as good a fighting position as outside the fortifications, where he had more room to swing his crossbow and where the goblins could just take the bolts from him instead of him having to go to all that trouble to shoot each individual bolt.  His violent and entirely-deserved death caused a tantrum spiral that took almost a year to undo.  Military dwarfs who follow orders and attend their station would be a welcome relief, but the occasional incompetent dwarf (as long as the incompetence is justified within the game world) could be lots of, er... Fun.

Don't worry, though, unless Toady personally comes by and says "YEA VERILY THAT'S A PRETTY BITCHIN IDEA JURPH" it will probably be consigned to the dustbin of convoluted suggestions what never went nowhere on account of being so convoluted. 

[Neonivek]

I prefer an unpredictable game mechanic to a model that's simple or coherent

I know this isn't what you mean. but I agree that if something goes wrong that the player didn't think of he should be able to look at the source and realise instinctively why it happened or at least when told why the player should say "I should have known".

[zchris13]

So basically, *facepalm* will become much more common that "WTF was THAT!"

[Jurph]

I prefer an unpredictable game mechanic to a model that's simple or coherent

I know this isn't what you mean. but I agree that if something goes wrong that the player didn't think of he should be able to look at the source and realise instinctively why it happened or at least when told why the player should say "I should have known".

You and zchris13 both got it.  Losing when the dwarfs fail to execute your orders (or execute them stupidly) is not fun.  However, losing when a squad comprised of pacifists gets slaughtered because they're inept -- and you think back on how you egged them on to train harder despite knowing that they disliked it -- now that is Dwarfy Fun.

[zchris13]

That just qualifies as stupid.

[Aquillion]

You and zchris13 both got it.  Losing when the dwarfs fail to execute your orders (or execute them stupidly) is not fun.  However, losing when a squad comprised of pacifists gets slaughtered because they're inept -- and you think back on how you egged them on to train harder despite knowing that they disliked it -- now that is Dwarfy Fun.

I dunno.  I think that the 'solution' to this would involve way too much micromanagement.  Viewing personalities is a bit of a pain now (you may have to go through several screens depending on where you're viewing it from) -- forcing the player to do it for every single dwarf they want to add to the military strikes me as excessive.  It's also a bit of a 'no-brainer' decision (players would always choose the dwarves with military personalities; your idea would only force them to waste time viewing the personality screen for long lists of dwarves before making assignments.)

I could see it having a very small influence, like personality has on workshop settings at the moment (have dwarves treated as +1 skill level for liking their weapon, +1 for liking their armor, +1 for generally liking combat, say, just like they get those bonuses up to +3 if they like their materials and what they're creating in a workshop.)  But it should be low enough that the player can ignore it without significant penalty.

[Rockphed]

I could see it having a very small influence, like personality has on workshop settings at the moment (have dwarves treated as +1 skill level for liking their weapon, +1 for liking their armor, +1 for generally liking combat, say, just like they get those bonuses up to +3 if they like their materials and what they're creating in a workshop.)  But it should be low enough that the player can ignore it without significant penalty.

I think that having small penalties for being a pacifist is okay, if the penalties can be overcome by having a good leader.  Sure, an individual dwarf's personality should not be very important, but the commander and captains should exert more influence.