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[umiman]

Just a thought, but why not allow civilians to wear armour? I can't really see any downsides to this and it helps when you want to have a standing militia or at least just to give your civilians a chance to survive.

Apologies if it's been suggested before, but it really bugs me.

[Neonivek]

I thought you could equip civilians with armor... it just took a long time and getting armor for every member of your city is obsessive

[Derakon]

This is somewhere in the list of future features; Toady mentions it as something that might annoy the civilians unless they know they need the armor.

[Lyrax]

You can already do this.  The problem is that you need to enable the 'hunt' job and they will sleep on the ground instead of their nice rooms.

But they'll carry weapons and armor.

[The-Moon]

It would be nice if you could set it so that when people go outside they take armor with them.

IE so your carpenters or fisher's strap on some plate mail before venturing out of the fort. This would be one of those options in the

• menu.

  Settings:

  1: Civilians don't wear armor.
  2: Civilians wear armor to go outside if available.
  3: Civilians don't go outside unless armor is available.

[umiman]

While assigning every single dwarf to be a hunter would indeed solve this problem, it would also make playing the game excruciatingly hard as every single dwarf will be running out at every possible moment to get mauled by wildlife and ambushing goblins.

But I don't understand why the menu for equipment-wearing doesn't work for civilians. Everything is already there and in place.

[Lyrax]

Actually, civvies with armor are not that bad.  If you give them crossbows, then they will EASILY take down jaguars, elephants, and other critters.  They won't run from goblins as fast, but will provide supporting fire.  And babysnatchers are fun to watch as they turn into pincushions.

[umiman]

But how are you going to get any other job done? They'll be hunting all the time. And how are you going to get more bolts if all the civies are running around hunting, and not say... producing bolts?

The idea of giving civilians armour is to give them a chance in case of the unexpected and to provide insurance for your more valuable dwarves. As it is, the only way to do that is with giving them the hunting labour. But if all your vital dwarves are told to hunt, why would they be vital any more?

[Lyrax]

They stop hunting when all huntable animals are dead.  This doesn't take nearly as long with 20 dwarves or 80 as it does with 1 or 2.

[umiman]

Brilliant deduction. Now, explain to me. How often do you see a map where all the huntable animals are dead? How long do they stay empty? What happens when one random jackrabbit appears and your entire fort population rushes across the entire map to kill it? What if the player actually wants real hunters instead of having Joe Armourer and Jill Clothesmaker killing everything, but still wants Joe Armourer and Jill Clothesmaker wearing something that won't let them get incinerated by fire imps?

Even putting aside all that, you'd have to first actually hunt the map to exinction, something in all my years of playing Dwarf Fortress, I've never personally seen happen in a permanent fashion. Even if you did so, you'd have to contend with everyone who's wearing armour not doing anything but hunting (since it has such a high task priority) for the entire duration of the extinction process, which, regardless of "doesn't take nearly as long" is still a bloody long time considering animal respawn rates. Not to mention the fact that you can't organize or control your hunters as you could military dwarves, during that entire period, you've got mangy, uncontrollable, morons running all over the map in a non-unified, easy-to-ambush-and-kill-fashion chasing game.

While I understand you are providing a solution to the armour-wearing problem as best as you can; I don't understand why you are attempting to counteract this simple suggestion of merely allowing civilians to wear armour with something that merely causes more headaches. It's like trying to get a baby to drink out of a tiger's teat when you've got a bottle of milk in your hands.

[GRead]

I'd like to come out against the idea of civilians wearing armour. Looking beyond simple practicality, why would civilians wear armour? It's heavy, uncomfortable, expensive, and completely useless for the 364 days of the year that they're not being ambushed; then, on the one they are, it slows them down while they're escaping and gets them pin-cushioned. I think the real problem with dwarves and ambushes\sieges is that they don't run away until they're already within bowshot; fix that and I think the problem diminishes greatly.

I'm just looking at this not from a mechanics perspective but from a thematics perspective. People who were not warriors did not wear real armour as they went about their day-to-day lives. Hell, even warriors did not wear real armour anywhere near as much as military dwarves do. They did not eat, sleep, drink, and socialize in full kit with sword and shield in hand. I don't think there should be the option to plate-up civvies too.

I do like the idea of militias, but much like real militias, I think they should go to suit up at the armoury before going on duty instead of walking around in their gear while they work the farm.

[umiman]

GRead, I respect your opinion. I bet many people are of the same mindset. However, all I'm saying is the existing "equip" menu used for militaries and already existing for even nonconscripted dwarves be enabled for universal use. You notice that even though you can choose to armour and arm your military dwarves, not everyone instantly goes for the best of the best armour.

Same principle here. Just like how some people prefer swordsdwarves to axedwarves and some people prefer chain mail crossbowdwarves to platemail crossbow dwarves, it would be merely be a matter of personal taste if you want to equip everyone with armour, your nobles with armour, or just your personal avatar in the game with armour, or none at all.

[Neonivek]

You would think (well I would think) that nobels would request some Gold Platemail or something.

Anyhow most "Extinctions" in Dwarf Fort are actually caused by animals on another side of the map.

Ive got this large pack of Two Humped Cammels who are causing my normal animals of Mountain Goats, Hoary Marmot, and Wolves not to appear anymore. I am trying to get up there to kill them but building takes FOREVER!!!

[Hague]

I think you should be able to give civilians armor but they must "purchase" it on their own. That is, they should equip whatever armor they want but it becomes their's to own. They will place it in their room. Possibly in the future have them pass on items as heirlooms.

[The-Moon]

Does not no one like my idea of having the option to have civilians equip armor when they go outside?

I thought it was a good idea