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[Andir]

Drafting a dwarf just to make it fight back was a poor system. You should be able to tell dwarves to attack something in their view range or fight back without drafting them and causing unhappy thoughts.

That is a good point.  Why do dwarfs have to be military to fight?

[Thief^]

Because if they're not military they get a spear through them and die.

True story.

[Psieye]

Back in d40 I used a system of nicknames (instead of just grabbing Dwarf Foreman or something useful) to tell apart what dwarf should be doing what. So to me, the new military system isn't hard to deal with provided I shove everyone into squads. Now if only I can name my squads however I want, then I'd more or less have almost the same functionality as I had in d40 (once training bugs and such are fixed) - I can tell an individual dwarf to defend himself from some random animal by noting which squad he's in then using the squads menu to pick out that individual and give him a kill order.

Though I agree that it's more effort to do simple tasks, I'm content with adapting to the new system once the bugs are fixed (and preferably, being able to name my squads). But that's just my personal style, where every dwarf gets a nickname and so putting every dwarf in some squad or other is merely a natural extension to my existing habits.

[Sergius]

There's one thing y'all forgetting about, that makes the new military no good for:

Exploring the new Hidden Fun Stuff.

Setting pre-defined "points" and then telling a squad to station there is fine and dandy, and works for guard posts and whatnot, but when you have a squad and you want them to move slightly to the west, or slightly to the north, when you're in the underground tunnels, setting lots of Points is massive micromanagement.

A "move here" function that worked like the old "station" command would be tremendously useful. And it doesn't even have to be permanent, maybe said "temporary squad point" would last only a few days or a month, or maybe a season and then get cleared automatically.

[Andir]

There's one thing y'all forgetting about, that makes the new military no good for:

Exploring the new Hidden Fun Stuff.

Setting pre-defined "points" and then telling a squad to station there is fine and dandy, and works for guard posts and whatnot, but when you have a squad and you want them to move slightly to the west, or slightly to the north, when you're in the underground tunnels, setting lots of Points is massive micromanagement.

A "move here" function that worked like the old "station" command would be tremendously useful. And it doesn't even have to be permanent, maybe said "temporary squad point" would last only a few days or a month, or maybe a season and then get cleared automatically.

That does exist... add a dwarf to a squad and in the (s)quad screen hit (a) to select the squad then (m)ove.  You can even set patrols.

[Footkerchief]

A "move here" function that worked like the old "station" command would be tremendously useful. And it doesn't even have to be permanent, maybe said "temporary squad point" would last only a few days or a month, or maybe a season and then get cleared automatically.

There is one.  'm' from the squad menu, right next to 'k' for attack.

[Sergius]

A "move here" function that worked like the old "station" command would be tremendously useful. And it doesn't even have to be permanent, maybe said "temporary squad point" would last only a few days or a month, or maybe a season and then get cleared automatically.

There is one.  'm' from the squad menu, right next to 'k' for attack.

It asks for a "point".

EDIT: Oh well, what d'ya know, it works.

[Thief^]

It's just asking you to choose where you want them to go to. Move the cursor to where you want, press enter (I think?).

[Cardinal]

I think the new system could be more like the old system if the defaults made a little more sense.  Back in the DF of yore, you assigned guys to a squad and what did they do?

Kill things when you asked them to, and train when you didn't, and nothing else.

That should be the default settings until someone goes in there and changes them to have their caravan patrol and cavern patrol and carnival patrol and all other patrols made up of words with 'c', 'a', 'v', 'r' and 'n'.  I've fiddled around with my stupid settings over and over again and what do I have now?  A squad that:

Kills things when I ask them to and dicks around endlessly otherwise, oftentimes taking their armor off or otherwise doing things that slow them down when I ask them to kill something, or continuously arranging and waiting for training that never happens (except for the guy who's doing individual combat drills, which has made him a Novice Armor User after 4 years).  I don't want to get cheap champions like the good old days but I'd like my stupid dwarfs to not consider the military life to be wine and oysters (or starvation when on duty).  I love the new kill command and the move command, but otherwise, the whole thing is requiring way too much effort for what most people want it to do, and assumably that functionality is there, but just not by default.

Now, I know that I'm not doing it right (and that there are probably little bugs) but why the heck don't the default settings resemble old DF?  Why would I want to create a squad of military idjits and then have to manually tweak settings so that they do, for the most part, is what they were doing back in the good old days?

[Thief^]

It's just broken. The defaults that are there (once you set them to the training alert state) should cause them to train all the time except when you give a move or kill order, exactly like you want.
The problem, is that the training half of that doesn't work.

[DoctorZuber]

Retro really stepped up and did a ton of work on getting the new information into the wiki quite quickly which has certainly made the transition a bit easier. But I still hate the new system. Sure it's powerful and has potential to do some great things, but it's got a lot of problems as things stand.

selecting soldiers is a huge pain
The old way, 40d uses the same familiar old unit list, you get to see job classifications in color, you get to see full names not sloppily abbreviated names, it works quickly and easily, all in all, much cleaner solution.

The new way (0.31), you get the same information shoved into 1/3 of the screen width, names are abbreviated strangely, it's not in color, it makes no distinction between soldiers already in a squad and everybody else, etc. I HATE IT!!!

Even with some of the crash bugs nailed down already the new military gives me all sorts of headaches.

[Cardinal]

The defaults that are there (once you set them to the training alert state)

See, that's not a default, then.  If I have to set anything, other than "this dwarf in that squad" then it's not a default.  I'm not even exactly clear on what setting them to the training alert state even means.  I've so fiddled around with all my schedules and alert states trying to get my dwarfs to hit each other with wooden swords that I'm not even sure what's supposed to happen, much less what is happening and what it resulted from (other than the wonderful (m)ove and (k)ill orders).

Default means it works like that without me changing any settings (or setting any settings, or setting any changes, or changing anything).  Default means, "the way the squad acts when I put some dwarfs in it for the first time".

[Lord Shonus]

The defaults that are there (once you set them to the training alert state)

See, that's not a default, then.  If I have to set anything, other than "this dwarf in that squad" then it's not a default.  I'm not even exactly clear on what setting them to the training alert state even means.  I've so fiddled around with all my schedules and alert states trying to get my dwarfs to hit each other with wooden swords that I'm not even sure what's supposed to happen, much less what is happening and what it resulted from (other than the wonderful (m)ove and (k)ill orders).

Default means it works like that without me changing any settings (or setting any settings, or setting any changes, or changing anything).  Default means, "the way the squad acts when I put some dwarfs in it for the first time".

Actually, it IS a default. It's exactly the same as the old "Draft" command. IT takes your dwarves off their civilian jobs and assigns them to the military.

[Cardinal]

Right...

[Lord Shonus]

Seriously. In the old version, you put dwarves in a squad and drafted them. In new version terms, you changed their alert from "Inactive" to Active."