This thread is in response to
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=55127.0Note: this is just what I've been able to figure out through trial-and error, with help from the WIKI (
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Military). Hopefully this can help you get started in an easier-to-understand fashion.
First, I'll explain the four military roles:
Militia Commander - This guy is the head of the whole operation. Can't make your first squad without him. No special skills required.
Militia Captain - Subordinate to the Militia Commander. Works exactly the same way. This position appears after you have appointed a commander.
Arsenal Dwarf - THIS GUY IS SUPER-IMPORTANT. I don't know what exactly it takes to get this position to show up (some say 20 dwarves, seems to be more sporadic for me). NEEDS BOOK-KEEPING SKILL. The arsenal dwarf need not be in the military itself, he just manages everyone's equipment. CLARIFICATION: without this guy, your dwarves will not wear armor, nor will they equip weapons or ammunition. A poster below recommends removing all jobs from your arsenal dwarf so that this dwarf updates your equipment manifests exclusively. I agree wholeheartedly.
Sherrif/Capt of the Guard - As militia commander, only he is also tasked with fortress justice.
So, first things first: assign your commander. With your commander in place, you may now create a squad under him and add dwarves to his squad. Press the "m" key to bring up the military screen, highlight your commander and press "c" to create a squad. Select "No Uniform" for now (we'll make and assign custom uniforms later). You now have a squad with your commander at the head. You can repeat this step for your captains in order to make squads under them.
To add dwarves to the squad, you have to highlight a position below your commander, press the right arrow key, highlight the appropriate dwarf, and then press enter. You will then automatically highlight the next available position. NOTE: Dwarves active in one squad will still show up as available for other squads. ALSO NOTE: Dwarves with military skills are not given preference in this listing.
The dwarves in your squads automatically are assigned to train every month. Training is done only in places that are designated for their squad to train. Simply build an armor stand or weapon rack as before, press the "q" key, highlight the stand/rack, press the "r" key, adjust the size of the "room" as you see fit and then press "Enter." While the stand/rack is still highlighted, notice that there is a listing of your squads. Highlight the squads that you would like to train, and press the "t" key. The designated squads can now train there. NOTE: Training is now a solo affair (at least, from what I've seen); your dwarves will perform an Individual Combat Drill to train. If there's anything more to training than this, I do not know of it. If someone comes along and says there's more to it, then you should listen to him.
Now we'll talk about killing things. Access the squads menu by pressing the "s" key. NOTE THAT THIS DOES NOT PAUSE THE GAME. You may now select a squad or multiple squads (by pressing a through z for individual squads, or Shift+a through Shift+z for multiple), and designate targets for them to kill. To kill, something, you select your squad(s), press "k", press "l" to bring up a list of killable entities, and then select the entities in the same way that you selected your squads AND THEN PRESS "Enter" TO CONFIRM. (Sorry to shout that bit, but I keep hitting escape and, consequently, forgetting to actually tell my dwarves to kill those pesky dark gnomes).
I'll talk about patrol routes, burrows, scheduling, and uniforms (much) later (unless someone comes along and does it instead). I need a drink.
UPDATE--
OK, back from another thrilling session of Rogue Trader.
SCHEDULING is very important. A detailed schedule will allow you to have a squad of dwarves patrolling, while another is stationed at the gates, while another is busy training. You can customize these schedules so that the squads rotate their tasks. You can't set-up patrols or stations without a series of points, though. Defining points works very similarly to the way you defined notes in 40d. Now I'm aware that you probably didn't define many notes in 40d, so here's how it works in DF2010.
Press the "N" key (that's "Shift"+"n") to bring up the Points/Notes/Routes interface. You may now simply place points on the map by moving the cursor around and pressing the "p" key. Set a point at your front entrance. Now, move off somewhere and set three points wherever you like (this is just for demonstrative purposes, you can set them up however). There's ways to customize the look of the point icon, but I don't care about that so much as I care about my dwarves moving about according to their not-yet-defined schedule.
NOW, while still on the Points/Notes/Routes interface, press the "r" key. This puts you into route defining mode. You can now place the cursor near one of your previously-made points and press the "a" key to add that point as the waypoint of a route. Press "p" at any time to leave the route menu. That's all there is to defining a route.
You define Burrows by pressing the "w" key. I'm not exactly sure what you can DO with these things yet, so I'm not going to tell you much more about them. Defining a burrow works similarly to defining points and routes, so once you have one defined you can then schedule dwarves to defend it.
Now that we have a point and some routes defined, we can get a rudimentary schedule working. Press the "m" key to bring up your military screen, and then press the "s" key to bring up the scheduling. You may now use the "page secondary selector up/down" keys (mine are non-default, and I forget what they are by default) to switch the schedule view from "Active/Training" (which is the default state of your militia) to "Inactive."
You can press "s" to toggle sleeping arrangements and "u" to toggle the inactive dress code. You can use the left-right arrow keys to select a squad column and the up/down arrow keys to select a month. Squads have one order per month. You can copy and paste orders with the "c" and "p" keys, respectively. You can clear an order with "x," define an order with "o," and edit an order with "e." Orders have a minimum number of positions and a recommended number of positions. "Positions" here refers to individual dwarves within your squads (your commander would be Position 1 in his squad).
Since your dwarves already have "Train" set to all slots of their active schedule, we'll start with modifying the Train order of the first month. Highlight "Train" and press "e." You can use the "move secondary selector up/down" (default is "+" and "-") keys to increase or decrease the minimum number of dwarves required for this activity to occur (you can also use "page secondary selector" keys to set it to 1 or 10). If you set it a smaller number, such as 6 or 7, then you only need 6 or 7 dwarves free for training to take place. There's a way for you to define specific dwarves to be present, but I forgot how to do it. When you're done editing your training task, press Shift+Enter to save the changes.
Now, let's say you don't want them to train. You can press "o" instead to cycle what task you would like for your dwarves to do. You'll notice "Defend Burrows" accompanied by a list of burrows for your dwarves to defend. Pressing "o" again will switch to "Patrol Route," accompanied by a list of selectable routes which you have already defined. Pressing "o" again switches the task to "Station" and shows you a list of points where you may station your squad.
You should now possess enough knowledge to get a basic schedule together, strengthening the over-all security of your fortress by, like, a lot.
EQUIPMENT
You DID get an arsenal dwarf, and turn off all his/her tasks aside from bookkeeping, right? With that done, we move on to equipment.
Any fortress fortunate enough to be a dwarven fortress will doubtless be a place of rampant industry, meaning that if you have made one steel breastplate, you've probably managed to make a lot more. For this reason, I'm going to focus exclusively on defining and assigning Uniforms. Any specific adjustments to make to a special dwarfs uniform should be easy enough to manage after you learn this much. If it's not easy enough, I'll write about it at my convenience later on.
First, we bring up the Military screen ("m" key.) Then, we press "n" to go the the Uniforms section. Press "c" to add a new, empty uniform. There is sadly no way to copy and paste uniforms. You may name and delete uniforms with the "N" (that's "Shift"+"n") and "d" keys, respectively.
Use the up/down arrows to select a uniform. Use the left/right arrows to move between the UNIFORMS, ITEM and SELECTION columns. The ITEMS column is full of the items that are defined in the uniform. This list is empty by default, and you define/customize it by using the SELECTION column. You can change what sort of items are actively displayed in the SELECTION column by using the following keys: A (armor), L (leggings), H (headgear), G (gloves), B (boots), S (shields), W (weapons). You can change an items material and color by highlighting an item in the ITEM column, pressing "M" or "C" (do I still have to explain the "Shift" thing?), moving over into the selection column, and then selecting that items new material or color. You can change whether or not dwarves wear their uniforms over their regular clothing with the "r" key. "m" is apparently for partial matches, whatever that means.
Now, we've got to assign the uniform to a squad. From the Military screen, press the "e" key to bring up the equipment subscreen. You can change a dwarf's individual outfit here if you are so inclined, but it's lazy-time at the Pye house. Press "U." Select a squad using the up/down arrow keys. Move over to the POSITION UNIFORM column with the left/right keys, and use the up/down keys to select your desired uniform. Press Shift+Enter. Congratulations, that entire squad has been outfitted with that uniform.
I know that sounds like a lot, but you'll understand it once you look at the screen and see how it all works. Yes, this could all probably be a bit more user-friendly, but until Toady gets around to streamlining things a bit I'm sure your dwarves will appreciate you making some effort to ensure that they don't all get horribly murdered within two years of founding the fortress.
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Topic: The Military: an Introduction (Read 1221 times)