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[Vastin]

I'm pretty much done with the military interface at this point.

I've finally gotten my dwarves to the point where they'll equip properly, train, and usually manage to execute basic kill orders. I thought I had some vague hang of things.

Then this time a pair of goblin ambushes show up in sequence. For the first one I assign everyone to my main burrow (the entire underground), and command my squad to march out and kill the goblins.

Fine. They do so. Yay. I unassign everyone from main burrow and send them to go out and get stuff.

A minute later ambush 2 shows up. No great surprise, so I send everyone back to the burrow and once again send out the armored clowns to clean up. Pretty much the exact same drill as wave 1.

Nope - not this time. My civilians blissfully ignore the burrow assignment - but not my military! They run around like hopeless fools, running into and out of the burrow, or back and forth to their barracks, I can't quite tell which - while the goblins merrily slaughter my civs.

In desperation I unassign everyone from the burrow (its not doing any good at this point). My military keeps running back and forth uselessly. Civs still dying.

I cancel the military kill orders and just put them on station above ground in an attempt to get them to just plain move. Now JUST the squad leader runs up and heads off to some far sector of the map that has no relationship to either my station command or the prior kill order. The two other squaddies remain stubbornly inside the burrow that they aren't even assigned to.

I'm getting really tired of this. DF2010 may - in theory - allow for more military flexibility, but most of these functions either flat out don't work, or are hidden behind what may be the world's most obtuse and schizophrenic interface. After playing for weeks I wouldn't even hazard a GUESS at how the alert system really works, even after reading these boards extensively for some clue. This one bug wasn't a game-breaker for me, but it was the last straw after painstakingly attempting to grok all this for weeks.

Hats off to Toady for making it this far and creating so many wonderful ideas - but after years of play I think I'm going to wait for the version where he addresses the interface design in some rational way. Like, not having at least 8 arbitrarily different ways to designate a rectangle... <sigh>

Bummed. I really, really enjoy DF, but DF2010 has proven to be just plain unplayable unless you pretty much turn off the military and rely solely on traps.

[Eric Blank]

I've noticed a complete lack of discipline and general incompetence throughout my population aswell
Not that it's anything new, though, the military was just as likely to slack off in previous versions, and civilians still have the same love of ignoring every order you give.

This IS supposed to be fixed soon, maybe even in the next update. Hold your britches, Toady is working on it. The game is still technically in beta, isn't it? beta testers never get the attractive end of the horse.

[DarkDragon]

I just want there to be the quick and dirty options available again for simple stuff like "I want this squad to use axes". I could do this in like, 2 or 3 button presses in 40d, now it takes MANY more than that.

Plus, I want the ability to draft dwarfs from the "v" menu back. It's always nice to be able to insta-draft your carpenter that gets attacked by a gorilla while chopping down trees rather than have him run across the countryside in no particular direction, just as long as it isn't back to safety.


Little things like that are what annoy me most about the military interface now. More options and power is GREAT. But keep the quick and dirty options available for those times where you just don't want to muck about with 5 different windows.

[alexwazer]

Bummed. I really, really enjoy DF, but DF2010 has proven to be just plain unplayable unless you pretty much turn off the military and rely solely on traps.

Meh, that's what I did. To be specific, I've turn invaders off until the military bugs are fixed. I reinstalled 40d in case I feel the need to smash/crush/splatter/cut some goblins, but so far I'm happy playing with 0.31 without invasions. I still need some basic defenses for the underground nasties (the non-spoiler kind), but nothing my brain-dead dwarves can't handle. Considering the multiple bugs were to be expected AND that you can turn off/ignore/avoid most of the new features, DF 2010 isn't much worse than 40d.

Personnally, I just take advantage of the huge, unlimited and quickly refilling supply of magma to create a new doomsday device... which I'll have to test on elves due to the lack of invasions.


I understand very well how you feel, but the 0.31 version should be considered more as a testing release rather than a stable one. If the unstability and bugs annoy you (as the military bugs annoy me), stick with 40d for a while and treat 0.31 as a mere teaser (or even a taser  )

I just want there to be the quick and dirty options available again for simple stuff like "I want this squad to use axes". I could do this in like, 2 or 3 button presses in 40d, now it takes MANY more than that.

Plus, I want the ability to draft dwarfs from the "v" menu back. It's always nice to be able to insta-draft your carpenter that gets attacked by a gorilla while chopping down trees rather than have him run across the countryside in no particular direction, just as long as it isn't back to safety.


Little things like that are what annoy me most about the military interface now. More options and power is GREAT. But keep the quick and dirty options available for those times where you just don't want to muck about with 5 different windows.

Agreed, I think the militia should use the old system and only the army (after the arrival of the king or maybe once you have a barony) should use schedules and such.

[se5a]

I think what is happening, is that when you issue a move/kill order, it can sometimes trigger a "omgwftbbq, there's better kit assigned to me! I'll drop everything I've got and go get it!" event.

even worse, this tends to end up with dwarfs who show up for battle half dressed, since they then discover that half the kit they want to go get can't be pathed to or is for some other reason not available.

note that I've not properly tested this hypothesis, just seems to be what's going on to me.

the alerts/schedule thing is not that hard to understand. try experimenting with it instead of just reading about it, or even better, read about it WHILE experimenting with it.

[Vastin]

Well, clearly the bugs are one of the more frustrating things - but of course the game is beta, and its free - its a personal project so I have no grudges to bear whatsoever. I've got a million times my money's worth out of DF.

However, I'm not quite sure how Toady really expects people to play the game if he continues to create ever more unusable interfaces.

He keeps building interfaces purely for power without even the slightest thought to usability. They are also wildly inconsistent. There are seriously about  8 different ways or so to designate a rectangle... one could have done quite nicely for all of them, k'thx. Context sensitive menus are another concept which would make the game about 10x as playable - why do I need SO many different cursor modes just to look at things in my fortress? Maddening.

We've all long ago learned to work around those little issues... those of us who have stuck with it. But this military system - and especially the alert system - take the cake. I've been studying that thing for about 2 weeks now and I know nothing more about alerts than I did the first time I opened that damn panel.

Ah well. I guess Toady pretty much fits the archetypal 'Mad Genius'. Some of the gameplay concepts he has pioneered in DF really are revolutionary and will hopefully be incorporated into professional entertainment sims in the future, but man... the interfaces... <shudder>

[Vastin]

I think what is happening, is that when you issue a move/kill order, it can sometimes trigger a "omgwftbbq, there's better kit assigned to me! I'll drop everything I've got and go get it!" event.

There may be a bug to that effect, but my squad has very specific equip orders and long ago fulfilled them completely, so I don't think anything legitimate would cause them to want to re-equip in this instance.

I kept clearing and re-issuing orders until they finally snapped out of it, but it took a LOT of tries. Honestly I don't know that anything I did made a difference - they seemed to finally get their act together once a goblin wandered close enough for them to see and auto-attack, after which I was able to regain some semblance of control.

[inteuniso]

I hate to sound like a fanboy, but the fact is, this isn't the final interface.

It's an alpha. Currently, the game is in a state where toady is using the ASCII graphics interface as merely something to work on. These are not the final menus.

The gameplay itself isn't done yet. I guess once he has finished all of his arcs, he'll start working on the graphics and UI.

I'm personally hoping for a 3D isometric DF in 2020. That should give toady enough time to acquire and/or code a graphics engine, finish the UI, and prepare for enslaving the human race.

[alexwazer]

Well, clearly the bugs are one of the more frustrating things - but of course the game is beta, and its free - its a personal project so I have no grudges to bear whatsoever. I've got a million times my money's worth out of DF.

When it comes to 0.31, that's kinda beside the point. Toady completely changed several in-game systems, but did so in a -somewhat- rushed manner, knowing half of them would be horribly buggy and the other half insanely unbalanced (all very dwarfy). He did so in order to avoid breaking save-game compatibility for futur versions: a debatable choice, but which is pointless to discuss at this point. There is plenty of software out there following a similar development strategy: offering both a development and a stable release. The problem is that the current "stable" release (which we've played to death... elves death) is lacking a lot of features compared to the "development" release. Hopefully, in the futur, Toady will add new features in several releases instead of a single huge buggy one.


As for the interface, I don't find it that bad... or rather that bad compared to 40d. The only problem I have is that half the military system is buggy, so the interface only make it worse. When you need to disband, dump gear, recreate squad, reassign equipment, recreate schedule to "fix" a bug, it really doesn't help when the interface is counter-intuitive, inconsistent, uselessly complex and with bugs of its own. I wish Toady would spend some time to improve the whole interface before the next major release. I would be glad of simply being able to see item in a building from the "q" menu, items on the ground from the "v" menu instead of having "t" and "k", which I almost never use, and having stockpiles and zones in the same menu. I would not mind combining burrows designation with points/routes and adding traffic designation in there too. Hell, I would like the whole interface to be easily modable so Toady wouldn't even have to do it himself (that's what fanboyish communities are for).

Seriously, 8 ways to draw rectangles? I can only think of 2: using UHKM keys or enter, move cursor and enter (alternatively,  enter, right click and enter, so let's say 3). I might (probably) be missing some, but 5 or 6?



Anyway, I may sound like a fanboy (I am  ), but it doesn't mean I don't understand or care. However, I think that before judging the core of the new military (medical, underground, material, etc.) system, we should wait for the main bugs to be fixed. So far in 0.31.#, Toady "broke" more stuff than he fixed, but that was expected, even planned    If I wasn't enjoying having magma all over the place so much, I would be playing with 40d instead. So in conclusion (Yeah!!  ), if you enjoyed playing 40d, but you are having a hard time enjoying 0.31, I would suggest to stick to the former... that's the only real goal of a game: to have fun. Keep an eye open for new releases and comments from users and wait for one that sounds right for your taste.



P.S. I'm not bothering reading myself, so sorry if anything for whatever doesn't make sense... sleepy

[AtomicPaperclip]

It's a little bit of a learning curve but if you read a couple wiki pages and try some stuff out it's not that hard.

I haven't had any problems with the military so far, other than combat mechanics.

[ungulateman]

My only serious problem with the military is that dwarves can't be activated or deactivated with any level of ease or grace. I have had three forts where miners assigned to completely off-duty squads (as back-ups for the actual military) wasted all their time doing individual combat drills and would never do civilian work again.

[EddyP]

One of the problems that I had with the military was that everyone I conscripted just stood around in the barracks waiting for a demonstration, then they all got massively depressed because they weren't clever enough to go and get something to eat and drink.

[TurkeyXIII]

My biggest gripe with the military is that one or two dwarfs walk around with 3 or 4 weapons/shields each and leave none for their buddies.  And then the occasional 'wtf are you doing?' moment, but I get that with most dwarfs.

I like the military screen, or at least I will when it works properly.

[Randominality]

Plus, I want the ability to draft dwarfs from the "v" menu back. It's always nice to be able to insta-draft your carpenter that gets attacked by a gorilla while chopping down trees rather than have him run across the countryside in no particular direction, just as long as it isn't back to safety.

This.

[slothen]

the military is quite buggy, but I've found a way to deal with it.  Firstly, NEVER ASSIGN UNIFORMS, secondly if you don't assign each piece of equipment to each dwarf specifically, it probably won't work (although sometimes it does), thirdly sometimes kill command pathing is messed up, so try to stick with move commands unless absolutely necessary.  Finally, people need to break their 40d mindset and go back to using traps as the first and most important line of defense.

in 31.03, military is for mop up and forgotten beast destruction only.


also war elephants.