Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Poindexterity]

y'know?
you've seen the movies! the main characters are saying their lines as they walk from place to place in the castle and as they pass through a door, they nod to the two identically dressed guards, one on each side of the door.
that's those 2 guys job.
thats what they do.
they stand in that uniform by that door and make sure no one who aint sposeda go in, goes in.

is there a way for me to do this?
to designate a specific spot for a guard dwarf to stand while he's not eating, sleeping, or doing dwarfy-baby-maky things?

lil help?

[Max White]

You could make a squad of two dorfs and station them somewhere... And name them 'Biggs' and 'Wedge'

[Lamphare]

you could dig out an entrance hall to your king's quarter or the treasure room, and make it a barracks. then attach a squard which has year round duty to it.
be sure to shift once a year or so, for the sake of the guards...

[PTTG??]

You could make a squad of two dorfs and station them somewhere... And name them 'Biggs' and 'Wedge'

I do believe you misspelled "Nobby" and "Colon".

[Poindexterity]

but would the 2 of them stay exactly at their post, right on either side of the door like in the movies?

[Biowraith]

Create two single square burrows where you want the guards to stand (make them separate burrows, not one burrow with two squares).  e.g. burrows 1 is the square to the left of the door, burrows 2 is the square to the right of the door.
Create two squads with the guard(s) you want posted.
Set those squads' schedules to defend the respective burrows with minimum of 1 on duty - squad 1 defends burrows 1, squad 2 defends burrows 2.
Set their alert to that schedule.


Did a quick test and it resulted in two dwarfs standing at either side of the door (where I'd placed the burrows).  Having more than one dwarf in each the squad should result in them taking shifts - when one gets hungry/thirsty/sleepy, the other (assuming not busy) takes over.  But I didn't test that part.

You could probably get similar results using a Station order instead of burrows.

Note: my first thought was a 2 square burrows and a 2 dwarf squad - this doesn't work as well as sometimes both dwarfs guard tile 1 and leave tile 2 empty.

[Unfrozen Caveman]

I think the burrows thing would work much better than stationing as standing close to the spot you designate in a move order is good enough.

I'm going to try using burrows for marksdwarves' pillboxes/towers, because standing right outside the pillbox does not achieve the intended effect.

[PTTG??]

but would the 2 of them stay exactly at their post, right on either side of the door like in the movies?

Certainly. They would work very hard to make sure nobody steals the door. The contents of the door, well, they'd have to leave the door to take care of that. And they have orders.

[darkflagrance]

I think the burrows thing would work much better than stationing as standing close to the spot you designate in a move order is good enough.

I'm going to try using burrows for marksdwarves' pillboxes/towers, because standing right outside the pillbox does not achieve the intended effect.

The best part is that you can order dwarves there to switch on and off by manipulating the schedule, hence allowing for a "changing of the guard".

[Flaede]

I like this. It will immediately be implemented.
What was that about multiple dwarves causing only one/two at a time to station and the others to wait until relief is needed? Can someone go into more detail about how that works?

[MonkeyHead]

I think the burrows thing would work much better than stationing as standing close to the spot you designate in a move order is good enough.

I'm going to try using burrows for marksdwarves' pillboxes/towers, because standing right outside the pillbox does not achieve the intended effect.

cheap workaround for me is to build firing rooms only one tile wide with no external access - so when told to go in them all marksdorfs are always next to the fortifications. burrows might be easier to implement if location renders one tile wide rooms impractical, provided those burrows are next to the fortifications, as I am sure some uristmcnoshooter would still stand miles from them.

[Flaede]

I think the burrows thing would work much better than stationing as standing close to the spot you designate in a move order is good enough.

I'm going to try using burrows for marksdwarves' pillboxes/towers, because standing right outside the pillbox does not achieve the intended effect.

cheap workaround for me is to build firing rooms only one tile wide with no external access - so when told to go in them all marksdorfs are always next to the fortifications. burrows might be easier to implement if location renders one tile wide rooms impractical, provided those burrows are next to the fortifications, as I am sure some uristmcnoshooter would still stand miles from them.

Whenever I tell marksdwarves to stand next to fortifications they station themselves "in the general area". Often on the wrong side of said fortifications. I'm using burrows from now on.

[Jurph]

...station them somewhere...

...standing close to the spot...

...standing right outside the pillbox...

...stand miles from them...

...they station themselves "in the general area"...

These are all accurate descriptions of the current Move/Station behavior.  1x1 burrows work far better.  If you want to get a rotation going, you'll need to do the following:

(1) Establish a squad
(2) Set up all of the 1x1 burrows you want for guard posts
(3) Establish an alert that is not "Inactive/Training"
(4) Under the schedule for that alert, give the order for Minimum 1 to guard the burrow you designated.  You can, if you like, choose which dwarf you would prefer to take duty here -- this could be used to ensure that every two-dwarf watch has an axedwarf and a hammerdwarf, for example.
(5) Highlight the month you chose and re-select "give order" (not edit order!) and give another order, Minimum 1, to guard the next burrow.  Once you give the order, verify in the Schedule screen that the blue text in the lower left says something like

Guard DoorPostA (minimum 1)
Guard DoorPostB (minimum 1)

(6) Repeat step 5 for each 1x1 burrow at which you want a continuous presence.
(7) Optionally, add an order to "train"; set the Minimum so that once guards and trainees are accounted for, two or more dwarves can be free to eat/drink/party.  Verify that the text in the lower left says:

Guard DoorPostA (minimum 1, prefer 1,3,5,7,9)
Guard DoorPostB (minimum 1, prefer 2,4,6,8,10)
Guard DoorPostC (minimum 1, prefer 1,3,5,7,9)
Guard DoorPostD (minimum 1, prefer 2,4,6,8,10)
Train (minimum 4)

( Copy the order and paste it to each month.
(9) Set the squad to the alert you established.