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[Bihlbo]

Every time I go into the mountains I end up alone. It's not because my adventurer can't handle himself, it's because ALL of my companions make a bee-line for every single giant eagle, yak, and goat they see, resulting in them getting lost, fighting too many things till they die, or just being so weak from nonsense that when the raiders attack us I'm the only one to survive. (of course this happens in other places; horses and camels are more deadly than they look)

Is there a way to get the companions to not attack things? The dangers of the world are nothing compared to the stupidity of companions.

[Rumrusher]

Every time I go into the mountains I end up alone. It's not because my adventurer can't handle himself, it's because ALL of my companions make a bee-line for every single giant eagle, yak, and goat they see, resulting in them getting lost, fighting too many things till they die, or just being so weak from nonsense that when the raiders attack us I'm the only one to survive. (of course this happens in other places; horses and camels are more deadly than they look)

Is there a way to get the companions to not attack things? The dangers of the world are nothing compared to the stupidity of companions.

  uhh it's not suicide when someone kills them I think the answer to that is Train them so that they won't be over power by high skilled creatures. If you are hiring peasants they pretty much going to die if you don't have a hand full of them if you got soldiers from a fort then if you want to keep them alive better track them down using the Companion menu and save them from the quick reckless death they are heading.

[Bihlbo]

I hadn't considered trying to work on their skills, I've just always thought of companions as being static for some reason. Thanks!

I did find a nice trick - when you wait an hour your companions and the critters around you reset. So all those horribly lethal yaks standing three squares away, but not threatening in the least, are probably not going to be there killing my guys in an hour.

I'd much prefer to find a way to get them to not go after everything. Maybe that level of micro-management is beyond the game, but if I'm near unkillable and they have bows, you'd think they wouldn't rush into the giant lion's mouth as fast as possible.

[Corneria]

If you need companions, often the easiest solution is grabbing tons of them. By the time most of them have died off, the living ones should have slightly better combat skills.

It's worth noting that every fort soldier I've checked with Runesmith has had 0 combat related skills before being recruited. Which is ridiculous.

[ral]

Right now companions pretty much suck and only have value in numbers as fodder. You can't equip them or give them any orders.

As previously stated, if you're going somewhere that you need say 5 companions and most of them are running off chasing random wildlife, just get 10 companions and hopefully you'll make it to your destination with 5 still alive.

One trick you can use to get lots of companions at forts (assuming you have the "fame") is as you observed, recruit everyone you want in a fort then wait for an hour. New soldiers will spawn. You can then recruit them and repeat until you have enough companions. You should be able to get up to the max of 19 from a single fort this way.

If you need more companions right at the start you can up your Social Awareness attribute, which isn't that bad of a thing to do because all of the attributes that really matter will increase with skill and can be powerleveled and you can't increase social awareness ever it seems.

HOpefully the next version will stop companions from attacking non-hostile wildlife and give you some way to equip them short of using dfusion....  Shouldn't be that hard to implement anyway.

[Bihlbo]

Right now companions pretty much suck and only have value in numbers as fodder. You can't equip them or give them any orders.

Okay I was worried that you couldn't give them any orders.
They also have value in that they keep bogeymen from attacking you in the night. If it weren't for that then at some point companions would be completely ignorable.

If you need more companions right at the start you can up your Social Awareness attribute...

I started a game once where I tried this and it didn't seem to work. Also, no one would hire me and there were no monsters. I think I tweaked the world settings too much, but long story short I never got a follower.
In another game I got jumped by a night creature as I traveled. I ran away from it and made it to the next town, where apparently word got out that I faced a night creature and lived, which was enough to earn some followers. I thought that was pretty cool.

[ral]

Actually there is a way to stop them, but it requires some modding.

Add [AT_PEACE_WITH_WILDLIFE] to the entity definition for humans in entity_default.txt. That should stop companions (all of which are human in an unmodded game) from doing their best to kill every animal on the map.

Most villagers won't join you until you gain some fame. Villagers suck anyway. The best thing to do is find a fort where any soldier who doesn't have higher skills than you will join you 100% of the time.

If you've generated a world with a history longer than 200 years or so then forts are likely to be abandoned it seems. (Some sort of problem with the current version.)

[Bihlbo]

Ral, you're a king! Thanks!!

[Dwarven WMD]

Generally, you need an army to keep them from getting themselves killed ten times over. At that point, everyone has each other's back most of the time and you suffer less casualties. 18 or so people recruited from the King's castle is plenty enough to take down anything with as few casualties as possible.

Unless you are HORRIBLY outnumbered 5 to 1. I mean a hundred enemies would need to coordinate an attack against your group  in order to kill you. This is assuming you don't fight, in which case they might as well stack on an extra sixty soldiers for good measure.

[Deon]

You can also use tools like DFHack to swap bodies with your companions and train/equip them. Or better make a few trained adventurers, retire them and pick them up with your main character.