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[Farmerbob]

  It would be nice to have a military controller that works something like Dwarf Therapist.

  A better interface to understand how the military actually works would probably be enough.

  I haven't had a military since 40d because none of it makes any friggin sense to me, lol.

  The good side to this is that I've learned lots of different ways to use traps to kill things, the bad side is that I typically have 30-40 dwarves idle at any given time after I push population over 100, and armorers don't have much use except for mandates.

[Lovechild]

The military isn't very difficult once you get the hang of it. Read the Wiki page for a good introduction.

[tfaal]

Getting the hang of it is easier said than done. Alerts and schedules interact, and specific entries on a schedule can be modified in non-obvious ways. Uniforms and squad equipment have an equally confusing relationship, and getting marksdwarves working is only technically possible. There isn't even a clear distinction between military dwarves and civilians, with people being drafted and undrafted automatically for obvious reason. A utility like this is a desperate necessity. The military screen is probably the most broken interface in the game.

[Grimlocke]

Illogical and confusing as it is, it is not broken and to a certain extent self explainatory. Know how it works and you can do just about everything you want.

You do however not need to know everything. The basic functions from 40d can be fairly easily learned, you do not need to know the scedule, alert, uniform, etc. menus for that.

That said it could all be much more easily done. A utility to do that untill Toady does would be welcomed by everyone.

[swampwater]

A fort without a military? There are enough trap-avoiding monsters out there that I can't imagine not having serious trouble that way. Setting up squads and getting them to train is fairly easy- I just use Therapist to sort of who belongs on which squad, and it does involve a lot of flipping between windows when you're setting them up but barring heavy casualties you shouldn't have to bother with it very often.
Even though I use batteries of traps myself I still keep at least 2 squads running combat drills all the time- and once I get overpopulated, set up a suicide squad of scrubs as my first responders... sure a lot of them die but the ones that make it train up and earn a place on one of the regular squads. It seems like a much more noble way to die than being thrown into magma like some kind of cat.

1st squad: My primary heavy hitters, forgotten beast killers, selected for their highest combat skills but culling high-level laborers like miners and smiths
2nd squad: the backup squad, not often activated but kept training, the useful laborers who just happen to be good soldiers
3rd squad: the scrubs, peasants and cheesemakers, throw them at a seige when you want to thin the herd a bit

Going into such detail here because I kind of doubt a program like this is soon in coming- as confusing as it can be once you figure it out (the wiki is actually pretty helpful on this front, which is more than I can say about other areas), the military screen does work, marksdwarves being the notable exception. I still just avoid them.

[Rumrusher]

A fort without a military? There are enough trap-avoiding monsters out there that I can't imagine not having serious trouble that way. Setting up squads and getting them to train is fairly easy- I just use Therapist to sort of who belongs on which squad, and it does involve a lot of flipping between windows when you're setting them up but barring heavy casualties you shouldn't have to bother with it very often.
Even though I use batteries of traps myself I still keep at least 2 squads running combat drills all the time- and once I get overpopulated, set up a suicide squad of scrubs as my first responders... sure a lot of them die but the ones that make it train up and earn a place on one of the regular squads. It seems like a much more noble way to die than being thrown into magma like some kind of cat.

1st squad: My primary heavy hitters, forgotten beast killers, selected for their highest combat skills but culling high-level laborers like miners and smiths
2nd squad: the backup squad, not often activated but kept training, the useful laborers who just happen to be good soldiers
3rd squad: the scrubs, peasants and cheesemakers, throw them at a seige when you want to thin the herd a bit

Going into such detail here because I kind of doubt a program like this is soon in coming- as confusing as it can be once you figure it out (the wiki is actually pretty helpful on this front, which is more than I can say about other areas), the military screen does work, marksdwarves being the notable exception. I still just avoid them.

monster that has trap avoid can't escape from traps that use the environment if you build a ice encase trap or obsidion encase trap or a cave in you could kill every thing with out a single soldier.

[Farmerbob]

The military isn't very difficult once you get the hang of it. Read the Wiki page for a good introduction.

I've been playing for a couple years.  I can't stand the military setup and have never been able to manage to create any sort of meaningful military since the introduction of burrows and the new military.

[TomiTapio]

Basically the squads are in five modes:
A) stand there, wait for hostiles to come
B) chase chosen target
C) train individually, at will at barracks
D) active training, demos, sparring
E) scheduled stand-there and patrol routes (this one can be mostly ignored as training is better than "run around until enemy squad pops on you")


I find the interface manageable, except when order squad to kill (from list) multiple wild animals, they mostly just stand there unless one of the targets walks past. Commanding "squad A kill list Warthog1" works fine, apparently because it's a single target.

Need to do the "equipment pickup shuffle" (hey squads, stand here to assemble) before send them out properly.