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[EddyP]

I'm sure we've all been there. "An ambush! Curse them!" We hastily order our military towards the gate.

A minute passes by and the goblins wreak havoc. Where are the guards? Oh yes, I remember. Chasing that last war camel from the first group across the map. At long last, the camel is killed, and the dwarves return to a scene of devastation.

A siege arrives. The goblins are funnelled into a thin corridor with a ballista battery at the end. A troll, smelling dwarf blood, runs forward far ahead of the rest of the invaders. The siege operators, seeing him across the channel through their solid rock fortifications, flee. The military comes forth to deal with him, that the ballistas might fire once more, and the troll is swiftly dispatched. They begin to leave the ballista corridor. But wait! What is that Urist McSpeardwarf sees? Why, it's another troll further down the corridor! They kill that troll too, and the one after that, and the one after that, and then it's the main army of goblin lashers. The siege operators, looking at fine dwarven backs, did not get to fire their ballistas again.

Battle commences. One dwarf charges through ten, twenty goblins, intent on attacking one specific enemy. He is quickly surrounded, and cries out for aid. Where are his comrades? Surrounding a prone goblin, methodically breaking each bone in his body and then detaching the limb. The head comes last, of course.

I guess what I'm asking for, then, is the ability to give absolute orders. The kind that will make soldiers stop chasing camels, and ignore that troll further than the corridor, and GO WHERE I TELL THEM STRAIGHT AWAY. Better AI - such as making them focus on enemies that actually pose a threat, rather than mobbing a goblin with no arms - would also be nice.

[Dynastia]

I'd be happy if somebody could just wake up my soldiers when we're attacked. I've lost count the number of dwarfs who've slept through attacks because, hey ; I was asleep when the goblins got here, and a siege is hardly important enough for somebody to wake me up for.

[Mister Always]

We really need some random dwarf kid to run to their sleeping quarters and bang on a big copper pot to wake them up.

[EmperorJon]

I'd definitely say setting a threshold level for things... only run at Gobbo if there aren't 5 more infront of it... ignore Gobbo if it's already unconcious with every bone broken...

[Nasikabatrachus]

It's not a perfect solution, but if your squad is chasing camels and stuff around you can press o to remove their orders, turning them into civilians again and making them run away from the thing they were fighting. Personally the most annoying thing is having companions in adventure mode madly dash off to kill every animal in the vicinity. Some way to rein them in would be nice, preferably something tied to social skills to give a "general" character differentiation from your typical hack-and-slash adventurer.

As far as waking sleeping soldiers up, maybe there could be an option to create a bell that can wake up every dwarf in the fortress, or at least within X distance of the bell. The bell would have to be rung, like how levers must be pulled by dwarves, making it part of the gameplay. It would wake up any dwarf who could hear it, giving them an unhappy thought, thus balancing the temptation to use it liberally. Quality modifiers could affect its effective range, and there could be a low chance of the bell cracking once in a while, thus leading to !!FUN!!. Ringing it too often might also make dwarves less likely to wake up when it is rung, so an array of bells linked to a lever would be a bad idea rather than a guarantee of success. Perhaps certain bells could be assigned certain tones which would summon certain squads to the site of the bell whenever it is rung.

[Dutchling]

Will flooding the barracks wake the dwarfs?

[blue sam3]

How about:

- Siege operators reclassified as military so they don't run away
- New orders override old orders
- Option on the orders page to stop after incapacitating if there's another threat / always / never

[dwarfhoplite]

military does work bad. but the funny thing about this game is that dwarves have their own will which always, if possible result in disaster fun. I suggest not to give too much control over military.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

How about we add the absoulete order idea Eddy suggested and some sort of "discipline" system.

For example disipline could be a skill dwarves learn. When you give an absoulete order it uses (not trains) this skill.
If the absoulete order contains something a dwarf doesn't like to do, say walk near a goblin, it using the skill to determine if he will do the order.

The level of the skill could advance like this:
First couple levels, refuses to do it
Next few levels, does it slowly with extreme happiness hit
Few more levels, does it with some happiness hit
Next few, no happiness hit
Legendary, does it and gains a happiness benefit from the thrill or something.

This solves many of the annoying problems in the game. Such as the problems Eddy descriped.
The skill could also be taken at embark to stop problems with the start game.

Makes enough sense to me.

[Korbac]

Good ideas, gents. I have realised this problem occurs to my noble dwarves also, resulting in them getting chopped up. Therefore, I propose a series of rules -

- Dwarves ignore enemies which are unconscious if there are still conscious enemies in the vicinity;
- Dwarves attack the closest enemy to them, so long as they are 'reasonably near' their target / station;
- Dwarves will disengage weak enemies / stop chasing fleeing enemies if ordered to attack / move elsewhere.

I hope this solves the problem with the military.  Which, by and large is very, very cool.

[Lord Vetinari]

I think that Toady has something in mind about that for the army arc, but suggestions are always good.

How about we add the absoulete order idea Eddy suggested and some sort of "discipline" system.

For example disipline could be a skill dwarves learn. When you give an absoulete order it uses (not trains) this skill.
If the absoulete order contains something a dwarf doesn't like to do, say walk near a goblin, it using the skill to determine if he will do the order.

The level of the skill could advance like this:
First couple levels, refuses to do it
Next few levels, does it slowly with extreme happiness hit
Few more levels, does it with some happiness hit
Next few, no happiness hit
Legendary, does it and gains a happiness benefit from the thrill or something.

This solves many of the annoying problems in the game. Such as the problems Eddy descriped.
The skill could also be taken at embark to stop problems with the start game.

Makes enough sense to me.

Good idea, I like it (not sure about the happiness benefit for game balance, but I guess that a guy with legendary discipline is a kind of militaristic fanatic, so it kinda make sense). How would you suggest to train the discipline skill, since you said that using it is not a training?

[Catastrophic lolcats]

I imagine it would be trained in the military. As for standard citizens we might have to wait for some sort of mentor program.

Having it train up by just doing orders would make it too easy to grind up I would think.

[CaptainArchmage]

I believe you can wake dwarves up by dropping a piece of wall nearby the barracks. That said, there should be an "alarm bell" that can be rung (and in adventure mode you'd be able to hear it if you're in a town or city under attack).

[tsen]

Just training in a military environment promotes discipline. It's one of the big reasons for uniforms, codes of conduct, drill and ceremony, and ranks. (Just to name a few)

[sockless]

Ranks are actually there to provide efficient channels for orders.

Having said that, we should implement a proper rank structure into the game.