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[loose nut]

Initial thought: It should be possible to set military squads to guard a dwarf as he performs his duties. For a miner, woodcutter, or fisherdwarf working in dangerous territory this would be a very useful function. I checked, and didn't see this anywhere, though I may not have used the correct search terms. But:

Subsequent thought: This is exactly the sort of thing nobles should demand every now and then.

Subsequent thought: Such a mechanic would open up the possibility of personality-based politics as a driver of late-game Fun in older fortresses, as nobles slowly develop retinues of loyal guards, and thus gain the means to resolve perceived slights with the blood of their enemies. For example, a current mayor or son of the duke who loses an election might flip out and use their personal retinue to dispose of the winner, or an influential captain of the guard who develops a grudge against the presiding noble might have him killed and take the throne for himself. And, as nobles demand bodyguards, other nobles gradually feel threatened and demand bodyguards as well, making it harder and harder to keep a regular army! Essentially the game would become, you have built your city, now try to keep it. And, in a game where 250 dwarves max are bouncing around, having late-game politics driven by personal conflicts and ambitions may be more thematic, and more appropriate to the scale of the game, than having the conflict drivers be more abstract forces like class warfare and economics.

Subsequent thought: If that's the case, it'd make sense & be thematic that dwarves keep track of favors that other dwarves have done for them, and problems that other dwarves have caused them, and form friendships and grudges on that basis rather than just talking to someone in the dining room. Probably your starting seven would all become friends anyway ("Urist made me a good bed to sleep in lately", "Unib made me a very good meal lately", "Sarvesh saved me from badgers lately") but as the fort grows you might get more complicated reactions ("Mayor Dakost had my husband imprisoned lately," "My son was killed under the command of militia captain Urist lately", and of course "My friend formed a grudge against Kadol lately, thus I like him less as well") and webs of allegiances could emerge and make for Fun and potential chaos in an otherwise established fort. This may be too hard to keep track of and work with processor-wise, however, and would be an entirely different interpersonal system in any case.

Anyway, I don't know how far this would need to go, but I think it's a different vision of the late game than much of what I've seen around here, and seems to point towards a nice arc of dwarven society degenerating as the dwarves get comfortable, something I've seen others express a wish for.

[thunktone]

grudge

Yes.

[zwei]

I would definitelly Love squads being "assignable"to civilians just like war dogs are.

Set "2 soldiers from Tin Merchant squad" and your heerbalist should be safe.

Also, Idea would be to set up "unsafe burrow" and assign squad to it - suqad memebers would then attempt to follow any civilian that enters this burrow.

[dwarfhoplite]

good idea.

[Yoink]

That is a really, really well thought out idea! I like it, even though my dwarves don't really tend to survive long enough to become "comfortable"...

[Gamerlord]

That is a really, really well thought out idea! I like it, even though my dwarves don't really tend to survive long enough to become "comfortable"...

Is it normal for a tantrum spiral to make half my dwarves flip out and try to kill the other half? I usually wall them out, but there are workshops in their area, and being able to assign soldiers to civvies working in those areas would be a great help.

[Stratah]

Somebody here likes Game of Thrones.

Kudos for the idea, in a simple way to put it as an order at squads or schedules.

In a complex way, assign captain of the guard for each noble.  For example, beneath "Count Astot" it could be a title "Count's guard".  And make a squad out of it.

[Bohandas]

Initial thought: It should be possible to set military squads to guard a dwarf as he performs his duties. For a miner, woodcutter, or fisherdwarf working in dangerous territory this would be a very useful function. I checked, and didn't see this anywhere, though I may not have used the correct search terms. But:

Subsequent thought: This is exactly the sort of thing nobles should demand every now and then.

These are both great ideas!

[612DwarfAvenue]

Heck yeah, good idea.

[loose nut]

Somebody here likes Game of Thrones.

Kudos for the idea, in a simple way to put it as an order at squads or schedules.

In a complex way, assign captain of the guard for each noble. 

Ding! Yup, I just watched an episode of Game of Thrones before posting that. It's also sort of like Dragon Age dwarves, come to think of it, but I haven't played that game in a while.

I guess mechanically, you would assign a squad to guard a particular dwarf the same way you'd tell a squad to kill somebody. As for nobles, hmmm... they could appear as a squad leader once they make the demand, but I think a more consistent way to handle it is to say "This noble demands two guards," so then you make a squad of two dwarves and tell them to guard that noble. I suppose you could unassign them from the noble every now and then, so the guards could have a chance to train, though that would make the noble unhappy after a while. Or, you could have a little submenu once you tell the soldiers to guard somebody, giving the options to guard (a)ll of the time, (m)ost of the time, or (s)ome of the time. Defaulting to all. Or, once a squad goes on bodyguard duty, their orders default to "Guard person" on their schedule? I'm not sure.

The happiness of the noble being guarded would depend on how consistently they are guarded, the skill of the bodyguards, and their equipment, probably.


EDIT: Another practical & common use of the guard-unit command would be escorting caravans.

[clockwork]

I really like both of those concepts. The train of thought idea would make a more complex basis for the motives of dwarves and their actions.

[thunktone]

I guess mechanically, you would assign a squad to guard a particular dwarf the same way you'd tell a squad to kill somebody. As for nobles, hmmm... they could appear as a squad leader once they make the demand, but I think a more consistent way to handle it is to say "This noble demands two guards," so then you make a squad of two dwarves and tell them to guard that noble. I suppose you could unassign them from the noble every now and then, so the guards could have a chance to train, though that would make the noble unhappy after a while. Or, you could have a little submenu once you tell the soldiers to guard somebody, giving the options to guard (a)ll of the time, (m)ost of the time, or (s)ome of the time. Defaulting to all. Or, once a squad goes on bodyguard duty, their orders default to "Guard person" on their schedule? I'm not sure.

This sounds a bit complicated. Wouldn't it be better to schedule bodyguard duty? You could then have a squad of 5 with minimum 2 on bodyguard duty, minimum 2 training.

[loose nut]

Standard bodyguard duty should definitely be a command accessed in the squad menu and not involve having to muck around in schedules. When you send a dwarf into a dangerous zone it's pretty ad hoc. Having to time your worker's tasks with military schedules would be a huge pain in the ass.

What I'm thinking now is that you should also be able to assign bodyguard duty in the schedules, so you can set a squad to guard the count, say, 6 months out of the year, train for 2, chill for 4, and that might keep him happy until he wants more guards. So that's how you'd handle noble demands. Still too complicated?

[thunktone]

Still too complicated?

No, having both options sounds better than just the schedule, just like you can station dwarfs in their schedule or just give a one off order. You can already assign a squad multiple orders in the same month, so "two of you train, two of you guard the boss" would be possible if the order was there.

[RabidAnubis]

This would cause a lot of fun, and is realistic.

I think if we keep playing this game we will all be good politicians.