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[GRead]

This is the first time I've witnessed this, so I have no clue how to replicate it; but I just decided to diversify my military, teaching the old melee vets how to use crossbows. Despite an abundance of quivers, practice bolts, and available targets, they have chosen instead to enter the barracks and beat each other with their bows. Their hammerer skills are rising nicely, but they have neglected to actually use the crossbows to shoot targets.

As I've never seen my dedicated marksdwarves spar I have no clue what's causing it; but they were set to bows before going off duty and it has been a couple months, but they're still going at it in the barracks.

[GreyMario]

Do you have wooden or bone bolts?

[GRead]

quote:Originally posted by GRead:
<STRONG> Despite an abundance of quivers, practice bolts, and available targets, they have chosen instead to enter the barracks and beat each other with their bows. </STRONG>

Yes, I have something on the order of 2,000 Elephant Bone Bolts that were the impetus of the program.
They are also not set to have shields.
Regardless, any other time I've set dwarves to Crossbows and they've run out of ammo they just mill about, as opposed to going to the barracks to spar.

[ricemastah]

I've had that happen too. I figured it was a good thing, mainly because I set them to equip armor and having armor skill is always useful

[Derakon]

The only thing I can think of is that you didn't actually "turn on" the targets. Each target has to be made into a "room" (though it's fine if they overlap) and have its shooting distance indicated before the dwarves will use it.

[numerobis]

I sent in a save with this same bug.  The fix was to deactivate / reactivate (giving unhappy thoughts).  Just setting them to unarmed, then back to crossbow, didn't help; neither did toggling on-duty / off-duty.

[PTTG??]

I think that it's just that old habits die hard. you take a Dwarf who's been swinging a sword at the goblins for all of his life, and you stick a crossbow in his hands, and what do you expect him to do?

[oneliquidninja]

I've hit this same issue.  Anyone know of another fix?  This happened to one of my champions so deactivating him isn't an option.

[Kagus]

Well, you don't really need a champion marksdwarf anyway, so just give him a hammer and call it fixed.

When in doubt, smash something with a hammer.  It's worked for me.

[Deon]

But it's definitely a bug.
If you want a controllable army you should be able to make them to use the right weapons. I.e. if I have a big ambush I'd better leave the champion behind the walls with a crossbow than have him dead outside the walls.
I've got this thing too, so this is a bug to report.

[oneliquidninja]

Actually what I don't need is a hammerdwarf.  My fortress is set up for using ballistas and marksdwarves as my primary defense.  If an attack gets past that point sure he'd come in handy but otherwise he's just going to get smoked by friendly fire.

So yeah if anyone has any suggestions on a work around for champions I'd appreciate it.  Any thoughts on editing the game so champions can be deactivated? Not sure how to do it but it seems like that might work if it's possible.

[ein Syndication]

Last time I saw something like this in my army, the marksdwarf had a quiver with metal bolts in it that he didn't seem to want to empty to get practice bolts. Try getting the sparring dwarf to ditch the quiver, see if that jump-starts his training.

[oneliquidninja]

Tried this too.  In fact he refuses to pick up bolts period, including to fill his quiver with non-practice bolts.