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[Finn]

I'm still trying to perfect the squad scheduling to try and eliminate this problem because it's seriously affecting my soldiers happiness.  At first I tried just sticking every squad on "Train" each month, but set the minimum participants to 5.  (I have 10 man squads).  When that was the case I would receive this message every time I had to send them out to kill someone and it took more than 2 minutes.  Later I defined some more intricate fortress defense that involved defensive stations (burrows) and I put 4 squads on a rotation that looked like this:

Train
No Scheduled Activity
Defend Burrow
No Scheduled Activity

So in any given month, one squad is Train, one is defending the burrow and two are off duty.  This seems to anger them even more.  It seems like the "long patrol" gripe is more frequent, probably because of the Defend Burrow month (although I haven't verified that), but now I also get "She was upset about being relieved from duty" in the same paragraph.  This is happening on one dwarf in particular.

I have noticed that when the squad reaches a No Scheduled Activity (NSA) month, I get a message that Urist McOffDuty has become a fisherdwarf, and when they go back on, Urist McOnDuty has become an axedwarf.  This wasn't what I expected to have happen but I accepted it.

So anyway, what I'm wondering about is if anyone does anything fancier with their scheduling than 12-months of Train?  What sort of schedule do you use?  What do you set for minimum attendance?

For now I'm going to go back through the scheduling and remove all the NSA's.  I thought that would give the whole squad a break to get water, food, etc, but that doesn't seem to be the right mechanic for that.  I'll try using Train with relaxed attendance in place of the NSA and shrink the rotation to two squads.

Edit:  Also, I've seen several places where people suggest never assigning your Commander a squad, presumbably to keep him out of combat.  What happens if the Commander gets killed?

[FuzzyZergling]

So anyway, what I'm wondering about is if anyone does anything fancier with their scheduling than 12-months of Train?  What sort of schedule do you use?  What do you set for minimum attendance?

[...]

Edit:  Also, I've seen several places where people suggest never assigning your Commander a squad, presumbably to keep him out of combat.  What happens if the Commander gets killed?

I do three months of Train with 10 dwarf minimum, followed by one month of nothing, repeated three times.
Yes they get unhappy thoughts, but I don't find this too disruptive.

I know of nothing special happening if the Commander is killed, other than having to reassign a new one.

[Telgin]

No idea what happens if the commander gets killed.  If it's anything special, I've never noticed it.

As for how I schedule my training, I've tried 3 things:

All year training, 7/10 minimum present - This generates some enraged / depressed by long patrol duty unhappy thoughts, but it never seems to make the soldiers less than quite content.  The key is having enough happy thoughts to balance it out.  Letting the soldiers sleep in their own bedrooms and having a good dining room seems to be plenty for me.

One month on, one month off, 7/10 minimum present - So, the idea is that dwarves train half the year and are off duty half the year, in alternating months.  This has the problem of causing "complained about the draft" and "upset about being relieved from duty" unhappy thoughts in some dwarf pretty much every month.  Dwarves that are peasants will be unhappy at being relieved of duty, but based on what I've seen, are still upset at long patrol duty.

Despite my fears that this would cause lots of unhappiness due to the above issues, it doesn't seem to be that bad, since it theoretically avoids long patrol duty.  Not always though, which I suspect is caused by the occasional siege where they're on duty for a few months to finish off the invaders.

Two months on, one month off, 7/10 minimum present - This is what I'm trying now.  Two months of training followed by a month of inactivity.  The theory is that it will train faster than the above method, while avoiding the worst of the long patrol duty bad thoughts.  I haven't tested it well yet, but it doesn't seem to be annoying the soldiers unduly.


In the end, I really have no idea if it's even possible to completely avoid unhappy thoughts related to scheduling.  It's just best to mitigate the damage with happy thoughts.  I also have no idea just how much the X/10 minimum present requirement helps or hurts this.  I think it'll mostly help with avoiding dwarves idling around waiting for demonstrations because half of their squad is asleep.  Not sure how much it helps or hurts happiness.

[Tirion]

Not assigning the Captain of the Guard a squad has nothing to do with his death. It's done to limit the Fortress Guard to a single person, preferably someone imfathomably weak equipped with a feather wood crossbow- the CotG him/herself. Your legendary weaponsmith, who hauled some goods to the trade depot that's export your Mayor then banned before the caravan left the map, can survive a beating from that carefully selected and equipped dwarf, but not from the random member of a proper squad, or Armok forbid, a bearded Terminator fresh out of the Danger Room.

[kardwill]

Not assigning the Captain of the Guard a squad has nothing to do with his death. It's done to limit the Fortress Guard to a single person,

The question wasn't about the guard captain, but the militia commander. Some tutorials recommend to keep him away from the front line, but don't say why. Personnaly, I let my commander lead the elite squad, and never had a problem with it. But I can't remember if I ever lost the guy, though.

And for the guard : To each his own. I tend to put my troublemakers in the city guard. Most corrupt police force ever, but at least they have some officers around when they start tantruming 

[Blue_Dwarf]

The only reason I can think of is that the commander is required if you want to appoint new captains. If he gets killed, you can't appoint new captains until you assign a new commander, which can be irritating I guess.

[Quietust]

The key is having enough happy thoughts to balance it out.  Letting the soldiers sleep in their own bedrooms and having a good dining room seems to be plenty for me.

Unless things have changed, active soldiers never eat in dining rooms. They might do so as civilians, but you'd have to make sure they're not assigned to carry any rations.

Dwarves that are peasants will be unhappy at being relieved of duty, but based on what I've seen, are still upset at long patrol duty.

The only dwarves that do not get upset about long patrol duty are Heroes - weapon masters/lords and elite fighters live only for combat and don't mind long patrol duty, since it means they might get to catch an ambush and kill stuff.

I typically run my military at "Train, minimum 10" all year long, and positive thoughts from good food/drink/sleep, satisfying sparring sessions, and the joy of slaughter keep them plenty happy until they level up.

[melphel]

Some things I have noticed:
"Complained about the draft" tends to only happen to dwarves with no combat skills when they are added to a squad.  I usually don't recruit no-skill peasants anyway.

"Enraged by long patrol duty" can be triggered by more than just scheduled training or patrols.  In the early years, I often have squads that are inactive all year round and only fight when given a direct order from me.  I've found that they can still get this bad thought just from having to station around the map for some period of time.

I'm not too sure about "upset about being relieved from duty," but I don't think it is the opposite of the long patrol complaint...in other words, there is no sweet spot where patrols are just long enough to not give either bad thought.


After playing with rotating squads and patrols (and not seeing much improvement), I have my squads train every month of the year, with 2-3 less required than the squad total.  I remember reading that having less than maximum required doesn't work properly, that it would be the same 2 or 3 dwarves that get to go on break each month.  I never paid close enough attention to notice that, but I've been considering making everyone train all day everyday.

[i2amroy]

"Upset about being relieved from duty" is the opposite of the "Complained about the draft" thought. It occurs when dwarves that lack a civilian skill (such as unskilled peasants or pure military dwarves) are deactivated from the military. This is why it is usually best to make sure that all of your military dwarves at least train a small amount in a non-military skill to avoid these thoughts.

[Sutremaine]

Unless things have changed, active soldiers never eat in dining rooms. They might do so as civilians, but you'd have to make sure they're not assigned to carry any rations.

Huh, looks like they don't (and if they become active before they can pick up their tasked food they'll eat it out of the stockpile), although they'll finish their meal if they started it. Guess I must have seen dwarves that became active a short while before I looked.

This is why it is usually best to make sure that all of your military dwarves at least train a small amount in a non-military skill to avoid these thoughts.

Pump operating is a good one. The higher level a skill is, the slower it rusts, and pump operating doesn't take up any raw materials beyond the ones needed for the pump.

[King DZA]

I have ten squads of three. five entire squads train for the first six months of the year, then the other five take over for the rest of the year.

I figure, if nothing else, it will give them time to build up their happiness again before they get pissed off about going back on duty.

[Telgin]

Unless things have changed, active soldiers never eat in dining rooms. They might do so as civilians, but you'd have to make sure they're not assigned to carry any rations.

What about if you only require some subset of the squad (say 2/10 are free), will they eat in the dining room?  I'm sure I've seen soldiers with happy thoughts from eating in my legendary dining hall, and I'm all but sure I've seen this even with round the year training.

The only dwarves that do not get upset about long patrol duty are Heroes - weapon masters/lords and elite fighters live only for combat and don't mind long patrol duty, since it means they might get to catch an ambush and kill stuff.

I typically run my military at "Train, minimum 10" all year long, and positive thoughts from good food/drink/sleep, satisfying sparring sessions, and the joy of slaughter keep them plenty happy until they level up.

Makes sense.  I guess the solution then is to make sure that my peasants have some skill in something when relieving them of duty.  I've only ever had elite marksdwarves, never had any melee dwarves actually make it to lord status of any sort, even after years of being in the militia.  Best just mitigate the damage.

[Nan]

Normally in DF, a legendary dining room covers a multitude of sins, but for military, good bedrooms covers a multitude of sins.
"Slept in a good bedroom recently" seems to be one of the only (civilian) happy thoughts a military dwarf reliably gets, they'll also occasionally get a happy thought for admiring their stuff, admiring random stuff, eating in the dining hall etc, but the bedroom is rock-solid reliable. So make em' train all year round, but give them a nice bedroom to compensate. And if a dwarf is really having a hard time staying happy give them a masterwork bed or a gold cabinet or something.

[Garath]

i'm putting silver and gold statues in their bedrooms, but the idea is the same.

one of my marksdwarfs gets really upset from being set to inactive, but if i wat a month or 2 he really goes up from enjoying civilian life (dining room, statue gardens and more)

I'm thinking about defence mod, cause i just get a raid now and then, its a bit boring, only the FB are slightly challenging

[Sutremaine]

one of my marksdwarfs gets really upset from being set to inactive

Probably doesn't have a civilian profession. I dunno if 'Administrator' counts, but I'm sure you can find something that'll rack up the job EXP.