v0.31:Military

Just a quick aid for confused players, please reformat this, anyone who knows more:

You can load dwarves into a squad from the 'm'ilitary screen, after you've defined a military commander. The squad defaults to training all the time (see its 's'chedule on the military screen). To actually make them train, though, you need to activate them: 's'quads from the main screen, then press the letter of your squad, then 't' to change it from inactive to active. You also need to create a barracks from a bed, then assign the squad to train in it with the 't' key. This makes them immediately start to train there.

Alert levels

The alert level is a fundamental concept of military management. In each alert level, you can program instructions for your military and civilian dwarves to follow. The game contains two alert levels by default - 'Inactive' and 'Active/Train'. In 'Inactive', all squads are assigned no orders. In 'Active/Train', all squads are assigned to train the entire year.

Your entire fortress is always set to exactly one 'Civilian alert level'. This restricts where civilians may go. To define the restriction area, you must first create a Template:L encompassing the area you want to restrict your civilians to. Then, go to the alert screen (m then a), create a new alert level (call it something like 'Danger'), highlight it in the left pane, then press enter on the correct burrow in the right pane. You can change the currently active civilian alert level by pressing enter on the correct alert level in the left pane.

Each alert level also carries instructions for military dwarves when it is activated. Unlike the civilian level, which applies to your entire fort, the military alert level can be set individually for each squad. To set a squad to an alert level, either select it from the squad menu (s) and press 't' until the desired alert level is selected, or go to the alert menu (m then a), highlight the correct alert level in the left pane, then highlight the correct squad in the middle pane, then press Shift-Enter.

Scheduling

Each squad can be given a schedule to follow for an entire year. Each squad has a separate schedule for each alert level; it can be swapped between these schedules with the procedure outlined in the previous section. The main scheduling screen can be accessed by pressing s from the main military screen.

On the main scheduling page, you will see a list of months on the left side, and a list of all of the squads in your fortress along the top edge. Scheduling is done separately for each alert level; to switch between alert levels use the / and * numpad keys. Use the up/down arrow keys to navigate up and down the month list, and the left/right arrow keys to navigate between the squads. The orders in the currently selected cell are displayed in blue towards the bottom of the screen. When you've highlighted a cell, press Tab to switch focus to this order list. From here, you can press e to edit the orders.

When you press 'e', a screen will come up saying something like 'o: Train'. Press o to change the order's type. This cycles between 'Train', 'Defend Burrow', 'Patrol Route', and 'Station'. To use any of the orders other than Train, you will first need to set up the appropriate Template:L, Template:L, or Template:L. When you cycle to the order you want, highlight the burrow, station, or route you want the order to go to and press Enter. It should be highlighted in green. When you are done, press Shift-Enter to save the order and return to the schedule screen.

Note that the text displayed on each cell (like 'Train') is a completely customized text; it does NOT reflect the actual orders in the cell! When you have a cell highlighted, you can press 'n' to edit the label. Don't be confused by the fact that when you edit the orders in a cell, the label does not change to reflect your changes. You need to update the cell text yourself to be consistent with the orders.