v0.31 Talk:Squad

Doing Stuff

Don't Panic

I'm going to start laying out the groundwork for what could become a stand alone squad page appropriately crosslinked up to the military page. There's just so many new options that I think this is going to become an enormous pig of a page if we don't separate squads from military in the wiki. If you like this idea, and you think it is ready feel free to cancel the redirect and migrate this into the main squad page. Doctorzuber 20:14, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Just reiterating from the military's talk page: squads are the military. If you put squads in their own page it would basically be an identical page but with required information left out. --Retro 20:37, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

yea, well this is an idea of mine, I'm doing the groundwork for it, if people think it looks like a good idea we can consider implementing it. Doctorzuber 20:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I think that's enough fussing around for now. If people like the direction I'm taking this we can look at expanding this idea clean up the military page and likely create a page for schedules as well. If the verdict is that this is a waste of time, we can merge this imformation into the military page. Doctorzuber 21:23, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Since the major edits are now in, and the redirect is closed, I think it's probably safe to go ahead and clean this discussion page back up. I'll wait for now however. Doctorzuber 03:40, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Squads have changed quite dramatically since 40d which gives them considerably more flexibility than they had before. You can issue orders to the squad itself, or simply to an individual soldier. You can designate squads to be full time troops, or to simply be on call militia that functions as civilians.

Creating a Squad

Creating a squad is done through the Template:L interface.

Selecting squads and or individuals

Selecting a squad in the new system is quite easy. Selecting the first squad can be done simply by pressing s,a. Squads are selected alphabetically, so if you wanted a different squad it would be s,b for the second, s,c for the third, and so on. You can also select individual soldiers in a squad to do so use p to toggle to individual selection then use alphabetical selection again to pick any soldier in any squad. For example s,p,a,a would open the squad menu, toggle to individuals, and select only the leader of squad one. Multiple squads or individuals can selected as well using shift-a. As an example pressing s, shift-a, shift-b, shift-c would select squads one two and three. The same tactic can be applied to individual soldiers as well.

Moving and Killing

Once you have selected your murderous death machines soldiers you can now now quickly and easily issue your orders. A move order is issued by pressing m, choosing an area, and pressing enter. Soldiers on a move order will attack any hostiles they encounter on their way to their destination.

You can also order them to attack a specific individual with a kill order. Like a move order you must then select your target, and press enter. Your soldiers will now move to the intended victim and kill it or die trying. This order will remain after the intended victim is killed leaving your squad standing over the corpse of their slain enemy waiting for new orders.

Regrettably, at present soldiers on a move or kill order are quite easily distracted and will chase down and attempt to kill any creature that crosses their path while attempting to carry out their orders.

Canceling Orders

Once your murderous death machines soldiers have done their duty you can send them back to their civilian life and/or any training they may be doing simply by selecting the squad and pressing o. In this respect squads are more of a part time militia in this new system in that when they aren't out actively doing things they can still retain skills and perform normal duties.

Training schedules

from the squad menu you can toggle through a squads training schedule quite quickly with t. This can also be used to assign training to individual dwarves as well. If you wish to make more complex adjustments to your training schedule you can press s which will send you to the military-schedule screen. For more information about customizing your own training schedules refer to the Template:L page.

Military Related bugs as of 31.01

• Soldiers that have been killed are not removed from their squads. You can see how many dead soldiers you currently have by comparing the number of dwarves in your squad(s) against the number found at the top of the Template:L screen.
• copying an empty order over a non-empty order in the schedule screen causes a crash.
• going to the military-schedule-grid screen and selecting your inactive group causes a crash.