v0.31:Military F.A.Q.

This is a list of Frequently Asked Questions related to the Template:L. You may also want to read Template:L, Template:L and Template:L.

A note to keep in mind: As 0.31.03 is still far from being all cleaned up and tidy, many of these questions are for now answered with "this is a bug, sorry" or a quick workaround. We will have to make do until the next bugfix.

My dwarves won't do anything but stand around!

By default newly-created squads are assigned the 'Inactive' alert. You will need to create new alert levels or create new scheduling within alert levels (see Template:L) to get them to do what you want. Note that 'Inactive' and 'Active/Training' are not the only two options available - they are simply the two default alerts and rather useless without creating more alerts and scheduling.

NOTE: If you are simply trying to get your military to train, you need to press t while viewing your barracks with q, to set that squad to train.

A handy check list for when you've no more hair to pull out.

1. You need a commander for the squad

In the military Screen, listed on the left will be the option Militia Commander for your first squad. create a squad based on that position and set its basic equipment uniform. Place the Dwarf you want to lead in position 1 and fill the remaining positions as you want.

Note: If you later go to the nobles screen, The first squad's leader will be listed as Militia Commander while subsequent squad leaders will be listed as Militia Captains.

2. The squad needs orders

By setting up a schedule, the squad will know what it should be doing each month of game time without direct input from you. Training (10 maximum) all year round is a good way to begin and should already be down as default.

Note: You can give very intricate operating orders for training, patrolling, etc, but they are not needed initially and may cause confusion getting your morons dwarfs to activate for the first time.

3. The squad needs a place to operate out of

Assuming you already have a barracks marked bedroom, query-ing the bed will have the newly created squad listed. (z) flags the area for sleeping (t) flags the area for training (i) and (q) flags the area for dumping their equipment all over the place.

Note: Each option turned on will be marked with a single multicolored letter. Make sure that at least the Cyan T is showing to the right of the squad's listing, designating the area is used for the their training.

4. The squad needs to be activated

In the squad screen, Your first squad will be selected with (a), whereupon the (t) option will toggle the squad between its inactive state and its active/<scheduling> state.

Note: The squad starts off inactive and, when activated, should now show Active/Training if their schedule was left as the default train all year.

5. Hope for the best!

Un-pausing the game, you should be receiving the drafted Dwarfs' Professions changing to their military versions almost immediately.

Note: When troubleshooting, a schedule of training (10 maximum) all year round saves a lot of heartache when trying to get the system running for the first time.

Alerts? Schedules? What am I looking at here?

A schedule is what a dwarf/squad will do when a particular alert is active; once alerts are made and scheduling is performed within these alerts, you can simply change a squad's alert based on the scenario and they will follow out highly specified and complicated programming. For example, if you make two alerts named 'Caravan Guard' for protecting incoming traders and 'Bloody Kobolds' for attacking thieves, we can change Squad A's scheduling in 'Caravan Guard' to Template:L and change their scheduling in 'Bloody Kobolds' to Template:L around your entrance. When a caravan shows up, you can change Squad A to be under the 'Caravan Guard' alert (either a in the military screen or t to cycle through when in the squad screen with a squad selected) and they will begin running up and down your route as the traders make their way through. When you get the 'Protect the hoard from thieving scum!' message, you can change their alert to 'Bloody Kobolds' and Squad A will charge off to defend the entrance.

Different squads can be given different alerts at once, but these squads can also be given different scheduling within the same alert - for example, you could make Squad B's scheduling in the 'Caravan Guard' alert to defend a burrows around your trade depot, then assign both A and B to 'Caravan Guard' when the traders appear and have one squad walk them in and the other keep the depot clear.

As schedules are broken up by month, you can make very complicated schedules in which dwarves train two months, take one off, then patrol your map for a season then take a shift defending the entrance, while having a second squad do something completely different, and change their scheduling instantly by applying a different alert. For ease, orders can be copied and pasted in the scheduling menu. Once you get the hang of the system it becomes extremely versatile. See Template:L for more information.

I can't seem to apply orders to my schedule

When you finish with the Give Orders menu and hit shift+tab to save your changes, you may notice that your changes have not been saved. This is because your order does not have a defined location. Station orders need a station to be assigned to, patrol route orders need a route to follow, and defend burrows orders need a burrows to defend. When giving or editing orders, you must select the specific area from a list on the left pane.

Keep in mind that the left and right panes in the Give Orders menu can both be highlighted even if one is empty - if your pane doesn't seem to be highlighted, hit the left or right key to properly select it.

My dwarves won't wear the uniform I made!

The uniforms tab within the menu screen is not for assigning uniforms to your dwarves, it is for making uniform templates that can later be applied. Open the eequipment tab then the Uniform sub-tab and you will be able to apply your uniform to either a single dwarf at once with enter or a squad at once with shift+enter. Your uniforms should appear in the rightmost pane.

My dwarves won't pick up equipment!

Your fort has become too large (20+ dwarves) and now requires an Template:L. Open the nobles screen and assign one, and give him an office. He must now process all equipment changes at his desk before they go into effect; until then your dwarves will wear whatever was previously assigned.

There is also a bug in which dwarves may simply just not pick up what you tell them to. If you have <20 dwarves, try forbidding what your soldiers currently have equipped as a workaround. If your soldier simply will not use the weapon you tell them to, try removing the weapon (in the military equipment screen), stationing the soldier near it, then adding it again to their equipment.

I don't have an Arsenal Dwarf position!

Your fort is not yet big enough to need one (<20 dwarves). For now your dwarves will simply equip themselves as soon as you make the changes.

If your fort is big enough, you may be encountering what is believed to be a bug. The position may randomly become available later. Currently why this happens is unknown.

If your Expedition Leader/Mayor is killed it can cause all unassigned nobles to vanish from the nobles screen. This could cause your arsenal dwarf position (among others) to be unavailable. This is believed to be a bug.

Note Arsenal Dwarf has been removed as of tenth version

How do I make my dwarves kill things?

If your soldiers are stationed, defending a barracks, or patrolling a route, they are defending. To make them go on the offense, you need to open the squads screen, select a squad using a/b/c/etc. as listed and hit k to 'Attack.' Then you pick your targets: either hit l to choose from a list of possible targets, r to select all targets within a rectangle, or simply move the cursor to what you want to attack and press enter. Your dwarves should now have the 'Kill _____' duty and charge after your target(s). To select multiple squads at once just hold shift while selecting, or hit p while selecting to select specific dwarves.

You can also use 'move' on the squads menu to move the squad to wherever you want.Just watch out for the next question below...

I can't get my dwarves to STOP killing things!

When a targetable creature is noticed by your military, be it the target of a kill order or simply close enough to be noticed by stationed/patrolling dwarves, your dwarves will engage it and will not give up or run away (or even drop the chase if it's slow) until either it or the target is dead. The only way to stop them is to cancel all their military orders, returning them to civilian status and causing them to run away instead.

If a squad is trying to s->k kill a target, but that target has escaped the map, or is no longer reachable, then Cancel Orders for the squad. s squad a select a given squad exclusively, cancel o order.

My dwarves won't go off-duty! They're starving themselves!

Your order criteria is too high - order criteria is the number of dwarves in a squad required to follow out an order. By default a new order's criteria is set to 10 dwarves, or the entire squad; this means that you've told your dwarves that this order is of the absolute highest importance and that the entire squad needs to be on duty at all times. By changing this to two or three dwarves less than the number of dwarves in your squad, some of your dwarves will be able to relax and take some me-time while the others follow your orders out.

I keep activating my dwarves but they still have their civilian positions!

If a squad is off-duty it may be dressed in its civilian clothes and thus listed as civilians (ie. a swordsdwarf may revert to 'carpenter'). There also seems to be a discrepency between which orders are 'civilian' orders and which are 'military' orders; further investigation is necessary.

However, this is not necessarily a Bad Thing, as they may still train their primary combat skills if you have assigned a barracks.

My squad leader won't stop 'organizing combat training'!

This is a minor bug - your leader is not actually organizing training but stuck on the command and will go about other things (with this command) if ordered. Freeing and then redesignating your barracks may help this.

I can't seem to get my marksdwarves to practice firing at all!

(currently not sure what the issue is here; some have achieved this but we are not exactly certain how)

(While this may be a bug, for some new players it may be due to a lack of ammunition, or not setting the firing direction on archery targets. Try viewing Capnduck's tutorial: [1] )

My marksdwarves are sparring with their crossbows as a melee weapon!

You may have forgotten to assign them ammunition. In the military screen, open the ammunition tab (f) and then assign the squad your preferred ammunition.

If this is not the case, there is also a bug that causes your marksdwarves to simply ignore the crossbow as a training weapon. We have yet to find a suitable workaround.

It is also possible that marksdwarves in DF2010 will not fire crossbows without a quiver; in the old version marksdwarves would carry a stack of bolts in their hand, but this does not seem to be the case anymore. Create some quivers and try again.

Some people report that a Kill order causes marksdwarves to go melee the target. Try a Station or Defend Burrow order instead. (.31.12)

My marksdwarves aren't using the type of ammunition I told them to!

This appears to be a bug. For now, older annoying micro-managing methods such as forbidding certain types will have to suffice.

My hunter/marksdwarf ran out of bolts and won't pick up more!

This seems to be a bug as well (yes, there are many). A workaround for this is to give your marksdwarf a Template:L and then cancelling it; your dwarf should snap back to reality and grab more bolts. Annoying, but should be a temporary problem.

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If you have further questions, please ask them on the discussion page here or on another relevant talk page. Frequently asked or standard questions will be added to the FAQ as necessary.