Bay 12 Games Forum

On marksdwarves: notoriously difficult to get working effectively, for all sorts of reasons. However, this is how I do and it's been suiting me fine for 10 in-game years:

One large archery range with 10 targets, each of which have a range designated from them, all sorted direction-of-fire-wise, all set for the single squad to train from. Plus, one barracks from an armour stand, also designated for that one squad to train at. Schedule: one month training, one month off, alternating.

In the training months, the squad normally goes and does dodging practice in the barracks, sometimes with one or two or them going and firing a few arrows. As soon as their off-duty month arrives, about 8-9 of them go shoot, and since they have no other labours enabled while off duty, they do that for the entire month.

I do a bit of live target practice (trolls, bugbats, elk birds, anything else I catch) through fortifications.

Note: when I say off-duty, I am not setting the squad to 'inactive' ('t' on the 's'quad menu), simply setting their schedule to have 'off' months. Just to clarify.

Been working fine. More generally speaking though, marksdwarves do have a lot of things to juggle: bolts, quivers, kit, flasks, backpacks, etc, so do just give them time. Your idea of stationing them was a good one - why not wait until all four squads members are present and correct and you can check their kit and then un-station them and give them a bit of time to get themselves into some kind of training routine.

The other alternative angle is to try to avoid friendships too much. If you have social areas (like statue gardens, zoos, places designated off slabs or cages or statues or so) and idle dwarves, they are going to socialise and become friends over time. Keeping them working avoids the close-knit friendships.

Agree on ecstatic helping a dwarf get through a loss. In my current fort, the militia commander lost his wife and five children in just over 2 seasons and coped peachily. Admittedly he is a hardened psychopath but still....

Cheers both; strangely a RL friend said exactly the same: zombies. They have scarred tissue, are blind, two of them are walking around seemingly happily. Definitely time for some !!science!! and working out what is to be done. Moving the hospital under the magma chute might lead to some interesting results.

similarly, if you have forbid your items under the 'o'rders menu toggled ON, your previous squad commander's death will have made his sword forbidden, so your new commander will drop his old sword and try to get the commander's sword but will not be able to, because it's forbidden by the old commander's death. Longer way of saying: check weapons are all unforbidden.

To reiterate though, if you continue to have problems, remove the soldiers from the squad and disband it. When recreating it, make sure you reset the equipment for the squad ('m' 'e') after checking you have the relevant armour and weapons unforbidden and available.

Can I jump on this thread too?

I've just taken out the 30somethingth FB in my current fortress, a rather nasty skinless worm with a deadly breath. Five dorfs sit in my hospital now with severe rot across their entire bodies.

Does anyone else have experience of fixing this syndrome in game? Or am I to expect that my surgeons & diagnosers will simply not be able to keep up removing the rotten tissue from the dorfs as fast as it decays?

Feel a tad sorry for the poor med-dwarfs, busy in the hospital that's filled with miasma and blood and extract everywhere.

The fact the crop is blinking and that you can see it with 'k' means that it is no longer part of the field plot - it's been harvested and then is sitting on the field. For crops in the field, use 't' to see the internal elements of the field. (Imagine the farm plot like a workshop - 'k' shows you the workshop tile plus anything on top of it, 't' shows you inside instead).

So, if that is the case, it means the crops are being harvested but not carried to your food stockpile - you said you have enough barrels and storage space - check 'o'rders then in case Dwarves gather food is turned off.... that's all I can think at the moment...

Creating walls along with the staircases should be enough

Agreed. My fortress has a 4x4 core stairway that only opens in main fortress levels and has no access to the surface or the caverns.

Alternative is not to designate the total height of the staircase, so that once you first breach you can wall up and pick a better location to mine down.

Have you got the squad set on inactive? Have you got the squad set to remain in uniform while inactive? (toggle the former through 's', the latter through 'm'-'s').

Are you creating more warhammers / iron armour? It could be that dwarves are upgrading their equipment... but if that's the case, they should return the kit they are discarding to a weapon/armour appropriate stockpile. Do you have one? (I don't think it's this but on the off-chance...)