13: The Sorting (Military Supremecy)

You've made it to migrant wave 3. Congratulations! Here is where my system really becomes evident...and indeed, my entire game structure revolves around this moment.

Let's head on over to therapy land, where we see that our population has jumped to more than double. Our objective at this point is to go through our dwarves and pick out some who have a decent skill in a given job. The likelihood is that your first six starting dwarves (less one soldier) will be Citizens. So, firstly, find your trader. Right-click, go to custom profession, and make his custom profession name *Citizen*. Include the asterisks, as it makes finding them in the lists in-game a lot easier, later on. Next, do the same for any dwarves who have a decent skill in a worthwhile job. Obviously we'll keep our mechanic, and our miners, and our artisans and craftsmen. Anyone else who you think would be a good idea, also, except for certain jobs; anything done outside the base (hunting, trapping), and things that do not require being done in a timely manner or high-quality, like smelting, wood burning, lye making, soap making, etc. These things will be done by soldiers, during their off time.

You should now have between nine and fifteen Citizens. Thirteen would be optimal, I'd say, but it's your fort. Above the tab "labors" there is a "Group By" pull-down menu. Change this to "profession". Now, your Citizens should all be at the top, and the rest, below. Select ALL of the non-Citizens, and change their profession, collectively, to an @. Yep, just @, just the symbol. Now, you should have only two groups, Citizens and @. In previous versions, the @ showed up as a person, not an @, and I used it as a quick-reference for adding soldiers to the military. So that's where that comes from.
Anyway, flip over to the "military" tab, instead of labors. Now, take a look at all those Citizens. What's that you say? Some have military skills? Don't worry about it. You're bound to get some Citizens who have military skill, and really, as you go, you'll get moods in your soldiers that will result in legendary skills; these soldiers will immediately become Citizens, and will receive all the benefits of such, including not being allowed out of the fortress, ever again. You gotta contribute if you gonna live here.

Otherwise, take a look at the @s. Some have skills, some do not. Anyone with skill in "Marksdwarf" should be selected and have their profession changed to @} to show their skill in using a crossbow. Anyone with skill in "Axedwarf" should have an A after the @, and M for Macedwarf, etc. If they have a significant amount of skill, add an exclamation point to the profession. Hence, your original soldier that came with your starting party should be @A! and should be your militia commander, as he has the teaching skill, and should jumpstart any noobs drafted.

Now, again, you will have many different professions displayed by the therapist. Don't worry, this is acceptable, normal, and indeed, expected. Don't be sad for the little dwarves--they'll earn their keep running the fortress. Our Citizens now are assigned to their burrow, which we defined in Defenses. Are you sure you made the outside accessible through the stairs? Not outside the front door, but in the area we designated for statues and pens? Hope so. Gotta be careful of sunlight sickness.

You should have enough for at least two squads, perhaps four. Go back to DF after all that, and go to the military screen. You will see the squad we made before, when we dealt with a few nasties. Now, add in everyone who has a designation for a weapon. They will be easy to find, since we named their profession @A and such. Once you've assigned all the skilled fighters to the squad, create a new squad of archers, and go through and add your best marksdwarves. Once you've covered all those, all that remains is to fill the empty slots with @s. If you fill every slot in both squads, just make another squad of archers. The two points of this system is to have Citizens to do all the important stuff, and train tons of archers. Melee guys are important too, and I'd say that having two squads total is enough, but without training any you'll still get enough just from migrations. Not quick enough sometimes, so for now we train, and replace the least skilled when we get new from migration.

So now we've sorted everyone into their professions, and we suddenly have a decent military, and some amount of Citizens. Next, we address the military in more detail, discussing training, stations, patrol, staging a sortie, and sieges.

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