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[Koremu]

So, I'm tryng to come up with innovative ways to train my military, and I'm thinking of creating an Assault Course (emphasis on the Assault) to train attributes, preferably when the military dwarves are in nominal non-military mode.

What I'm thinking is of sealing my military squads into an area which contains everything they need, and forcing them to run around a track by means of creating stockpiles which "take" from each other in a loop.

Essentially the idea is that Urist McSisyphus will pick up a rock from one stockpile to take to another, and on the way there his movement will result in all manner of training traps being activated, from floor spikes to water traps. Essentially it's a danger room but in a loop.

Now, the question is: do dwarves gain attributes from carrying things, and if so is it related to the overall mass (I presume it is), and will heavy mass likewise impair dodging and swimming (again, I presume so). If so, am I likely to have to start with Rock Salt (or Saltpeter) and periodically upgrade the Assault Course? Or just accept the occasional footless drowned soldier as the price of !!progress!!?

[Loud Whispers]

Why not have them constantly stockpile and fire the rocks from a catapult instead?

[Tharwen]

You could just have them fill up ponds in a loop.

Make sure you seal it off from the rest of the fort first though, or other dwarves will fill the ponds and stop it from working.

[Carnes]

You could also just make a Patrol Route and make 1-2 soldiers do the route as part of their schedule.   My schedules are usually:
3 train
3 patrol (or 4 guard burrow for static defense)
1 dangerroom (which just means 1 guard DR burrow)

The patrol route takes them all around the map and they kill zombie elephants and anything else hostile.  Occasionally catching thieves and child snatchers.  But you could add obstacles along they way like artificial rivers, 1z dodge-em traps, dangerroom-esqe upright spear corridors, and fun things like that.  This way they aren't sequestered somewhere and not helping the fort.

Keep in mind though, with a surface army you will lose all kinds of dwarves.  A dangerroom is pretty much required to keep a trained army with high losses.  You can dumb it down though by only using one spear and having a very small number in there at once.  Some dwarves never take the DR guard duty too. 

[Koremu]

Why not have them constantly stockpile and fire the rocks from a catapult instead?

That's not a bad idea, although I'll modify it to have a burrow of siege weapon dorfs do the firing (no point wasting skill ups on military squad dorfs)

You could just have them fill up ponds in a loop.

Make sure you seal it off from the rest of the fort first though, or other dwarves will fill the ponds and stop it from working.

Sealing is going to happen anyway, but I'm not sure how the interaction between ponds and waters traps will work out.

You could also just make a Patrol Route and make 1-2 soldiers do the route as part of their schedule.

The whole point is to have low-level military do something that trains their attributes while they are off-duty.

[peskyninja]

The whole point is to have low-level military do something that trains their attributes while they are off-duty.

They don't need to be off-duty. Usually when you make a super mega gigantic training schedule with extra magma and a lazers you will fail utterly. Just set 1/2 to patrol/guard/party and the other half to train.