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[IronOreAgate]

Hi there
So I have never been able to truly master Military training...
Sure my dwarfs have their basic equipment, and I have them all training in the barracks, but I NEVER see them spar.
Usually Dodging exercises, which is great but I wont rather my dwarves know how to use their weapons...

I have given them a good 3 years now of "training" and have created a grand total of 1 spear dwarf, out of 3 hammer recruits, and 5 spear recruits...Is there a method to get them to spar?

Thanks for reading, any input would be great because I REALLY want to get a military so i can fight invasions!
~Agate

[Sutremaine]

Quick checklist:

1. Small squads. The fewer dwarves there are to miss out on demonstrations, the quicker everyone will get to the same skill level and start sparring.
2. Always on duty. The bad thought for long patrols is far more pervasive than it should be, so don't bother trying to avoid it -- rush them through their training to get them to weapon lord status.
3. Teacher / Student skill. This is something you can control only on embark. I've found Competent Teacher / Adequate Student / Proficient [military skill] to work well, but this may not be the best balance.
4. Nice bedrooms. This helps balance out the 'long patrol duty' thought. Put these in the barracks, or alternatively put your barracks in your soldier bedroom complex.
5. Waterskins. These cut out two out of three trips to the booze stockpile, and make the third take a couple of ticks at the barrel instead of a couple of days.
6. Use terrain to your advantage, and make the attackers come to your prepared battlefield. Block line of sight with doors to stop lone dwarves from chasing fleeing attackers into an ambush, and put up pillars in your fighting area to block bolts and arrows.

[guitarxe]

First of all, sparring happens between 2 dwarfs only. So have squads of only 2 dwarfs (2 min training) or 3 dwarfs (still min training, this lets one be on break while the others train).

Secondly, sparring seems to only happen at higher weapon skills. So try to bring a few military dwarfs with you on embark, who can then pass on their weapon knowledge through demonstrations (which are admittedly extremely slow) enough so that they start to spar.

[IronOreAgate]

Ah, so the trick seems to be to start out with dwarfs with the skills then who can teach, and keep squads small? makes sense, i think i will restart and try that thanks!

Also how to you assign guards for the fortress? All I can find says they are members of the military?

[Garath]

there is a captain of the guard squad in the military screen, I think

[DTF]

1. Small squads. The fewer dwarves there are to miss out on demonstrations, the quicker everyone will get to the same skill level and start sparring.

Captnduck (yes, I've watched a tutorial video recently after playing this game for 2+ years ) had a neat 'workaround' for this: give multiple 'Train: 2 minimum' orders per month. I havent tried it myself or watched whether it worked for captn, but in theory it should lead to less time wasted on organizing demonstrations.

Secondly, sparring seems to only happen at higher weapon skills.

I've seen different. Some of my dwarves started sparring with novice levels - I'm still convinced that the 2 dwarves in question must have somewhat equal skills to spar, or rather it promotes sparring. If one dwarves lags behind the other, demonstrations will be held to equilize skill levels.

[GhostDwemer]

I just throw nine dwarfs in a squad with the best fighter/teacher I can find and set them to train all the time. Works fine, has for the last umpteen versions of the game. So they aren't legendary. So some get killed. Dwarfs are never in short supply. What do you want from three years of training, an army of Chuck Norrises?

[dexxy]

I played a fort for 10 years. Everybody was legendary except for the army, they were mostly still recruits. And I had plenty of full coffins too. So  I built a danger room. They did plenty of sparring and training and combat, but they still sucked as soldiers.

One problem is probably that it takes too many skills for teaching and studenting to work. The teacher needs to know teaching and leadership and organizing. The student needs to know concentration and student skills. If all these skills are too low, training is very slow.

Another problem is that even if you get your best teacher and put him in a squad, there is no guarantee that he will be the one to teach. Very often I see a new recruit teaching the lesson, and of course the new recruit is very poor at combat and teaching, so those lessons don't do much except waste time.

[Garath]

After two years, all of my lashers were novice and started sparring. After another year and a half most were 5 to 8. This was in 34.07 though

[Sutremaine]

I brought three dwarves with Proficient Armour User / Shield User / Dodger plus Competent Teacher / Adequate Student on all three. By the end of the first year they had accumulated 82 levels between them, all of it from training except for half a dozen zombies that popped up near the end of the year and got pretty much one-shotted. The necromancer fight lasted a little longer, but the miner helped out with that one.

[dexxy]

Maybe somebody should set up a fort with practice workshops, to train the future recruits in student and concentration, and train the future instructors in teacher, organizer, and leadership. Then when the students and teachers are legendary at those skills, see how long it takes for training to work under the best possible conditions.

[Garath]

I'm pretty sure there are some people who have created/modded workshops for that