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[RickiusMaximus]

Marksdwarfs with iron armour and behind fortifications are pretty tough. I generally soften up the enemy with them before opening my drawbridge and letting in a few enemies, as soon as the drawbridge falls I immediately order it closed again, so only a half dozen enemies get in. Once inside they get hit by the axesquad.

Repeat until all the enemy is dead or running away.

Its very rare that I let my military operate outside the fortifications as its really hard to control them.

[weenog]

Training them 24/7 has 2 main benefits: first, they train faster (obviously), second, they do not mingle with civilians, which means they do not form friendships creating bad thoughts if one of them gets killed.

Heh.  My first two soldiers in my current fortress were a husband and wife that migrated in together.  That's gonna be fun if one of them eats it in combat.

[Shinziril]

Training technically shouldn't cause the "long patrol duty" unhappy thought, but it currently does.  Quietust has a binary patch that fixes it if you feel up to applying it, or you can just make sure they have lots of happy thoughts to overpower the unhappy thoughts.  Once that bug gets fixed 24/7 training in pairs will likely be even more effective than it currently is, since it won't make them unhappy. 

[flameaway]

Good bridge setup helps me.

Set them up so that you control seige movement.

I never use a bridge to kill anything directly.  I either isolate a siege so that I get the rest of the map, or I open and close bridges to split the sieges into manageable numbers for my really sucky military.

I'm a noob so this may be seen as exploity.  But I don't understand orders yet, and am mostly focused on learning the techniques necessary to just keep a fort operating.

For me setting up a few squads is easy, I understand how to equip and setup a simple training schedule.   Getting it all coordinated with alerts is the part that baffles me at this point.  So I've tabled it while I mess about learning how to set up effective kitchens and dining halls and hospitals and barracks...

But figuring out how to use bridges means that my forts live longer than a couple of years now.  In fact, now I mostly abandon and restart the same embark in order to try out different techniques.

{note to self: do a search for forum threads on understanding alerts.  Sure... after I finish playing with my water cannon...}

[krenshala]

Training technically shouldn't cause the "long patrol duty" unhappy thought, but it currently does.  Quietust has a binary patch that fixes it if you feel up to applying it, or you can just make sure they have lots of happy thoughts to overpower the unhappy thoughts.  Once that bug gets fixed 24/7 training in pairs will likely be even more effective than it currently is, since it won't make them unhappy.

Yeah, having then get -more- unhappy because you changed them from off-duty to on-duty, or on-duty to off-duty can be annoying if you ignore it.  I almost never have an issue with it due to individual 3x3 bedrooms and lots of decent food and places to eat it at, not to mention the nicely smoothed and sometimes engraved training area at the fort entrance.

[Sutremaine]

Yeah, having then get -more- unhappy because you changed them from off-duty to on-duty, or on-duty to off-duty can be annoying if you ignore it.

They just need to avoid becoming Peasants or Recruits when they switch. A season of Pump Operating will give them a level of civilian skill that'll take their whole life to rust away, and dwarves sparring with weapons skill up fairly quickly to Novice in that skill. Alternatively, skip the civilian skill-pumping, make picks your weapon, and throw the soldiers right into training. Their civilian skill will be Mining, and eventually they'll scrape together enough assorted XP to have Wrestling as their military skill.

[Tirion]

I usually have all my melee troopers at training 24/7 in 2 to 4 dwarf squads. If I have time, I wait with the draft until the designated recruit becomes legendary miner or pump operator (with screw pump gym) to increase their attributes. They'll be pretty ripped anyway if they live to be Legendary in military skills, but early on it might be important for them to have the extra speed from strenght, or the endurance/toughness not to pass out in combat. Until they are reasonably skilled and equipped, they don't fight enemy soldiers, but I mass-pit everything I catch and disarm in the room they train in. Even later, their primary purpose is to clean out enemies clogging the trapped entrances, so aside from the occasional unharmed and pissed off, but outnumbered goblin Master [insert weapon name here], their job is to finish off unconcious enemy wounded. Late game (5-10 years), when they grow up to be Legendary in weapon skill, Fighter, Dodger, Shield User and Armor User, they cut through goblin infantry like a hot knife through butter, provided they have at least steel armor and weapons (silver for blunts, copper for shields), which by Iron goblinite plus local/imported flux they normally have at that point. Forgotten Beasts of course are still very very deadly for them, and even goblins can get lucky.

As for ranged support, I just make as many crossbows and quivers as my population cap, and a lots of bone/cheap metal bolts, and I draft everyone who isn't a miner, woodcutter or melee soldier into 10-dwarf squads with a uniform of crossbow, shield, metal mail shirt, metal breastplate, metal headwear, metal legwear, metal footwearx2, metal handwear. Equipment priority is lower than melee squads, so they only get the leftovers. They have a good chance to outright kill snatchers and thieves as soon as they detect them, and if several of them are nearby, whole ambushes can be crippled by pain, and given good enough equipment they have a good chance to survive melee until reinforcements arrive. And by reinforcements I mean the rest of the fortress unleashing a hail of *cat bone bolt*s and the soldiers rushing in to kill the vomiting, fainting greenskins, who by that point are probably lacking either weapon or shield.

[Triaxx2]

Bad thoughts are one of the reasons my first 'mini-mega' projects is always to open Therapist and turn engraving on for everyone but miners and wood cutters and have them start smoothing the bedrooms.

I also use one-on/one-off training to keep them from getting too angry.

For the actual military, I've found pre-planning isn't nearly as helpful as ensuring numerical advantage. I had a giant wolverine who was eating people, and while he was trying to kill one dorf, my axe dwarf was trying to pick up his axe to kill it. Since he ran into the wolverine, he decided to beat it to death.

The second time was another Giant Wolverine. Same axe dwarf, now with axe and armor, and he got mowed over. I reloaded for other reasons, and this time made both my military dwarves, Axe and Sword chase after it so that they arrived together and ended up with minor injuries. Of course now I have a one handed sword dwarf, but he didn't have a shield anyway. (Grasp Impaired)