Starting out with a new concept (for me): arming all adult dwarfs and making them serve at least a month out of the year in training. The idea is that every member of the fort, except for children and babies, is at least a little bit prepared to defend themselves and will wear leather armor. Full time military will wear metal and stay on duty.
Problems I foresee:
1. What to arm the citizens with? Initially I thought crossbows, but with the wonkiness involved with bolts and training and targets, this sounds like too great of a headache. It's tough enough to keep full time marksdwarfs training and then fighting with the right ammo. So I was thinking spears and shields, a-la Sparta. Anyone ever have issues with this? I'd rather stick to one type of weapon to avoid a mess, unless the benefits to diversifying are large.
2. Training schedules. I can't think of any good way to keep dwarfs consistently happy when activating / deactivating them, although I suppose this would resolve itself over the course of several years. Just keep the training area as nicely decorated as possible? I was thinking outdoors in a lavish colosseum, all dwarfs get outside exposure, and there would always be a squad or two topside to address threats.
2a. How many months out of the year would the average civilian train?
2b. Is it still the case that the optimal squad size to encourage sparring is 2-3?
Thanks for your input.
3. Tantrums.