Inspired by threads like
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=132758.msg4734899#msg4734899 I decided to try out embarking with more military+teacher dwarves.
My thinking was: since most skills can just be learned on the job, why not focus the initial 7 more on military? What I did was:
1 teacher+hammerdwarf (I normally choose axes, but he liked hammers*)
1 teacher+shield
1 teacher+armor
1 teacher+dodger
The remaining three dwarves were a smith (weapon+armor), a doctor+broker, and a farmer. I took four picks, one silver nugget, and 10 each of coal, cassetirite, and malachite.
Spring was spent digging quarters, setting up the metal industry, and getting the basic needs of the fortress done. From late spring, the 4 military dwarves were set to train. I split them off in two pairs (shield+armor and hammer+dodge), with the idea to cycle them around after they had taught their skill to their fellow dwarves.
At the end of the year (so after 3 seasons of training), the results were not really as expected but quite impressive nonetheless:
The top group was the hammerer+dodger combination, the bottom group the shield/armor user. Observations:
- In the beginning, there were quite a lot of demonstrations, but not always of the type expected (e.g. after a single sparring session a new recruit was confident to hold a striker demonstration). They started sparring quite quickly and interleaved sparring and demonstrations
- Hammer and figher are imo impressively high after 3 seasons of training, much higher (I think) than I normally get. I guess teaching helps here: they learn something by sparring, and then teach it to the other? Or is 13-20 level gain 3 seasons not exceptional?
- Interestingly, sparring and fighter are highest in the shield/armor group, but that might be coincidence. The only reason could be the lower aptitude for teacher role in Kogan.
- Dodging was higher a bit quicker in the pair with a dodger+teacher, but not impressively so consideriong that the '6' started from 5, so the other gained 0->4 instead of 0->3
- Shield and armor user were learned much more quickly in that pair, ending at skills 6/7/9/12 instead of 3/3/5/5.
- Teaching and student skills go up as well, but quite slowly. Concentration and observer also increased, not sure if that is relevant. All other social skills stayed low.
Conclusions:
- Starting with multiple military+teacher dwarfs is a good way of getting military up to speed quickly.
- The important military skills to start with are shield and armor. Weapon, fighter, and even dodging are learned on the job just as quickly.
- It is probably a good idea to start with two teams on different weapons. That makes it easier to then use the teachers as squad commanders after the first large wave.
Questions:
- Assuming I take 4 military dwarves, does it make sense to break them into two pairs for training? I started out with one squad, but set to training minimum 2, but got a lot of 'waiting for demonstration' initially, but that might have a different cause..? My thinking was that demonstrations might be very effective with >1 watcher.
- I always have single weapon squads, assuming that that helped them train/spar. Is that actually the case? Is there a downside to mixing melee weapons in a squad?
- (edit) Did anyone experiment with teacher+archer or teacher+crossbowdwarf?
*) In retrospect, I might have given him fighting instead of hammer... sorry for the confusion. but it doesn't seem to matter so much?
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Topic: embarking with military teachers (Read 1835 times)