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[krenshala]

Set your military to train. Even without a mechanized Danger Room, in a few months they will have at least basic combat skills.

Put your soldiers in metal armor. Any metal, even copper, but make sure they each have a full suit including (this is important) a shield. Likewise, give them a metal weapon: if you have iron or bronze, make swords or axes. If all you have is copper and silver, use warhammers.

I have never known a squad of adequately armed, armored and trained dwarves to lose a fight to anything short of HFS or a really very nasty FB.

This.  If you take two to four dwarves from your first migrant wave, give them (training) weapons and sheilds and have them spar non-stop until the elves show up, you'll have a small unit of capable military dwarves.  If you give them armor at the start of spring, they will be able to hold off an elven ambush by themselves.

In my current fort my 5 dwarves trained this way just slaughtered two ambush waves of elves (16 swords, and 16 bows) riding moose and two-humped camels, accompanied by eight war bears.  I lost a chicken, a cat (that saved an alpaca, by holding the door i was trying to lock open long enough for the alpaca to escape into my fort), a war dog to bears, two puppies and one plant gatherer to arrows (the bears kept me from sending out someone to get him to the hospital before he suffocated/bled out) with zero injuries to my five spear dwarves in iron chain shirts, iron helms, leather boots and gloves and armed with iron spears and wooden shields.  Of course, this in the third spring of my fort, so the original 3 military had 2.5 years of experience (spearmasters) and the other two about half that.

[Lexx]

You need to fight dirty. Capture enemies in cage traps. Throw them in a pit that's a room filled with your militia fully armed ready to fight them. It brings amazing xp. Use weapon traps and stonefalls aplenty to soften enemy and thin their numbers. Send your squads regularly out to kill wildlife. This will raise their skills well. Otherwise I would suggest setting them to train once every six months. This way they get group demonstrations to broaden combat skills. Designate their barracks fully with the z q and t options when your designating them to a squad. Doing this means in your squads off time they'll do individual training. I generally put their only labor to hauling and stonecrafts. It raises their strength and agility. And if I have the luxury of choice I'll recruit quicker healing and agile dwarfs that like armor or a weapon they'll use.

[The Button]

I usually start off with 5 peasants with military skills and get them training as soon as possible.  By the time the gobbos start showing up they are no match for this small crack squad of vicious dwarves who live only for the military service they love so much.  This method also helps keep them away from the migrants and avoids tantrum spirals when one of them eventually does die in battle.  After a few ambushes and invations they are great swordmasters.  With this squad of hardcore killing machines at the ready and devoted soley to the defence of the fort it lets you focus on other aspects of military finese.  For instance to counter the bad thoughts that come with long service duty and the death of friends I am turning the barracks into a waterfall room.  Turn the barracks tower into the army base by assigning the soldiers rooms near the top of the stair case.

I have since grown annoyed with the waterfall method (the barracks collasped and killed three dwarfs and took their equipment into the river below it) so instead I have re-embarked at a new location with plenty of natural gold and have built the first barracks entirely out of gold bars.  Needless to say this sqaud enjoys their life.  I forgot to mention before that I deploy with full copper armor for each of these recruits and I later replace it with my own steel or iron armor or let them rip it from the bodies of their fallen foes.  The golden barracks also serves as the grand entranceway for my fortress so dwarves who are in and out all the time like hunters have thoughts like "beheld a great door recently" and floors as well.  Now that this fortress is moving into the caverns I am setting up a forward barracks for the SAK (subterranian assault kommandos).  This barracks will work like the one on the surface in that any uglies that decide to come and play first stumble upon dwarves pumped up by a recent sparring session and ready for action.  This method helps advance soldiers combat skills very fast because nothing gives combat expierience like actual combat.

[RAKninja]

in that, my experiences match with that of burned.  what differs is that i have many statue gardens and a couple of designated meeting halls (legendary dining hall and well composed of 2 artifacts).

Gah, I wanted to ask how you avoid parties in statue gardens, which is pure socialization > friends > tantrums ? Do you find that the happy thoughts from these outweigh the risked loss of a friend in battle?
I feel like I work so hard from having my dwarves do anything but give head nods as they pass each other in the fortress, but again on topic, part of my combat strategy is to have the "parties" on the battle field.

Besides, what kind of dwarven party doesn't have alcohol? ;]

everyone is too busy to attend the parties.  usually they are only attended by the child who started it.  the happy thought from the dining hall outweighs a LOT of unhappy thoughts.  i forget who said it, but it cannot be said enough, NEVER underestimate the power of a legendary dining hall.

the only way i can explain the lack of friends is that everyone is too busy, and i am too spread out.  i enable wide varieties of labour on my dwarves.  the farmers ALL get all farming labours, for example.  i try to keep it separated by industry, but everyone has two industries.  i generally make so much of everything, and get so many moods, that i never have to worry too much about quality.

the side effect is that things take forever to haul around.  it took many years to build a 10x10 7z obsidian tower.  it's taken at least five years to build this 3-4 z castle.  but everyone is always ecstatic, save recruits.  recruits are only in the fortress guard, and are never active long enough to be anything less than "unhappy lately".  by the time one of my soldiers is ready for combat, he is either "a hardened individual" or "doesent care about anything anymore".

[burned]

Oh, I definitely have a legendary dinning hall for happy thoughts, I just don't designate it as a "meeting hall", to avoid parties.
I also don't allow my soldiers to carry food, so they get happy thoughts from the waterfall leading into the legendary dinning hall and so forth.

It's just the sculpture gardens that scare me, but I've honestly never experimented with using them to see if the happy thoughts outweigh the friendships made.

I do have one large family that I try and keep safe, although it just occurred to me, that perhaps designating a sculpture garden to this family might keep the kids out of trouble.

Do people throwing parties only invite the dwarves they know? Or would that put my military in danger of making friends?

This barracks will work like the one on the surface in that any uglies that decide to come and play first stumble upon dwarves pumped up by a recent sparring session and ready for action.  This method helps advance soldiers combat skills very fast because nothing gives combat expierience like actual combat.

Until I get patrols set up, I do that as well, putting barracks for training in choke points, so any hostiles are greeted by dwarves looking up from sparring with big grins on their faces, ready to test their mettle and their metal.

I agree with doing as much real combat as possible for experience, sending a squad out as hunting party on occasion. I don't use hunters, so the military can do the hunting, gaining skill while providing meat to the fortress well.

[RAKninja]

Oh, I definitely have a legendary dinning hall for happy thoughts, I just don't designate it as a "meeting hall", to avoid parties.
I also don't allow my soldiers to carry food, so they get happy thoughts from the waterfall leading into the legendary dinning hall and so forth.

It's just the sculpture gardens that scare me, but I've honestly never experimented with using them to see if the happy thoughts outweigh the friendships made.

I do have one large family that I try and keep safe, although it just occurred to me, that perhaps designating a sculpture garden to this family might keep the kids out of trouble.

Do people throwing parties only invite the dwarves they know? Or would that put my military in danger of making friends?

Until I get patrols set up, I do that as well, putting barracks for training in choke points, so any hostiles are greeted by dwarves looking up from sparring with big grins on their faces, ready to test their mettle and their metal.

I agree with doing as much real combat as possible for experience, sending a squad out as hunting party on occasion. I don't use hunters, so the military can do the hunting, gaining skill while providing meat to the fortress well.

i'm not sure about how parties work...  if the host gives "invitations" or its just any idler available.  i have none of my statue gardens assigned, but i do have a lot of them.  my cryps are 4 5x5 cells arranged around a 3x3 stairwell.  a total of 2 cells are used for noble tombs, and have a valuable coffin, and 4 statues, one designated as a garden.  all the other cells have 23 coffind allowing citizen and pet burial, and 2 statues, one designating the entire space as a garden.  i have four complete units (16 crypt statue gardens)  i have my dining hall and well.  i then have two other statue gardens where i want civilians to hang out, one on the first floor of my tower, so someone can pull the levers there on short notice, and one at the ground floor of the king's keep, so dwarves are available for my king and duchess to socialise with.  and so that they socialise with each other.   i'm trying to unify succession, so that i have a clear and robust line of duke-kings in the future.  failing that, they both need consorts.  i plan on this fort going as long as it can, and as i'm self sufficient, and could technically survive at least decades totally walled off with minimal user interaction.

no one in my fort has many friends.  the two that pass being mayor around nowadays are both former children with exactly one friend each (come to think of it, it might be each other), there are a few other dwarves with one friend.... the duchess.  out of her six listed friends, only no more than three can still be alive.  perhaps in addition to everyone being busy, my large number of meeting halls keeps idlers and children spread out, so that no one really socialises.  i've noticed a lot of my migrants have rust on their social skills.

i use hunting, and hunt with my military at the same time.  my hunters are all off-duty marksdwarves.  having a bunch out at once is nice, they'll sometimes spot thieves and ambushers for me.

[burned]

I think I am still too scared to try out sculpture gardens on my current fort. Maybe on my next one, I'll give it a go.

I laughed out loud when you started listing the amount of sculpture gardens you've created.
They sound totally cool, but sent a chill down my spine at the same time, not to mention they are in the crypts!

i use hunting, and hunt with my military at the same time.  my hunters are all off-duty marksdwarves.  having a bunch out at once is nice, they'll sometimes spot thieves and ambushers for me.

Why didn't I think of that?

I still have flashbacks from 40d, when I first tried out a hunter. He quickly got himself killed on his first outing and I remember thinking, Hmm, maybe I should figure out booze first..

[thatkid]

Doesn't mixing hunters into your military mess up your uniforms?