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[Blah]

The following describes an effective strategy to (relatively) quickly raise an army of highly competent soldiers without resorting to danger rooms (which I consider an exploit). It is mostly aimed at the most fun mod of them all, the Fortress Defense Mod! Normally you would neither need a large army nor having to worry about your elite fighters being killed.

Step 1
Start with 3-4 with the following skills.
1st Dwarf Teacher 5, Swords 5
2nd Dwarf Teacher 5, Shield User 5
3rd Dwarf Teacher 5, Dodge 5
4th Dwarf Teacher 5, Armor User 5

Dwarves with good linguistic ability, empathy and social awareness are preferred because these affect the Teaching skill.

Step 2
Put the teachers in the same squad for a year or two, focusing on letting them train as much as possible. They will quickly catch up to the level of the most skilled dwarf. This means they'll also spar a lot which seems to mainly increase weapon and fighting skill.

Step 3
Once you have four badass dwarves with all relevant skills at 5 or better, let them command their own squad where they can train up to 9 other dwarves to similar skill levels of their own.

Step 4
When you have a sufficiently large army, move one or more teachers to a barracks far away from danger where they can safely teach replacement dwarves how to fight.


I believe this would also be an effective way to train Marksdwarves without having to make tons of bolts.

[Sandrew]

Unless you have tested this extensively I will remain to use my own method, which employs two dwarves with teacher 3, weapon skill 3 and armor and shield 2 as my initial militia and trainers.
That said, employing four dwarves out of your starting seven seems a bit excessive. Especially considering the fact that none of them can even be drafted into an effective militia on their own without the use of further training.

[Poindexterity]

there's a thread called "drunken masters" that gets into some pretty heavy science on this idea, and to make a long story short, YES. do it. it rocks.
i do all seven with teacher 5, and a different combat skill.
i make them mine until we get enough immigrants to replace them, and by that time, they're strong as hell too, no matter how they started off. it really really rocks.

[Blah]

Especially considering the fact that none of them can even be drafted into an effective militia on their own without the use of further training.

You seriously underestimate how fast they gain skills. After two years of training, the teachers that started out with 0 in Dodge and Shield User are now at 5 or 6 in both. This is just from training and two Dark Strangler sieges. Their Sword and Fighter skill is between 8 and 10.

This is because the experience gained from teaching depends both on the level of the Teaching skill as well as the level of the skill being taught.

[Loud Whispers]

Especially considering the fact that none of them can even be drafted into an effective militia on their own without the use of further training.

You seriously underestimate how fast they gain skills. After two years of training, the teachers that started out with 0 in Dodge and Shield User are now at 5 or 6 in both. This is just from training and two Dark Strangler sieges. Their Sword and Fighter skill is between 8 and 10.

Even just 2-3 of the starting 7 with 5 teacher+weapon/fighting skills makes for an easy early military set up, and REALLY pays off.

[dreadmullet]

I've been doing this with all of my forts recently, and it's awesome.

However, for my current fort I embarked with someone who had Teacher 5 and Archery/Marksdwarf, and it didn't seem to work at all. None of the recruits became trained, they weren't even dabbling. They were all competent in Dodging, though. :S

[Urist Da Vinci]

there's a thread called "drunken masters" that gets into some pretty heavy science on this idea, and to make a long story short, YES. do it. it rocks.
i do all seven with teacher 5, and a different combat skill.
i make them mine until we get enough immigrants to replace them, and by that time, they're strong as hell too, no matter how they started off. it really really rocks.

Link, for those people who didn't see the SCIENCE thread: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=97090.0

...
I believe this would also be an effective way to train Marksdwarves without having to make tons of bolts.

It's the only non-modding way to train marksdwarves without using any bolts. If you don't give them crossbows either then they won't train as hammerdwarves. I guess they sit around during the demonstration and make "pew pew" noises while posing with their hands.

[Nan]

From my observations, dwarves don't seem to learn equipment-based skills if they don't have that equipment equipped. They simply don't attend the relevant demonstrations. Meanwhile, dwarves with the relevant equipment would consistently attend the demonstrations. I know it's one of those "disprove a negative" things - the best I can say is that I watched squads training for quite a while under controlled conditions, and never saw dwarves attend demonstrations for equipment they don't have. I personally believe they don't - and that when it seems like they do, the dwarf actually swapped equipment around due to sloppy uniform settings (it happens quite frequently) - but even if someone can produce evidence that they do, it certainly can't happen very often or consistently, so would not be an effective way to train skills.

[bombzero]

It's the only non-modding way to train marksdwarves without using any bolts. If you don't give them crossbows either then they won't train as hammerdwarves. I guess they sit around during the demonstration and make "pew pew" noises while posing with their hands.

im going to sig this, unless you don't want me to for some bizarre reason...
also, its the first post i have ever sigged anywhere, be honored.