So I am pretty new to DF. I just started a couple weeks ago.
My first couple forts have ended with much !!Fun!!, like most people probably.y first fort I gave up on because of disorganization and general noobishness. After I had the basics figured out, I made a new one. It had only copper, which was bad, but I did pretty well. I had ~120 dwarves, with a military of about 15. I was trying to build an artificial river to my base from the actual river for milling, fishing and well purposes, but I dug it wrong and had water in the wrong areas. Nobody died amazingly. Out of frustration and boredom, I decided to dig a shaft to the caverns. I found a "downward passage", so I sent my military down to explore. They found an adamantine spire, so I sent my miners down to dig it out. While they were on their way down, a goblin siege showed up. The other part of my military dispatched most of it easy enough. A single conscripted dwarven marksman had killed a few of mine. I sent the rest of the military up to deal with him. It was about this time that the miners breached HFS. You can guess what happened.
My third fort went better, with a working artificial river and 50 dwarves. My military was not actually training, because I forgot to set them to active. In addition, I realized that my front gate was set to retract instead of raise. I realized big of these during my first attack from a necromancer. I was swiftly destroyed. Much Fun.
SO. The question is: what is an acceptable time to start making a military? I was never attacked in my first fort of ~100 dwarves, sieged at 120 in my second and attacked at 50 in my third. All were near multiple civilizations. When is a good time to start conscripting peasants to make a military?