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[Zdrok]

I'm an experienced player and I've been letting this slide for a while, but I've finally decided that I need to fix this.  My military is always well-equipped but terribly trained.  The highest level any of my guys ever attains is novice.  Most of them don't ever pass dabbling.  I set my guys to train for an entire half of the year every year.  I know they're training, they have the "Lead/Watch dodging demonstration" jobs and I get sparring reports.  They just don't learn from it, or are learning at a slow pace.  I'm starting to think that my militia commander's level influences how fast they train, but it's too late to fix that.  Nobody at my fortress knows how to use any weapons at a higher level than novice, and getting an experienced militant migrant is either impossible or ridiculously improbable.  What do I do?  Has anybody else had this problem?

[IT 000]

The level of training is based off of the teaching skill and the combat skill of the teacher, and the student skill of the observers.

For a less cheaty route, attack the local wildlife with wooden training weapons (crossbows for hammers) this will level them up extremely fast as xp is based off per hit.

For a more cheaty route, construct an upright spear, fill it with training spears, link it to a lever and make the dwarf stand on it. Pull the lever on repeat. Your dwarf will become godlike. This is called a 'Danger Room' even though there is almost no danger at all.

[Lexx]

Just kill all wildlife with your militia and practice on captive enemies. It nets great xp. I find making all my militia do stone and bonecraft for the added agility works great. A good idea also is embarking with a military dwarf skilled 3 in dodge, 3 in fighter 1 in leader and teacher and the rest in a weapon skill. When actively training and demonstrating hell pass on his skills much faster. Fighter and dodger I think are the most important skills to get high first. Everything else can be easier achieved via hunting wildlife with militia and practicing on captives. Also faster healing dwarfs in your military might give them better chances in surviving to learn skills.

[trees]

Squads of two seem to train the fastest, in my experience. I usually start with two squads of two training until I get enough dwarves to have each of them lead a squad, it goes a lot faster when a High Master whatever teaches novices than novices teaching novices.

[krenshala]

I just started another fort to test something and took four of my first migrant wave and recruited them.  They all were zero skill in all military categories.  I set them all to train continually.  Before spring had arrived they were at 4 (less than 100 xp from 5), 5, 5 and 6 in spear, 8+ in fighter, and 2 to 4 in sheild.  They were equipped with iron spears and wooden sheilds from the start, and I added leather boots and gloves as I acquired the materials.

Assuming things work as it did in my last .25 fort, and so far it appears to be doing so, I expect all four of these dwarves to hit Spearmaster by the beginning of the third year of the fort.  In my last fort I had five dwarves that survived a fight against 32 elves (half sword, half bow), 8 war bears, 6 crossbow gobs and 6 macegobs with the only injury coming from the recruit that "found" the orcs while off duty just after I stopped the alert due to the elven ambush. The newst recruit of the six took an (un)lucky shot to teh face and died instantly, while his recruit partner almost lasted long enough for his captain to get to him and save him from getting his head pounded for the fourth and final time, leaving me with four basically unhurt spearmasters (i think one had a bruised leg) and two dead newbs.

Basically, use squads of 2 to 5 dwarves on constant training for six months to a year, after which point actual combat experience will give them better training.  Stopping training to kill larger animals, as suggested above, will definitely help.

And, of course, you could always set up a danger room if you don't want to wait two or three game years for your troops to reach legendary.

[Fredd]

For a good non danger room technique, consider any dwarf under Active schedule as regular army. Remove civilian labors. On their Active yearly schedule, assign some months with no orders. When they get bored, will go to the barracks, and individually train(weapon practice).This is good. Rookies gain weapon experience, which on months you give the order to train, will increase chance of sparring since they now know how to use a weapon.(Marksdwarves will go to the archery target)
 Giving kill orders on wild animals for the squad increases skills, as well as giving butchers something to do. Skill increases also for rude interrogations of goblin prisoners.
 Remember, assigning fighters with military skills is great for the generic Active training schedule(Train 12 months of the year), but the no skill recruits will wind up as gobbo practice. A good teacher will give xp per lesson, plus the xp a student gains in training months. But they still need to learn a military skill to survive.

[krenshala]

For a good non danger room technique, consider any dwarf under Active schedule as regular army. Remove civilian labors. On their Active yearly schedule, assign some months with no orders. When they get bored, will go to the barracks, and individually train(weapon practice).This is good. Rookies gain weapon experience, which on months you give the order to train, will increase chance of sparring since they now know how to use a weapon.(Marksdwarves will go to the archery target)
 Giving kill orders on wild animals for the squad increases skills, as well as giving butchers something to do. Skill increases also for rude interrogations of goblin prisoners.
 Remember, assigning fighters with military skills is great for the generic Active training schedule(Train 12 months of the year), but the no skill recruits will wind up as gobbo practice. A good teacher will give xp per lesson, plus the xp a student gains in training months. But they still need to learn a military skill to survive.

Actually, you want at least one civilian skill active or the troops get a sad "removed from active duty" thought.  I usually make them farmers/plant gatherers in their quarterly month off duty.  They may still do individual training, but at least this way you reduce their unhappiness slightly.