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[SirRice77]

Hey im new to dwarf fortress, im on my first fort which is surprisingly still around
I have 80 dwarves, many of which are kinda useless except for hauling. I have two legendary miners, a legendary carpenter, and a legendary mason/stonecrafter (can't remember which) some high master gem cutters and setters (but almost no jewels) and a grand master weaponsmith. I have silver, a lot of silver. It's everywhere, i find it on every floor on my like 6 z level fort, i just keep finding large veins of it, i made statues, weapons, doors, tables, blocks, everything, its my main source of income and survival. My wealth is at i believe 120k

Good things:
Plenty of silver
Wealthy, i think
On good terms with every civilization due to fact i've been giving them massive profit and offerings because i need them
Set on food and drink
Have engravers to make the fort nice
Some high skill workers

Problems:
About half my dwarves are pretty useless
No clue on how to manage my millitary of useless peasants and how to get them to train or fight off the goblin snatchers that keep takin the babies
I can't find any magma, unless im not deep enough?
There aren't really enough trees to keep making charcoal and keep up with the massive 20 migrant waves im getting now
Little wildlife to hunt
There aren't enough trees to sustain my fortress
I only find silver and some useless rock, no other metals, just silver
Trade is pretty much a necessity for me, i trade all my silver goods. Basically it works like this
         Elves: Provide me with most of my wood
         Humans: Meat, leather and some metal
         Dwarves: Metal and metal goods, all of it, it all comes from here, i never find any
Im getting bored

So any suggestions on what to do and on the military. I mean my friend who started around the same time with this game has already gone through 4 fortresses, due to (in this order): A tantrum spiral caused by constant miasma pouring out of urns he dug up, giant badgers, more giant badgers, a goblin ambush
but as for me, nothing, well a few ghosts were giving me issues but i finally built memorials. OH and that reminds me, can you guys also tell me how to properly dispose of dwarf corpses? The ghost i had was a bit uh violent, i believe he  had 3-4 kills to his name

[Eddren]

You've got the perfect setup for a Silver&Leather Militia. Set your training minimum to One on the Schedule menu, by press E, then - nine times, then pressing escape. Then, copy it with C, and press down and P until you've reached the bottom of the list. There, they'll train, now. Now, go to their equipment, give them leather armor, dig down as far as you can go, trust me, you'll hit the magma sea eventually, and then start smelting and making silver warhammers, unless that's changed.

[SirRice77]

Well the thing is i set up a militia and a small room with some armor and weapon racks and set both my squads to train all the time but they just suddenly all went off duty and stopped training. In fact i think only one of them trained and that was my hunter who became an elite marksdwarf.
Also i believe i need to get around to silver weapons for the military then the excess i will sell and i just bought up most of a human caravans leather so i can make the armor soon, if i have someone to do that, probably gonna need a second workshop

[Eddren]

Warhammers and maces. Silver is an ideal medium for those weapons because of its' weight. Additionally, they make top-notch crossbows, too, since they'll allow your Crossbow dwarves to fight hand-to-hand effectively. Additionally, the problem is very likely that you've set it too high on your limit. Or it could be an army-arc glitch. One of the two.

[SirRice77]

Hmm alright, would it help if i posted screenshots?

[miauw62]

A tip if you are going to do military, i cant help you whit that, probably been said, but make alot of silver arrows, its like beining shot whit depleted uranium.
also, that means that silver mauls are badass. (especially artifact silver mauls)

EDIT:

Also, you can breach the caverns and flood a small area underground, if the soil is muddy, underground plants will start to grow there.

[Eddren]

Screenies of the Barracks in Building View-Mode, the Schedule, the Schedule in edit mode, then the equipment screen, anything to do with it, that way we can see what might be going wrong.

[jaxy15]

Don't trade with the elves. Kill them. They're defenseless.

[schismatise]

How to create an effective military:

- Assign militia commander, this allows you to appoint militia captains for more squads, they will also lead a squad (nobles screen)
- Create uniform, stick to 1 piece of armor per slot, look at default uniforms if you're unsure what to use (or use a default uniform) (military screen)
- Create squad (military screen)
- Assign soldiers to squad (military screen)
- Set squad to 'active' (main window -> s for squads -> select squad by pressing the letter in front eg. "a" -> press 't' to switch from inactive to active/training)
- Create a barracks from any chest/cabinet/weapon rack/armor stand, press 't' next to each squad name you want to train there

Tips:

- Embark with good teachers (too late now but always good to know for next time)
- Smaller squads spar more, 5 squads of 2 will train much faster than 2 squads of 5
- Make plenty of backpacks and flasks/waterskins so soldiers can eat/drink while training
- Try to have more equipment than you need as opposed to less, to minimise time soldiers run around picking up new equipment


That's the basics... if you have any more specific questions i'd be happy to answer 'em.

[Eddren]

Disregard the one piece of armor per slot. Also add a Toga.

[schismatise]

Or you could die all your cloth pink and have them run around in nothing but a pink pair of socks...



The one piece per slot concept is to avoid the numerous equipment-layering related bugs. Technically you can have lots and lots of pieces on each slot, but the moment your dwarf decides to wear two socks on the one foot and can't fit his high boot, and then the newly available high boot gets allocated to the commander, who hands his previous to the next guy, who can't fit it and then steals someone elses...... Long story short all your dwarves are running around trading clothes instead of fighting goblins ><

Keep it simple to start, and then branch out once you know the system a little better, is my advice.

[SirRice77]

http://s1065.photobucket.com/albums/u397/SirRice77/

You should be able to see the screenshots here right? Sorry i didn't post them in the forum, kinda didn't feel like figuring that out

[SirRice77]

If you want i could take a shot of each floor of my fort, if you guys want to see

[Eddren]

Look at your screenshot. Do you see that part where it says 10 soldiers minimum? Reduce that to 1.

[SirRice77]

I've done that but i realized i left them all on a kill order to kill this goblin thief and when i cancelled it they still all went back to their civilian jobs and don't seem to be training