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[Slyjoker87]

Hey everyone! Long time DF player on and off (since about 2006-ish?) and I just started again.

Last run I made was about a year ago, and I distinctly remember the military being really terrible. I had squads that would train for years and barely skill up. They would always get owned by goblins, and I had to resort to a castle set up with a maze trap for defense. So what I am hoping this time is that the military skill up has been solved, or better implemented. Can anyone tell me how military skill up has changed?

[targetstar]

well, we can now train them more efficantly (cause they spar) umm markmendwarves are glitch cause they won't use the archer range, but you can make them shoot your prisoners (or animals), umm fighting is still fairly easy, but thats it, it got eaiser to train

[FuzzyZergling]

I've found that the key to training a militia is small squads (2-3 dwarves) who are set to train year-round.

[barcibus]

I keep 2 man teams training all year, but the amount of skill-ups they get doing that is minuscule compared to actual combat.  So to get trained with real targets, try to give your fighters the best armor you can, have them fight a small number of enemies at a time (use cage traps to capture them), and I keep them equipped with wooden training weapons so they don't kill the targets too quickly.

[knutor]

Glad your playing once more.  Its not lopsided, but its still an uphill climb without a flooded danger room.  Right now I'm toying with an all cloth Royal uniform, just for the Nobles, Fishers, Weavers and Woodhaulers.  They'll do no training, but as they have weapons on hand, due to being activated, they occasionally run off to Individual Training, instead of No Job.  I'm hoping this keeps them alive longer, or atleast keeps them in shape.  Ha!  Knutor

[Slyjoker87]

Yeah, I don't want to use a danger room because that feels lame to me.

I did contemplate using trapped creatures as practice, but I dunno.

I only hope that the military system is better this go, because last time my army was full of pansies and caused way too many rage spirals! 

Edit: oh yeah, and I hope that the hospital actually works instead of keeping 20 million dwarves confined to their beds. GRR.

[MenacesWithSpikes]

Create an execution room.

It's simple.

Make lots of cage traps.  Catch lots of gobbos, trolls, etc., in them.
Build a lever just outside the execution room.
Move an occupied cage into the execution room.
Have a mechanic link the cage to the lever.
Bring a squad or two of your military dwarves into the execution room. (A mix of archers and melee works best here.)
Lock the doors to the chamber if you're worried about enemies getting out.  Also having some war dogs posted near the stairs, or some weapon traps just outside the doors, may provide additional amusement.
Have a civilian dwarf pull the lever.

You can disarm your goblins before executing them in this way, but where's the fun in that?!

[Loud Whispers]

I've found that the key to training a militia is small squads (2-3 dwarves) who are set to train year-round.

Everything else is trivial compared to this

[nightwhips]

I've been frustrated with it still. It's odd, my last fort I seemed to have no problem getting dorfs to spar, but in my current fort I'm seeing very little skilling up, despite groups of 2 training for 10 months at a time.

It may be because they came with military experience already. All migrants in my fort are arriving competent in various weapons, and have an array of other military abilities. I'm putting them in groups matched for weapons (i.e. two axedwarves together), but they may have disparities in other abilities. So, I think they waste a shitton of time doing armor demos and dodging demos and stuff. My dwarves have been training for a year or so and have yet to advance in weapon levels. Out of 12 squads, I only see one or two sparring, and I suspect its the three squads I've had the longest, who may have finally gotten on even footing and are ready to spar.

So, it's still annoying. I'm working on a zombie area, which should help the leveling, but I was hoping to use it when I was already fairly confident in my dwarves, not for training.

[Tolisk]

You have to set each archery target as a room, and have three squares atleast of room for your guys to shoot from whichever direction they shoot from.

Also, set train on both the barracks and archery range, it trains the hammerer and marksmen skills up.(if you use xbows)

[slothen]

training seems to go very slowly at  first, then once they all get a few levels in their weapon skill, they'll spar consistently and skill up their weapon skill and shield user very quickly.  Live target training is very good if you have wooden weapons, or archers with wooden bolts.

Most of the worst bugs associated with the military, training, equipment, and hospitals were fixed by the time the last update of DF2010 was released, nearly 1 year ago.  Some remaining equipment bugs are about to be fixed in the next release.  Beyond that, the only things that seem to cause me trouble are

marksdwarves not finding stockpiled bolts (can be worked around)
dwarves with low skill levels giving demonstrations, expecially when a higher skilled dwarf is in the squad
marksdwarves doing individual training drills, which seem to do nothing.
dwarves claiming rations and dropping them (fix imminent)

[targetstar]

i have all my civ, in miltary, but never active, its a good way to make sure non of them are naked, and i jsut give them wooden sword, it saved my life to, one time i was attacked by a massive amount of giant badgers, agains my masons, so i told them to run, instead, they just attacked and kille all of them with only a broken fingure. i use wild animals to train on, its safer, and funner to watch (MUHAA ARENA TIME)

[Tolisk]

I train my Marksdwarves on ravens, and they give me lots of leather and then i get high dwarf stuff.

[kaijyuu]

My fort's ~20 years old with invasions turned off. They've practiced for about a decade. Pretty much all my 20 melee dwarves are skills 10+ in their respective weapons, shield user, and fighter.


All you really need is 1 decent military dwarf to train the others. Then they get pretty good. Migrants tend to come with skills that aren't too shabby (skill 5+ in a weapon, armor user, and shield user isn't that uncommon), so use them.

[targetstar]

^^ yes i once got a migrant with master swordman, he is now the captin of the guard (cause he gets to look cooler), and i am super training him (now all i need is some vampire blood then i get a super soldier)