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[Mushroo]

If you want to Train a particular skill, for example Axe, then give the teacher & students a uniform with nothing but training axes, they will focus on that skill and start sparring earlier compared with if they have shield, armor, etc.

[gzoker]

Well, as most features are not yet implemented, and there are a lot of place holders - which may, or may not fully work - and two or three bugs, you have to constrain yourself, and make up a few house rules. Too slow military training? Initiate the Danger Room Super Soldier Program. Too fast? Have them only train half a year. They are too strong? Don't use the best equipment and full armor - you will have casualties soon.
You can limit yourself and/or exploit a few things to keep the game in balance, and to make it fun. It just requires effort.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ok, seriously why are people surprised that Dwarfs that do absolutely nothing don't magically grow skills, and Dwarfs that do absolutely nothing but spar become great soldiers?

In the real world, becoming an expert fighter takes most people over a decade, and that's if they start young.

1. These aren't the people we know
2. They aren't training to be soldiers, they're training to be fighters.
3. Depends what training it is. There are instances where such sparring is realistic. Generally any sport where the practice is called sparring shows this.

And a real world soldier has to know way more than just fighting.

[utuki]

If you want to Train a particular skill, for example Axe, then give the teacher & students a uniform with nothing but training axes, they will focus on that skill and start sparring earlier compared with if they have shield, armor, etc.

I am talking about biting, striking, kicking, wrestling and dodging. And keeping your best military in non-combat ready state is not practical.

[RabblerouserGT]

Let's not forget the DANGER ROOM that can give you a Legendary Dwarf in under 5 minutes.  It's fun to have a 1 Dwarf Military and hope he doesn't get shot in the eye.

I've had a dwarf get a somewhat serious serious injury in a danger room. Left foot went all yellow in the wounds menu in my cheat fortress.
Wooden training spears and everything.

[Loud Whispers]

If you want to Train a particular skill, for example Axe, then give the teacher & students a uniform with nothing but training axes, they will focus on that skill and start sparring earlier compared with if they have shield, armor, etc.

I am talking about biting, striking, kicking, wrestling and dodging. And keeping your best military in non-combat ready state is not practical.

Biting is most certainly not a useless skill, kicking ditto, wrestling OH C'MON HAVE YOU SEEN THEM STRANGLE OXEN?!!

And dodging.

Dodging.

=

Life saver

[Mushroo]

If you want to Train a particular skill, for example Axe, then give the teacher & students a uniform with nothing but training axes, they will focus on that skill and start sparring earlier compared with if they have shield, armor, etc.

I am talking about biting, striking, kicking, wrestling and dodging. And keeping your best military in non-combat ready state is not practical.

I hear ya... just sharing a strategy that has worked well for me in the past. They do call it Training after all. I am  not talking about my "best military" but rather 1 one of my Axemen training a bunch of noobs effectively.

I agree with you about biting and kicking. Dodging and wresting are essential IMHO (escaping from beasts that are trying to grab onto you and maul you).

[utuki]

The problem with all those skills is not that they are useless its that they slow down training. 10 dwarves with 15 weapon skill trained in 1-2 years can kill things. 10 Dwarves with L3 full set trained in same time ? not really.

Dwarves start training those skills only in actual fight or training with contaminated veterans => combat veterans cannot teach anywhere as well as non-combat pure teachers.

[Loud Whispers]

If you're worrying about slowing down training, then why aren't you getting them to spar?

[Splint]

Could always make a point of making a starting seven a dedicated drill instructor in a particular weapon skill.

I usually dump points in whatever weapon I focus the fortress heavy hitters on, leadership a couple in organization, and whatever else in dodging and fighting. Usually have decent (Not great, but good enough) troopers after.... maybe a year and a half of nonstop training? No arena pitfights, no danger room, just good ol' fashion training from hell.

Fully kitted out they can put up an admirable fight and even win too. Though with some mods, your grunts will be rather... violent on thier own. Just gotta be patient though is what I'm getting at. If all else fails stock up on bolts quivers and toss together marksman squads and bunker down while they rain on the live targets that came to visit.

[grufti]

whoa. Some unexpected reactions.

training with "Real" weapons - need to try that.

just fyi - what I did (and no I haven't skipped DF 2010 and the great bugswarm around the release (hey, I think I have been the inventor of the danger room)):
spring y2: created military, created squad of 5 (leather armor, training weapons), set to training (all month, 3min), assigned a 9x9 barracks
fall y2: completed squad with another 5 dwarves, set to training (all month, 6min), set some dwarves to metal armor since magmaforge started working
spring y3: no skill change whatsoever (except for useless junk)

if I made any errors, I'd be glad if someone posts a hint.


Why 5 at the start and not 10? 5 out of 30 is just about right to not harm the rest of my fortress. they all had fighting skills to begin with, since migrants seem to have at least a bit of knowledge about fighting nowadays. (lvl 3 weapon skills, lvl 2 armor user/shield user) Now its spring year 3 and the first ambushes start rolling in, but my dwarves are not even near to ready getting rid of the green plague. none of my military dwarves has even gained a fighting skill (except for concentration, student, teacher, fighter, which won't help much against a goblin invasion)... I don't want to use danger rooms any more and I don't want to use 2 man squads to get the military system working (both of the ideas are exploits of game mechanics which shouldn't be there in the first place, but it's nice to have them in case something gets buggy - again).

What I want? After one year of training they should be at least at lvl 7 fighting skills, even without a proper instructor. lvl 7 is just fair to be at least able to do enough harm to everything that is being thrown at your fortress at the end of year 2. No need for legendarys in one month. I just want them to do proper training.


And just to clarify: I don't demand anything, since the game is basically free and I wouldn't even if I would have payed for it (I won't count my donations, since this isn't payment in the classic sense), since I had so many hours fun with the game. But I won't play anything that isn't fun to me. And a game with broken main game mechanics for such a long time is no fun to me. Just as easy as that. I won't flame anyone, who says, this is not a problem for him, so I do expect the same respect for my own opinion.

[Splint]

The main issue is larger groups take longer to get training sessions organized, which get disrupted when squad members go to eat, drink or sleep. And the useless stuff to you is akin to boot camp to the dwarves. They get taught the basics of striking, biting, and whatnot by whoever is best qualified before they go into weapons, as those skills can actually be life savers (Biting off limbs/inflicting excruciating pain by biting off fingers, breaking bones with jointlocks, disarming if they have a free hand, etc.) and then they get into mass fighting demnstrations and sparring. Usually 2-3 dwarves spar at a time while the rest recieve further combat training or take time to drink, rest, etc., sometimes a whole squad will spar (extremly rare, I've only had it happen twice with two 5 dorf squads.)

It's all about being patient. And proper weapons and armor may help speed things up. Hell, having a really good bookkeeper change jobs to instructor might even make a difference thanks to his organizational skill.

[Girlinhat]

It seems your root issue is that you don't fully understand how to build a training squad and get them to progress.  Spend some time with invasions off, dedicate a fort to understanding barracks, as well as patrols, schedule, station orders, and anything else you may or may not understand.

Fact is, military training isn't the most straightforward or intuitive system, it takes a bit of getting used to and even when you've gotten used to it, you probably haven't gotten it fully.  Even if you follow some generically sound advice like "squads of 5 on training" there's still plenty of quirks and a lot of specific things that simply can't be advised.  Some things will be unique to each fort, and it's weird but you work with what you've got.

What you've got is drunken midgets who can't figure out how to put a stone on the floor without sealing themselves on the wrong side of a wall.  The fact that they can hold an axe the right way forward is amazing.

[grufti]

@Splint:
Right they might be life savers, but one year and fighting, student, teacher just got up by two levels. No other fighting skill was improved by the time (not biting, not kicking, not even dodging...).

I can try the thing with the bookkeeper though.

It seems your root issue is that you don't fully understand how to build a training squad and get them to progress.  Spend some time with invasions off, dedicate a fort to understanding barracks, as well as patrols, schedule, station orders, and anything else you may or may not understand.

Fact is, military training isn't the most straightforward or intuitive system, it takes a bit of getting used to and even when you've gotten used to it, you probably haven't gotten it fully.  Even if you follow some generically sound advice like "squads of 5 on training" there's still plenty of quirks and a lot of specific things that simply can't be advised.  Some things will be unique to each fort, and it's weird but you work with what you've got.

What you've got is drunken midgets who can't figure out how to put a stone on the floor without sealing themselves on the wrong side of a wall.  The fact that they can hold an axe the right way forward is amazing.

I know how to use the system. I could build danger rooms, or 2 man squads. I know how to schedule my squads so one squad is always guarding my fortress entry (and the others are on training/holiday). I've done all this crap before when the military was in a really buggy state. And I had fun.

I don't have fun with workarounds any more. The patience answer won't count for me, if I don't want to play without mass trapping (another workaround imo), my fort will die to the first gobo ambush it encounters. I love challenges (like starting right next to a goblin fort), but I hate broken mechanics.

and to all the others: And don't pull the realism argument over here. Do you really want to tell me, if I stick you and another guy in a room for a year with training swords, you won't be able know how to counter an attack after that long time of practice?

Can anyone post his way to get the dwarves to train? I'd like an answer especially from those guys who said, they could get the dwarves from noob to legendary within one year without workarounds. I want to know how the training system works - I do unterstand the rest of the military system. (which works quite well at the actual state - didn't notice any bug any more with drafting, drinking, eating, equipping the uniform any more)

[schismatise]

Can anyone post his way to get the dwarves to train? I'd like an answer especially from those guys who said, they could get the dwarves from noob to legendary within one year without workarounds. I want to know how the training system works - I do unterstand the rest of the military system. (which works quite well at the actual state - didn't notice any bug any more with drafting, drinking, eating, equipping the uniform any more)

Firstly i think it needs to be established that 'exploiting' is a sliding scale. Sure, there are cases where you can a) use danger room or b) not use danger room and it seems black and white - but what if you only use the danger room one month a year? What if you use real weapons instead of training spears? What if you use a danger room to train a teacher and then have him lead a squad with demonstrations? etc. It's a sliding scale.

With that in mind, here is my 2urists:

1) Embark with teachers. The more the merrier, really, as the teacher skill has the largest impact on demonstrations, which are the majority of any training other than a permanent 2-man squad (and even then they still do them), and teacher skill takes a while to train up.
2) "Game" your skills. By this i mean don't start a squad where each member has a single point in a different military skill. They will spend forever trying to teach everyone else that one skill, and they will suck at it because they have no teacher skill, the skill they are teaching is low, and the others have little or no student skill. Put squads together that either have a) all the same skills or b) no skills at all.
3) Small squads. Doesn't have to be 2 soldiers max forever. Start with 2 teachers, get them up to level 10 weapon skill, then add a student. Get him to a good place, then add another student. At the point where your initial 2 become so good that they start getting points in biting, kicking, etc. they will start teaching these skills - this is a good time to revisit point 2) and incorporate it into point 3).

That's about it, really. Well, there are plenty of other tips and factors, eg. i always leave the default '10 minimum' on - but the above is the main points.

If you're wondering whether i've actually tried this or not - every fort i play (which would be around 20-30 so far this way) includes humans and elves modded to be automatically hostile (like goblins), orcs added, and all of the above attack in all seasons; and i defend this with nothing but military.

Or, that is, i try to defend. Works pretty well for me, anyway

[Mushroo]

Can anyone post his way to get the dwarves to train? I'd like an answer especially from those guys who said, they could get the dwarves from noob to legendary within one year without workarounds. I want to know how the training system works - I do unterstand the rest of the military system. (which works quite well at the actual state - didn't notice any bug any more with drafting, drinking, eating, equipping the uniform any more)

This works for me every time:

1. Wait for 2 migrants with significant military skills who are not Peasants (if they are Peasants then I first train them to Novice in a civilian skill).
2. On the (m)ilitary screen, create a squad for these two using the Metal Armor uniform.
3. Construct an armor stand or weapon rack; use the 'q' screen to set the new squad to train there.
4. On the (s)quads screen, press 't' so the squad's training is set to Active.
5. Confirm that the squad is actually training and that they picked up the correct equipment.
6. Wait for the next wave of migrants and recruit the best non-peasant fighter into the squad.
7. Repeat for each migrant wave.
8. When the squad size reaches 4, split into 2 squads of 2.
9. Rinse and repeat.
10. Result: 3 highly-trained soldiers per game year (plenty if combined with traps and other defenses).

That's my procedure for melee dwarfs. If I use archers then I train them as Hunters.